n*
Q
v.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
VOL. LXXII.
, 1900, TO MARCH, 1901.
NEW YORK :
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
120 WEST 6oth STREET.
1900.
Copyright, 1901, by THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE^APOSTLE
IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
THE COLUMBIA Putts, 120 WEST 60TH ST., NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
Amalfi, the Beautiful. (Illustrated), . 340
American Mail, The. (Illustrated.)
Katharine Roche, .... 44
Animal Life, The Upbuilding of. Wil-
liam Seton, LL.D., .... 229
Australian Bush Priest and his Mission,
An. {Illustrated.) Barry Aylmer, 377
Authority in Religion. Richard E.
Day, Litt.D., 75
Bier of the Crucified, At the. (Illus-
trated.) Anna Sprague McDonald, 717
Bladensburg, Near : A War Tale. /.
O. Austin, 101
Brittany, The Heart of. (Illustrated), 751
Burger's Birthplace, A Pilgrimage to.
(Illustrated.) Carina Campbell
Eaglesfield, 82
Buried Casket, The. Ethel Nast, . 458
Catacombs were of Christian Origin,
The. (Illustrated.) Right Rev.
Monsignor Campbell, D.D., . 161, 772
Catholic Cameos. Nora Rylman, 15, 158
Catholic Church and the Future, The.
Hon. fudge Cor fright, . . . 562
Catholic Missionaries from France and
Germany, The. Rev. Thomas J.
Shahan, D.D., 34
Catholic Women's Association, The.
(Illustrated.) Louise Girod, . . 497
Chinese Children under the care of the
Sisters of Charity, A School of,
(Frontispiece. )
Christ Blessing the World at the Begin-
ning of the Twentieth Century,
(Colored Frontispiece.)
Christ the True Civilizer. Katherine
F. Mullany, ..... 489
Church as She is, The, and as we pre-
sent Her. W. F. P. Stockley, . 606
Cliff Haven, A Fortnight at. Marion
J. Brunowe, . . ... 254
Columbian Reading Union, The, 140,
284, 421
Columbus, The True Landing-Place of.
(Illustrated.) F MacBennett, . 784
Country without Strikes, A. Rev. John
A. Ryan, S.T.L., . . . .145
Development, The, and not the Evolu-
tion of Dogma. Thomas L. Healy, 349
Dogma and Dogmatism E. F. G., . 468
Dr. Shields' Defence of Revelation.
Rev. James [.Fox, D D., . . 660
Durham Cathedral. (Illustrated.)
Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., ... 17
Editorial Notes, 139, 283, 419, 692, 832
Encyclical Letter of Leo XIII.. The.
Rev. A. P. Doyle, C.S.P., . . 426
England's Conversion and the Hierar-
chical Jubilee. Rev. Father Cuth-
bert, O.S ,F.C., . . . . i
Father Lemius' Sermon to the Ursulines, 693
Forbidding of the Marriage, The. Ed-
ward F. Gareschl, .... 589
French Canadian Life and Literature.
Thomas O'Hagan, M.A., Ph.D., 628
Funeral Wreath, The ; or, the Ghost's
Photograph. Bessie O' Byrne, . 176
General Election in the United King-
dom, The, "6
Gleanings from " Evangeline," . . 29
Governor-Elect, By Grace of the. Anne
Elizabeth O'Hare, . . . .326
Greek Island, From a. (Illustrated.)
Clare Sorel Strong, . . . .645
Hagiology, A Study in. Rev. James
M. Gillis, C S.P., . . . 75 8
Hugo's Praise of Love. Rev. Joseph
McSorley, C.S.P., . . . . 727
Huxley, Thomas Henry. Rev. James
J. Fox, D.D., 79 6
Isabel, Lady Burton. (Portrait.)
Georgina P. Curtis, ... 90
Jesus Christ our Redeemer The Pope's
Encyclical Letter, .... 553
Leo XIIl.'s Message to the Twentieth
Century, ' ; . . . . 425
Library Table, . . . 549, 688, 827
Missionary Movement in the Anglican
Church, The. Rev. William Sulli-
van, C.S.P., 315
Modern Martyrdom, A. S. F. Hopkins, 739
Mother of John, The. Mary Sarsfield
Gilmore, ... ... 511
Music as a Civilizing Agency. Cari-
na Campbell Eaglesfield, . . .711
Painter of Heaven," " The. (Illustra-
ted.) Mary F. Nixon-Roulet, . 615
Painter of the Virgin, The. (Illustra-
ted.) Mary F. Nixon-Roulet, . 305
Pan-American Exposition, The Possibi-
lities of the. (Illustrated.) Anna
Blanche McGill, . . . .197
Passion Play at Oberammergau, The
Blessed Virgin in the, (Frontispiece.)
Passion Play, The. (Illustrated.)
James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., . 241
Peter's Denial of Christ, (Frontispiece.)
Pitman's Rosary, The. C. S. Howe, . 396
Port of Coffins, The. (frustrated.)
E. C. Vansittart, . . . -577
President Eliot's Address at Tremont
Temple. (Portrait.) Rev. George
McDermot, C.S.P., .... 56
Protestant Missionaries disliked in the
Far East ? Why are. Fr. Penman, 387
Regimentals " " The. 'Edward F.
Garescht, 362
Religious Communities and their Critics, 701
Rivalry, The Story of a. Roscelyn Bay-
ard Lee, 571
Saint Paul's Teaching, Timeliness of.
Ward Hunt Johnson, C.S.P., . 638
Saint Paul the Apostle and our Modern
Life. Rev. Joseph McSorley,
C.SP., 428
Science to Religion, The Testimony of.
A. A. McGinley, . . . .235
Shaun Malia, The Honor of. John A.
Foote, 67
Spiritual Element in Art. Gabriel
Francis Powers, .... 221
Spiritual Writers, Old. Rev. Joseph
McSorley, C.S.P., . . . 209
Statistics of Parish Schools, . . . 834
Sweetheart Abbey. (Illustrated.) Ag-
nes C. Storer, .... 44*
Talk about New Books, 121, 267, 402, 529,
671, 807
Temporal Power of the Pope, The Lat-
est Word on the. Rev. Humphrey
Moynihan, D.D., . . . 289
Tides, The. William Seton, LL.D , . 453
Unification of the Ursulines, The, . 065
Virgin and Child, (Frontispiece.)
Whittier's "Countess," The Story of.
(Illustrated.) Mary E. Desmond. . 478
Yuletide in Mediaeval Times. N. Ryl-
man, 3 r
POETRY.
" Blessed are the Poor." (Illustrated.)
Denis A. McCarthy, ... 360
By Calvary. Michael Earle, . . 738
Compensation. Arthur Upson. . . 233
"Count that Day Lost."- Arthur Up-
son. .
Departed Friend,
Emery,
.
To a. Susan L.
386
IV
CONTENTS.
Good Friday, 783
" Hail, Rabbi." Rev. Wm. P. Cantwell, 710
Love's Witness. Bert Martel, . . 33
Lullaby, The, 28
Martyrhood. Arthur Upson, . . 614
Mary to Christ on the Cross. Nora
Rylman, 771
Nature's Method. Julian E. Johnstone, 14
New Year, A. Charles Hanson Towne, 528
Pain. Arthur Upson, .... 627
Robert Southwell, To, Martyr, Jesuit,
and Poet. Joseph F. Cashman, . 195
Saint Paul, A Paraphrase of, . . 234
Snow, The First. Aloysius Coll, . . 576
Song of the Sea, A. (Illustrated.}
Julian E. Johnstone, . . . 604
Sorrow's Epiphany. Mary Blake Morse, 510
Soul's Release, The. Anna Cox Ste-
phens, . . . . . . 208
Sweeter than All. Caroline D. Swan, 561
Truth. Arthur Upson, . . . 314
Two Ways, The. (Illustrated.')
Charles Hanson Towne, . . . 467
Winter Night, A. James Buckham, . 496
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Abraham Lincoln, The Religion of, . 815
Ages of Progress, The Three, . . 543
American Anthology, An, . . . 676
Anneke, a Little Dame of New Nether-
lands, . 545
Arden Massiter, 267
Autobiography of a Tom-Boy, T he, . 809
Baby Goose : His Adventures, . . 413
Blessed Damozel, The, . . . .683
Book for all Readers, A, ... 812
Books and Culture, Essays on, . . 407
Captain Ribot, The Joy of, . . .811
Cardinal's Snuff-Box, 1 he, . . . 810
Catechism of the Christian Doctrine, . 136
Christian Dogma, The Beauty of, . 268
Christian Philosophy : God, . . . 279
CitharaMea: Poems, .... 411
Conspiracy in the North Case, Written
in Red, or the, 810
Counsel upon the Reading of Books, . 676
Daniel O'Connell and the Revival of
National Life in Ireland, . . . 815
Day in the Cloister, A, . . . . 270
Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha and
the Gospel of Jesus the Christ, The, . 529
Dictionary of Architecture and Building,
Biographical, Historical, and Descrip-
tive, A, 820
Divinity of Christ, The : An Argument, 532
Dr. Dale, 408
Eleanor, 534
External Religion : Its Use and Abuse, 269
Father Damien : An Open Letter to the
Reverend Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu, . 684
Feet of Jesus, At the, .... 547
Felix de Andreis, C.M., Life of, . . 825
Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets, The, 543
First Love, Days of, .... 279
Gateless Barrier, The, .... 274
Grey Fairy Book, The, .... 545
Guidance of Authors, Notes for the, . 410
Guy's Fortune, 541
Hans Memlinc, 809
Henry George, The Life of, . . . 814
Hidden Servants, The, .... 410
His First and Last Appearance, . . 540
History of the Christian Era. General, . 542
History of the German People at the
close of the Middle Ages, . . . 541
Holy Mass : A Morning Paradise, . 273
Hob/ Year of Jubilee, The, . . .674
Hotel de Rambouillet and the Pre-
cieuses, 685
House of Egremont, The, . . . 404
Individual, The : A Study of Life and
Death, 822
Isle of Unrest, The, . . . .276
Jackson, Andrew, 678
Knights of the Cross, The, . . .127
L'Aiglon, 671
Land of the Shamrock, From the, . 275
Last Days of the Nineteenth Century, 813
Life and Letters of Thomas Henry
Huxley, ...... 673
Life and Times of St. Benedict, The, . 533
Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, . .' 685
Life of our Lord, The, .... 409
Life of Sister Mary Gonzaga Grace, of
the Daughters of Charity of St. Vin-
cent de Haul, 534
Light, Let there be, .... 270
Light of Day, The, .... 679
Lives of the Saints for Children, Little, 687
Lorna Doone : a Romance of Exmoor, 683
Lyrics, 543
Maid of Maiden Lane, The, . . . 129
Martineau, James : a Biography and a
Study, ....... 404
Master Christian, The, .... 121
Meditations of the Heart, . . . 126
Motifs, 809
Our Mother, 406
Oxford Conferences : Hilary Term,
1900, 547
Parker, Theodore, Preacher and Re-
former, . ' 414
Peking : Histoire et Description, . . 138
Peter and Paul on Olympus, The Judg-
ment of, 412
Pilgrim's Guide to Rome, The, . . 412
Pippa Passes, 680
Praise and Adoration 125
Prayers, A Form of, .... 278
Princess of Arcady, A, . . . . 539
Protestant Rule of Faith and the Roman
Catholic Church, The, . . . 277
Psalms of the Little Office, Meditations
on the, 125
Psychology, 817
Psychology, Fact and Fable in, . . 818
Quong Lung, The Shadow of, . . 127
Return to Christ, The, .... 533
Richard Yea-and-Nay, The Life and
Death of 807
Robert Orange, 412
Round of Rimes, A, .... 812
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, The, . 546
Rulers of the South, The : Sicily, Cala-
bria, Malta, ... ... 537
Sacerdotalism in the Old and New Tes-
taments, 281
Saints and Friendly Beasts, The Book
of, 546
Sermon on the Mount, The, . . . 686
Shakespeare's Life and Work, . . 543
Son of St. Francis, A : St. Felix of Can-
talice, 126
Stringtown-on-the-Pike, . . . 407
Sun and Shadow, Songs of, . . . 129
Things beyond the Tomb, The, . . 410
Tide, The Flowing, . . . .272
Tractatus de Indulgentia Sancta Mariae
de Portiuncula, 132
Troubled Heart, A, and how it was
Comforted at Last, . . . . . 687
Tuskegee, ...... 817
United States in the Orient, The, . . 677
Way of the World, The, and Other
Ways, 538
Wedding Day in Literature and Art, 547
Wesley, John, 816
Woman of Yesterday, A, . . . 4 J 3
World Crisis in China, . . . . 123
:*F* V
>< -2
*
tj ^
S
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD,
VOL. LXXII. OCTOBER, 1900. No. 427.
ENGLAND'S CONVERSION AND THE HIERAR-
CHICAL JUBILEE.
BY REV. FATHER CUTHBERT, O.S.F.C.
IFTY years will shortly have elapsed since Pius
IX. re-established the Catholic Hierarchy in
England, by decree dated September 29, 1850.
Fifty years ! and how momentous in the history
of the Church. The Revolution, which was in
many ways to affect the condition of the Papacy, was already
seething. Pius IX. had but shortly returned from his exile at
Gaeta, whither he had been driven by the ungrateful Roman
mob ; France had finally delivered herself from the degenerate
Bourbon, and was once more for a short while styling herself
a republic ; in Germany the aspiration for national unity was
gaining in intensity and resolution, though few Germans at
that period knew how intimately German destiny was bound
up with the fate of the man who was already laying hold of
the government of France. In the Balkan peninsula events
were leading towards the Crimean War, which was to mould
European policy for so many years to come.
The moment was full of grave significance to English in-
dustrialism. Chartism had shaken society as it had seldom
been shaken before ; a new economic regime was being in-
augurated. The old policy of protection had given way to
free trade; labor had entered upon a path of national pros-
perity tempered by much individual hardship, caused by the
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK. 1900.
VOL. LXXII. I
2 ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct.,
keen spirit of competition; and what we must chiefly notice
here, the Irish famine had sent crowds of immigrants to Eng-
lish towns to form the nucleus of many a Catholic mission
where hitherto Catholics were unknown.
THE TIME OF RE-ESTABLISHMENT PROPITIOUS.
At this psychological moment it was that the church in
England entered into a new phase of life with the re-establish-
ment of the hierarchy. Coming at the time it did, we cannot
but recognize in the act of Pius IX. the hand of God guiding
the destinies of His Church. For three centuries English
Catholics had been without canonical sees. For nigh upon
three-quarters of a century after the accession of Elizabeth to
the throne they were practically without any sort of episcopal
government. Those bishops who remained firm in their alle-
giance to the faith (and, thank God, most of them did !) were
imprisoned or exiled. The last surviving bishops, Goldwell of
St. Asaph and Watson of Lincoln, died in 1585, the former in
Rome, the other in prison. But it was not until 1623 that the
authorities at Rome seemed to recognize that the old order of
things had passed away, not again to return. The religious
revolution under Elizabeth was complete.
Unlike that brought about by Henry VIII., it was no longer
merely a question of recognizing Papal supremacy. The re-
formers under Elizabeth had struck at other essential points of
Catholic belief the Mass, invocation of saints, and the doc-
trine of purgatory. Moreover it was held to be the political
interest of Elizabeth to champion the Protestant cause, and
she undoubtedly did her work thoroughly. Catholicism was in-
deed crushed. At Rome they seem to have hoped against
hope that Elizabeth's measures would end with herself or be
reversed by some political change.
At first it was the Spanish Armada that was to restore
Catholicism to its rightful place in the kingdom; when that
failed, the intervention of France or some other political
scheme was projected. Even in England the faithful Catholics
hoped for a speedy end of the persecution ; but they looked
not for foreign intervention, but rather for some internal change
in the government's policy. When the Spaniards came, they
rose almost to a man to repel the foreigner ; they would not
buy even religious tolerance at the price of disloyalty to their
country. But when, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada,
they found that their loyalty did not save them from still more
1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 3
cruel persecution, they lost heart and knew that England was
Protestant in very truth, and the most they hoped for now
was that they themselves, the few who remained steadfast,
should be allowed to practise Catholic worship unmolested and
free from penalty.
EVENTS TENDED TO A RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION.
It is sometimes contended that if bishops had been sent to
England during those days and the supply of priests main-
tained, the faith would not have died out so completely as it
did. There can be no doubt that much confusion was caused
in the Catholic body by the absence of episcopal authority;
and the dissensions arising from the Archpriest controversy
were undoubtedly a source of weakness to the Catholic cause.
But the whole condition of England at the time was so ab-
normal and the increase of wants so astounding that it is diffi-
cult to apportion blame even where in ordinary circumstances
blame might justly be meted out. Nor can it be said that the
presence of bishops in England at that time would have made
any appreciable difference to the situation. The fact is, the
Reformation in England, as in Germany and elsewhere, is a
phenomenon which can hardly be explained merely by human
motives and circumstances. To view it aright we must regard
it as a terrible scourge permitted by God for the purification
of his church.
Whoever studies the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries must recognize that events were consistently tending
towards a great religious revolution. The worldliness of the
higher clergy and the laxity of the religious orders had de-
prived the church of that moral influence which she had used
so beneficently in earlier times.
DECLINE OF RELIGION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Not that there were wanting, even in the worst period,
saints and holy souls; but these were unable to stem the
torrent of vice and infidelity which derived its force in great
measure from the evil lives of those who ought to have been
leaders in religion. Catholicism in the sixteenth century was in
much the same condition as Judaism before the good King
Josias. Wickedness reigned in the high places, to the scandal
of the whole people. There are periods in history when re-
volution seems the only way to safety. Such a period in very
4 ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct ,
deed was that which preceded the Reformation. Not that
the dismemberment of the church was thereby justified.
Schism is never justifiable. The sin, however, rests not only
with those who actually make the schism, but even more with
those who by their actions create a situation which apparently
justifies schism in the minds of the people. It seems to be in-
contestably proved that the English people did not willingly
break from the Catholic faith. The changes in religion were
forced upon them by those in power. At the same time it
must be acknowledged that the worldliness and infidelity of
the higher clergy, and the want of earnestness too frequently
manifest in the lives of religious, had prepared the way for an
acquiescence in the new order of things on the part of many
amongst the people. We know how the Blessed Thomas More
regarded with sorrow and alarm the absence of religious spirit
among many of the bishops of his time. The future martyr
was one of a band of earnest spirits who yearned for reform
in the church, and among the clergy. Had the English
episcopate in the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. been
generally as true to the episcopal character as was John
Fisher, the martyr-bishop of Rochester, there would probably
have been no Reformation. The people, under the guidance of
the bishops, would have been able to withstand even the royal
power. But the bishops and higher clergy as a body had lost
the secret of spiritual leadership in their thirst for temporal
honors and courtly positions, and in the hour of trial were
the first to prove false to the faith. In the time of Elizabeth
a new generation of bishops proved more steadfast, but the
mischief was already done ; the people had ceased to look to
them for guidance. For this reason, perhaps, it was well that
the old hierarchy was permitted to die out; and an entirely
new tradition was formed with the appointment of the vicars-
apostolic : men who, having nothing to hope for in this world
but persecution and suffering, accepted their office in a truly
apostolic spirit. For much the same reason, perhaps, it was
well looking at things from a historical point of view that
the shipwreck was as complete as it was ; and that the faith
was permitted almost to die out. Once worldliness and in-
sincerity find a place in religion, it is difficult for religion to
regain its simplicity and fervor, except by death and resur-
rection. People cannot escape from the consequences of their
sin by a mere act of their own will even when the sin is for-
given them. The taint remains till the purification is complete;
1900.] AND 7 HE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 5
and moreover the law of consequences will work itself out
with inexorable fidelity.
The church is still suffering for her sin in those days pre-
ceding the Reformation. Not only does the schism remain
amongst us of the North, but in Catholic countries the
paralysis of the church in more modern times is a direct result
of the worldly ambitions and moral laxity which placed the
church in great measure at the mercy of the secular power.
A NEW ERA OF SPIRITUAL LIFE.
-
During the past few years, however, we may justly say the
church has entered upon a new era of spiritual life and power.
Shorn in great measure of her former external pomp and
splendor, she is once again becoming the Church of the
Peoples, to whom men look again for guidance and teaching.
This is especially so in those very countries where for centur-
ies past Catholicism has been banned and crucified. Nobody
can observe the trend of public opinion in English-speaking
countries, for example, without noticing how men are disposed
to listen to the voice of the church, whether uttered in papal
encyclicals or in the native pulpits and press ; how gradually
the religiously-minded portion of the population are beginning
to adopt Catholic doctrines and to reverence Catholic consis-
tency. The church is, in truth, becoming once more a power
over men's minds ; so that there is good reason in the conten-
tion put forward so frequently of late, that the regeneration
of Catholicism to all its former spiritual power, and even
greater, will be brought about by God's grace through the
Northern races. One need not introduce Anglo Saxon (or
should we say Anglo-Celtic ?) imperialism into one's judgment
of the future church, to acknowledge that it is precisely in the
countries where the church has suffered most that she promises
to renew her youth in the ages immediately before us. In
these nations the church has practically a virgin soil, un-
hampered by the traditions of secular interference, accepted
in the Latin nations ; and with a people calling out for spirit-
ual guidance and willing to listen if spoken to in intelligible
language. The success of the church will depend upon her
power of reaching the people's heart and understanding their
practical needs.
6 ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct.,
GREAT LEADERS.
That the church will recognize her task and eventually suc-
ceed, we may rest assured. Not without providential signifi-
cance has been the raising up in the new English Church of
such prelates as Wiseman and Manning, and of such an in-
tellectual leader as Newman. These men belonged primarily
to England, but they belong also to the Universal Church
of the future, for they have boldly and successfully drawn out
the lines upon which the church will advance in the ecclesiasti-
cal, social, and intellectual domains of Catholic life.
Wiseman won for the church in England the respect of the
nation, because he proved by his actions that a Catholic can
be an Englishman. When he landed in England as first Arch-
bishop of Westminster, in 1851, he was received with a howl
of execration, as though he were the general of an invading
army pledged to overthrow the throne and constitution. In a
few years his simple, transparent English character, his readi-
ness to help forward any national movement for the welfare of
the people, and perhaps most of all his trust in the honesty
and fair-mindedness of his countrymen, won him the esteem of
all classes, and in his person the church at large triumphed
over ignorance and bigotry. Cardinal Manning was in truth
the ideal bishop of the English working classes. His courage-
ous handling of the social problem at a critical moment re-
called to the minds of men the best traditions of the Catholic
episcopate ; reminding men of St. Ambrose of Milan and St.
Martin of Tours, of St. Dunstan and Stephen Langton. In
him the bishop was verily the father of the orphan, and the
friend of the poor.
NEWMAN A PROPHET OF THE FUTURE.
And who can tell the influence of Newman in the church
of the future? There are those who regard him as the
prophet of the new school of Catholic apologetics yet to be
created, which will be able to meet successfully the difficul-
ties of the modern mind difficulties which we must sorrow-
fully acknowledge seem to be treated with but indifferent suc-
cess by the old school. In his "Theory of Development"
we have, perhaps, the germ of the Catholic system which will
some day explode the fallacies -and counteract the mischief of
the modern evolution-theorists in religious thought; for there
is a subtle distinction between development and evolution ap-
1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 7
plied to dogma. One is sound, the other is false. The evo-
lution theorist denies the supernatural source of the dogmas
of faith ; whereas the development-theorist starts from the
principle of a supernatural origin, but shows at the same time
how the supernatural is to a great measure conditioned by
natural causes ; or, in other words, how God makes use of his
ordinary providence in making his special Revelation. Much
of the enthusiasm for the evolution theory is nothing more
than a reaction from the crude theories of earlier days when
divine wisdom and omnipotence was supposed to be synony-
mous with a divinely arbitrary wilfulness. The theory of de-
velopment shows how divine revelation is made with a divine
regard for the ordinary laws of life, whilst at the same time it
defends the divine freedom against the evolution theorist, who
would limit divine action to the sphere of scientific 'law.
The ecclesiastical historian of a century hence will assuredly
be able to illustrate the greatness of these three heroic leaders
of modern Catholicism Wiseman, Manning, and Newman
better than we can at this present time. They have sown the
seed ; the harvest is yet to come. For us it is sufficient at
this moment to recognize that in these men we have provi-
dentially placed leaders, under whose guidance a regenerate
Catholicism will spring up in these lands.
A THREE-FOLD PROBLEM.
Meanwhile, looking ahead, we see that the reconversion of
the English race to Catholic unity presents a threefold problem,
bristling with difficulties. There is the hierarchical problem,
the social, and the intellectual. Let me explain. By the
hierarchical problem I mean the organization of the church
both in regard to internal affairs and in its relations with the
state. At present the organization of the church in England
is based chiefly upon the idea that England is a missionary
country. Consequently the ordinary laws that in Catholic
countries govern the relations between bishops and priests, or
between the clergy and the laity, are not in force. Moreover
the church is independent of the state ; there is no concordat,
thank God ! to prevent synodal meetings of the episcopate or
to intimidate the clergy in their pastoral utterances. Our
priests draw no salary from the government, but they are free
to administer the sacraments and preach the word of God
under the sole authority of ecclesiastical superiors. Yet the
system is not without its difficulties; chief amongst which is
8 ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct.,
the growing claim of the laity to be consulted in regard to-
temporal affairs, especially the financial ones, of the church. It
is said that as the laity supply the money, they ought to have
a voice in its disposal. The spirit of the demand is thoroughly
English and constitutional, and there can be no doubt that if
the priests were relieved from the harassing worries of pro-
viding money for the building and maintenance of church and
school, they would have more time to give to other and more
important duties. In the old Catholic days in England the
laity did in fact, more or less, manage the financial and tem-
poral affairs of the parish, and a similar system will have to
be found in the future. Such a system cannot be created
off-hand ; and at present would doubtless meet with strong
opposition on the part of those who are content with things
as they a*e. In some dioceses temporal councils, composed of
clergy and laity, already exist. These probably form the
germ whence the new system will spring forth, and in time,
no doubt, each parish or district will have its temporal council
assisting the clergy.
Besides this question of the participation of the laity in the
temporal affairs of the church, there are others affecting the
status of the rectors of missions and the relations between
the higher and lower clergy questions which I believe are
already under the consideration of the authorities.
QUESTION OF EPISCOPAL JURISDICTION.
Further, there is the question of the episcopal jurisdiction
itself. During the last three centuries this jurisdiction has
been much limited in the interest of Catholic unity. It was
felt that if the unity of the church was to be preserved against
the attacks of the schismatics, ecclesiastical, authority should,
as far as possible, be concentrated in Rome ; hence many of
the powers of bishops were withdrawn arid vested in the
Roman congregations. Whether a process of decentralization
is possible at present, is a point for argument; but it seems
probable that as the church progresses in these northern
countries, greater discretionary powers will have to be placed in
the hands of the bishops, who being on the spot can best deal
with local needs. At the same time we may be sure that the
unity of the church's organization will in no way be permitted
to suffer by the Catholics of any land. That Catholic unity for
which our fathers suffered during the past three centuries will
not be wantonly sacrificed to any sentiment of nationalism.
IQOO.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. 9
Still, the process of creating an organization suited to the
character and exigencies of the English-speaking people, an
organization unhampered by traditions which in other coun-
tries bind and degrade the church and minimize her influence,
may be peculiarly irritating both to clergy and laity. Eccle-
siastical politics, as well as secular, are apt to create parties
and cliques, which unless animated by whole-hearted loyalty
and devotion to the church, and ready to prefer the general
welfare to mere party triumph, make the church an arena of
passions instead of an assemblage of brethren. And there is
no strife so bitter as that concerned with ecclesiastical affair?.
That there should be divergences of opinion amongst Catholics
in matters of policy is to be expected. In every healthy, in-
telligent community such divergences exist. But in every
healthy community, too, such divergences are restrained and
moderated by regard for the common welfare. Where this mod-
erating influence is present there need be no fear of divergence
of opinion ending in sectarianism or schism. Let English-
speaking Catholics keep in mind the best traditions of their
party government, and they will avoid the dangers arising from
disputes about ecclesiastical policy. A loyal spirit and good
temper will pilot them through many a strong debate, where
otherwise good intentions will but end in shipwreck. There is,
however, one point in the reorganization of the Church among
English speaking peoples upon which all Catholics are more or
less agreed the education of our Catholic children in Catholic
schools. Over this question it is quite possible that the church
will have a severe struggle with the secular government before
a completely satisfactory settlement is obtained. The secular-
ist party is growing in strength and bitterness, and want of
vigilance on the part of Catholics may result in irreparable
mischief to the faith of a future generation.
THE SOCIAL PROBLEM.
The second great problem with which the church has to
deal is the social problem. She has before her a condition of
society in which good and evil jostle together. The past cen-
tury has been marked by an intellectual awakening of the
masses of the people to their human rights, and by an enor-
mous development of the labor market. The rate of wages
has increased, and with the higher wage has come greater com-
fort and a wide-spread taste for luxuries. Wealth has acquired
a position in society it would never have dreamt of a century
io , ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct.,
ago, and has created new classes and factions. Money rules
the world, but labor is striving hard to rule money. Energy,
restless and self-reliant, is the characteristic quality of the age.
Men are conscious of their manhood; they strive as men,
they claim to be treated as men.
But the age has its vices as well as its virtues vices which
tend to its demoralization and demand the saving influence of
the church. Foremost amongst these evils must assuredly be
put intemperance and the growing disregard for the sanctity
of marriage. Intemperance is on the increase, notwithstand-
ing the efforts of the temperance societies ; divorce is becom-
ing more frequent, and domestic life is tending to lose its
power over the imagination of the nation.
Against these two evils it is necessary for Catholicism to
throw the whole weight of its influence. The church has in-
deed no more sacred duty to society than to guard the sanc-
tity of marriage and the home. The home is the nursery of
moral and religious life as well as of national vigor. Let home
life, with all' its intimate affections and responsibilities, be de-
stroyed, and society becomes poisoned at its very spring. Yet
nobody can view the present wide spread tendency to minimize
the responsibilities of conjugal and parental relationships with-
out a feeling of dread for the future. Of the moral mischief
wrought by intemperance it is needless to say much. Cardinal
Manning and Father Mathew in a past generation, Archbishop
Ireland and Monsignor Nugent in the present, have given us
no unnecessary warning. The church must, then, maintain
with vigor a relentless war against these two radical evils of
modern civilization. She cannot be too urgent in her crusade,
for the moral ruin is great which is already being wrought in
our midst by these two evils.
THE SOCIAL PAX VOBISCUM.
But beyond this the church, if it would gain the English-
speaking peoples, must show itself in very truth the reconciler of
classes and factions. The economic struggle of the past century
has divided society into two bitterly opposing factions the capi-
talist and the worker. The duty of the church is to foster a
spirit of justice and charity between employers and employed ;
to reinstate in commercial relations the element of human
fellowship so long cast out by a grasping and selfish individual-
ism. But in order to do this it is needful that the church
bring back to the worker a proper sense of the dignity of
1900.] AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE. n
labor. In the olden days, when the spirit of Catholicism en-
nobled labor with the patronage of the Holy Family of Nazareth,
the workman regarded his craft with reverence and was proud
of the work of his hands. The tendency of modern labor has
been to degrade labor with the laborer. To work for one's
living became almost a badge of disgrace, and the workman
himself, losing his proper pride in his work, now takes delight
merely in the wages he is able to obtain. So long as this
condition of things lasts there will be no true reconciliation
between capital and labor. Human fellowship is founded in
self-respect, and a proper pride in one's own life ; but how can
the workingman be truly self-respecting, if he is lacking in a
respect for the labor of his hands? The gospel of labor the
truth that every man is bound to work at something useful
for the community, and that all useful work is honorable ;
here we have a necessary portion of the message Catholicism
holds for the English people. To create a nobility of labor,
to guard the sanctity of marriage and the home, and to com-
bat the vice of intemperance, are the lines on which it is need-
ful for the church to work, to save and convert the social life
of the English nation.
CONVINCE THE MODERN MIND.
We come now to the third great problem the conversion of
the intellect of English speaking peoples. There can be no doubt
that the conditions of thought have changed completely since
the old days when St. Thomas and Duns Scotus formulated their
wonderful systems. Not that the fundamental problems of the
mind ever vary, but that the forms in which these problems
present themselves, and the further questions to which they
give rise, are different in every age. At the present time, in
view of the progress of science and criticism, the theologian
has necessarily to recast his arguments, to take up new posi-
tions, and arm himself against a new sort of objection. He
must be able to appreciate the value of a modern critical
objection against a received text of Scripture ; he must know
exactly what the Hegelian philosopher means when he speaks
of Substance and the Categories ; and he must be able, more-
over, to understand the intellectual sympathies of the modern
mind. Otherwise he will never obtain a hearing, and his
treatises and sermons are so much wasted energy, so far as the
intellectual world is concerned.
The time has come when the church can no longer remain
12 ENGLAND'S CONVERSION [Oct.,
on the defensive, guarding its own traditions and past glories.
To convert the world she must go forth to meet the world ;
and to convert the world's intellect, she must fully appreciate
and understand the world's intellect. The defensive tactics of
the last three centuries will have to give way to the liberty
and self-assertion of the early scholastics. We need to be
bold; to grapple with the problems which present themselves
to the intellect of the world in which we live, and not merely
to intrench ourselves in the well-worn tomes of the past. In
a word, we need to remould our theological studies in face of
a new intellectual situation, and we need to enter more boldly
than we have done of late into the atmosphere of the world's
thought. It has been truly said that in the struggle between
supernatural dogma and modern science, Protestantism will
prove unable to maintain the integrity of its belief in the
supernatural, and that Catholicism alone will stand victorious
over infidelity. But are we Catholics as prepared as we should
be to wage battle in defence of our Faith with modern science
and criticism ? So far the most successful attempts to place
the defence of the Christian faith upon a modern scientific
basis, which the scientific mind is bound to respect, have come
from non-Catholics such as Harnack, Caird, and Driver ; men-
whose work, invaluable as it is, suffers from the want of that
complete grasp of Christianity which Catholicism alone gives.
Yet this is a matter with which we English-speaking Catholics
especially are concerned, since to convert the English people
we must convince the modern mind.
THE SECOND SPRING.
The conversion of English-speaking peoples is thus no simple
task, but one demanding a broad outlook, a generous policy, and
an unflinching courage. Mere controversy about the Roman pri-
macy, mere ceremonial display, though valuable as details, are
not enough ; we have to plant the Catholic Faith with Catholic
ideals of life in the very heart of the nation. But to do so it
is necessary to speak direct to the heart of the people ; and
how can that be, unless our own hearts are beating in sym-
pathy with theirs ? Catholicism, wherever it finds a dwelling,
naturally takes to itself much of the character and methods
and qualities of its surroundings ; and so, whilst enriching the
nations by its presence, becomes itself enlarged by the national
ideals and qualities it thus absorbs. In this mutual blending
of themselves with each other, the church and the nation both
i goo.]
AND THE HIERARCHICAL JUBILEE.
acquire new strength and new beauty. Who can tell what the
future has in store for both the church and the English-speaking
race in the days when they shall be again united ? It is a far-off
vision of things to come ; we of to-day live only in the seed-
time. But in the fifty years that have just gone by we have
seen enough to convince us that a new period of church his-
tory has begun, in which the English-speaking peoples will take
no inglorious part. With this promise of the harvest to come,
we may well take heart to face courageously the difficulties of
the immediate future. Undoubtedly we are entering upon a
period of peculiar anxiety, when Catholics will sometimes find
themselves in disagreement with each other as to the actual
policy to be followed. Such disagreements are natural ; they
show that the situation of Catholicism is no longer simple in
detail but complex, and there are few minds that can grasp a
highly complex situation. The saving quality that we need in
such a period is, as I have already said, a generous loyalty
to the Faith, and to each other : a loyalty that will prevent
mere divergence of legitimate opinion from becoming a breach
of mutual charity. Such loyalty, combined with energy, is the
duty every Catholic owes to Mother Church to day, lest her
strength be weakened and her task be left undone.
Craw/ey, England. ,
14 NATURE'S METHOD. [Oct.,
J\lothing for etfer dies; the past life litfes
|n each and etfery one of huqank^ind :
And each archaic form its quota gitfes
I o lerjd its magic to t^e qystic mind.
till in the man the li\?es tJjat Went before
<And rendered possible his higher self,
" heir srrjall existence filled, their beiqgs o'er,
E*ist, as in the father litfes the elf.
Yes, tFjis is J\ature's laW: the die outWorn,
e)qe casts again, still loving to repeat
prom morn to e\?e, aqd from eVe to n]orn,
1 he type of things that hatfe groWn obsolete.
A thrifty ^usWife, hoarding up the gains
1 hat she has gathered Witl") exceeding pains.
JULIAN E. JOHNSTONE.
1900.]
CATHOLIC CAMEOS.
CATHOLIC CAMEOS.
(Done with a pen.)
BY NORA RYLMAN.
MERE PERPETUA.
Ontario.
N a green and quiet corner of London stands the
old court suburb of Maryville, in which the
author of Vanity Fair once wrote his copy.
And in Maryville Square are several tall, red
houses, with long, narrow windows, which taken
all together form the convent of Our Lady of Good Counsel
the home of the Purple Dames, as we will style the good sis-
ters, because of their purple robes which, by the way, were
donned soon after the great French Revolution, as black was
distasteful to many whose friends had looked through the little
window during The Terror.
The Purple Dames are a French order, and Mere Perpetua
is partly Gallic, partly Celtic in origin. Her father, Count
S , held office under the Second Empire, when the eagles
of France flew high, and her mother was the daughter of a
captain in the Irish Guards ; a woman of wit and wisdom, sad-
ness and mirth, as the daughters of Green Erin often are.
Mere Perpetua (who was then Petite Jeanne-Margot) was in
Paris during the famous siege. She heard the roar of cannon,
ate horseflesh, saw the red fires of the pe'troleuse, wept for the
martyred priests, paled for France when the Uhlans entered Paris.
She stood on a balcony outside her father's hotel as the
steel-helmeted men rode by, did Jeanne-Margot ; in her hand
and at her breast were violets, and a golden eagle glittered in
her gold brown hair.
After the fall of the Empire she and her father became
globe-trotters.
" I would enter religion, mon pere," said the girl. " Maman
sleeps in Pere la Chaise ; the empress (my godmother) is in
exile. I would take the Crucified for my Spouse, would pray
for the lost and you."
To which the count (who was a philosopher) replied : " Pa-
tience, petite ! Be not like the paysanne who disliked lobster
salad before she tasted it. See the world, then leave it if you
will. You can carry your memories with you."
16 CATHOLIC CAMEOS. [Oct.,
And so it comes to pass that Mere Perpetua's mind is like
unto a picture gallery in which are many paintings.
One picture is of sandy Savannah, another of the levees of
New Orleans.
Another is of a slight, white-robed figure the figure of the
Father of Christendom giving his blessing to the city and to
the world.
Yet another is of a frescoed room in a Roman palace in
which the companion of her wanderings her father lies dy-
ing, with dark eyes dimming, and pale lips murmuring :
" Love God, seek heaven, little daughter. I who have trod-
den all earth's ways, I who have had life's cup filled with the
bitter and the sweet, know that none other is worth loving;
that only heaven is worth seeking."
So, when the Roman earth covers all that is earthly of the
philosophic count, Jeanne-Margot becomes one of the community
of Purple Dames ; and in course of time is transferred from
the house in France to the house in London, in sedate, old-
world Maryville Square.
The sisters have both a day and a boarding school, and
Sceur Perptue is loved by the pupils of both ; by Wee Win-
nie, the poor little waif from the sunless slums, and Donna
Bernarda, the heiress of a princely house.
"How picturesque!" say some visitors, as they look at the
white- veiled, purple robed, blue-eyed, sweet-faced nun, sitting
under the old mulberry-tree, talking to petite Marie, the baby
pupil, or pacing up and down a gravelled pathway, office book
in hand.
" How beautiful ! " say others, when they go into the chapel
and see her keeping her watch before the Adorable Sacrament,
the Spotless and Holy Spouse.
" Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth, where the
rust and moth consume, and where thieves break through and
steal. But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven ; where
neither rust nor moth doth consume, and where thieves do not
break through, nor steal."
These words are the keynote of Mere Perpetua's life. Her
treasures are above ; she looks to grasp them
"At that Marriage Supper where the sainted
Round His Throne, like lighted candles, stand."
So we will leave her loving, praying, adoring, working ;
waiting for the coming of her Bridegroom and her Lord !
ST. CUTHBERT'S TOWN AND CATHEDRAL.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
BY REV. HUGH POPE, O.P.
" Durham citie upon the shoulders of a mountainous Atlas is so envyroned again with
hills that he that hath seen the situation of the citie hath seen the mapp of Sion and may
save a journey to the Holy Land." The old chronicler Hegge in his " Legend of S. Cuthbert."
LL who have seen the city of Durham can endorse
the words of the old chronicler. Cuthbert's town
and cathedral are literally "seated on a hill."
The name Durham is a corruption of " Dun,"
a hill, and " holme," a river-island, and here
again the traveller can endorse the appropriateness of the name,
for the River Wear almost completely surrounds the hill on which
the cathedral and castle stand. As one approaches from the
west the great central tower rises before you, looking, under
the rain-cloud passing over, black and sombre. The gale roars
round it, the rain frets its way into the stone, eating away
the once delicate moulding ; but still the great fabric stands
unmoved and unchangeable despite its eight hundred years of
storm and rain, of siege and plunder.
Its early history is welli known. When England was har-
ried by the Danes, St. Cuthbert's rest at Lindisfarne was dis-
VOL. LXXII. 2
i8
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
[Oct.,
turbed, and his children, removing his incorrupt body, went
forth to seek a secure resting-place for their treasure. The
saint by marvellous signs indicated Dun holme as the place of
his choice, and here they laid their treasure down, protecting
it with a shrine of boughs. Hence the Bow-ChapeJ, known as
St. Mary-le-Bow. It was a red-letter day for Dunholme when
St. Cuthbert came to it, on account of the Danish invasion of 876.
The " Bough " church was superseded by a nobler edifice, known
as the " White " church ; but this in its turn was to give place
to the present magnificent cathedral, which is justly looked
upon as " the finest Norman building in England."
The foundations were laid August n, 1093, by Bishop
William Carilepho, in the presence of Malcolm, King of Scot-
land. The bishop put monks there, and they labored at the
building, except when engaged in the divine service or at
meals. But the chief credit of the foundation is due to one
who gets but little mercy at the hands of the ecclesiastical
historian, the notorious Ralph Flambard. Besides being the
founder of the famous Kepyer Hospital, " for the weal of his
own soul, and redemption of the souls of William the Con-
queror, and Matilda his queen, who had nourished him ; of
King William II., who had advanced him to the bishopric ; of
THE FINEST NORMAN BUILDING IN ENGLAND."
1900.]
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
King Henry I., who had confirmed him in it ; and of all who
had bestowed, or should bestow, gifts or alms on the Church
of St. Cuthbert," * Flambard devoted himself during the
twenty nine years of his bishopric to the building of the great
cathedral. He finished it nearly
to the roof, and was able to trans-
late the relics of St. Cuthbert to
the shrine, afterwards so glorious.
When we enter the cathedral
and stand where the baptistery is
now, we can see where Flam-
bard's Norman work ceased.
Like so many of England's ca-
thedrals, the successive changes
of style are well marked, and
the present building now pre-
sents " a most instructive series
of examples illustrating the grad-
ual change of style which took
place during the reign of the
three first Henrys, till by degrees
the pointed had completely su-
perseded'the semi-circular arch,
and the heavy clusters of the
Norman pillars were polished in-
to the light shafts of the Early
English, "f
Thus, the great central tower, which in its present state
dates only from 1478, is in the Perpendicular style, and was
built by Bishop Neville to replace the old tower destroyed by
fire in 1429. The Galilee, of which more anon, marks the
Transitional stage, and the western towers and the Chapel of
the Nine Altars are Early English.
It may be of interest to note that the great central tower
was not meant to remain as it now is, but was intended to be
surmounted by a lantern like that on the Church of St. Nicho-
las in Newcastle-on-Tyne. The story goes that a Dominican
friar designed this lantern tower, but as it grew under the
builder's hand men said that it had no supports, and would
fall on the removal of the scaffolding. But the friar, master
of his art, continued to build, and when the day came he stood
* Surtees Society, vol. xcv. p. 14.
t Beauties of England and Wales, Bragley and Britton, vol. v. p. 38.
LIKE THE LANTERN ON THE CHURCH OF
ST. NICHOLAS IN NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE."
20 DURHAM CATHEDRAL. [Oct.,
under the tower and bade them take away the scaffolding: "I
have too much trust in my work to fear lest it should crush
me." And it still stands.
As we go round the church, proceeding up the south aisle,
we note the graceful curve of the aisle ; this with the groining
overhead forms a vista, making the distance appear even
greater than it really is. Behind the choir lies the Chapel of the
Nine Altars, forming perhaps as strange an east end of a cathe-
dral as can be found. Instead of the customary Lady-chapel
behind the high altar, we have nine altars set side by side in
the east wall. Now that they are useless and dismantled, they
present a somewhat unworthy ending to the church, but with-
out doubt they were very gorgeous in Catholic days ; now
nothing remains save the defaced and blank reredos. The
origin of this very peculiar feature in the church is said to be
in the weakness of the foundations at this end. Bishop Hugh
Pudsey, who was also Patriarch of Jerusalem, attempted about
1150 to add a proper Lady chapel ; he was prevented, how-
ever, by the ground giving way, and in consequence we have
the present abrupt but unique ending of the church.
Before leaving this part we must look at the site of St.
Cuthbert's shrine. It lies behind the high altar. What a
spectacle ! The ruthless hand of the destroyer has spared
nothing, and the account given by the commissioners of their
examination of the saint's shrine would be, were other evidence
wanting, a sufficient proof of the brutality with which the Dis-
solution was carried out. The way they handled the saint's
incorrupt body was revolting. In the words of the chronicler :
" After the spoil of his ornaments and jewels, coming nearer
his sacred body, thinking to have found nothing but dust and
bones, and finding the chest that he did lie in very strongly
bound with iron, the goldsmith did take a great fore hammer
of a smith and did break the said chest open. And when they
had opened the chest, they found him lying whole and un-
corrupt, with his face bare and his beard as it had been a
fortnight's growth, and all his vestments upon him as he was
accustomed to say Mass withal, and his meet wand (crozier ?)
of gold lying beside him. Then when the goldsmith did per-
ceive that he had broken one of his legs when he broke open
the chest, he was very sorry for it and did cry, ' Alas ! I have
broken one of his legs.' Then Dr. Henley (one of the com-
missioners) hearing him say so, called upon him and bade him
cast down his bones. Then he made answer again that he
igoo.]
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
21
f . CHAPEL OF THE NINE ALTARS.
could not get them asunder, for the sinews and the skin
held it that it would not come asunder. Then Dr. Legh did
step up to see if it were so or not, and did turn himself
about and spoke Latin to Dr. Henley, that he was lying
whole. Yet Dr. Henley would give no credit to his word, but
still cried ' Cast down his bones.' Then Dr. Legh made
answer, ' If you will not believe me, come up yourself and
see him.' Then Dr. Henley went up to him and handled hirn f
and saw that he was whole and uncorrupt."*
The common tradition is that the saint's body still .reposes
*Surtee3 Society : -Rites of Durham , p. 86
22 DURHAM CATHEDRAL. [Oct.,
in the same tomb, and is that one which was discovered in 1827.
This was a skeleton, and had been interred as such, for the
vestments on it had not come in contact with corruption.
The Catholic tradition points to an altogether different part
of the cathedral as the saint's present resting-place, namely,
the foot of the stairway by the northern of the two west
towers.
The choir in its present state is comparatively modern, for
the stalls date only from 1690. The reredos, however, is much
older. It was erected in the year 1380, and it cost seven masons
a year's work to put it in place. Made of Caen stone, it cost
533' a sum equivalent to more than ten times that amount
nowadays. There were no less than one hundred and seven
statues on it. They were all painted and gilt. Of all the
statues which once adorned this exquisite choir only one re-
mains, and that so near the roof that it is at once clear that
its height alone saved it from the^zeal of the iconoclasts.
It is of interest to note, when looking over the list of the
altars in the cathedral, that of the thirty no less than five
were, under various titles, dedicated to Our Blessed Lady.
Thus we find "Our Lady of Houghwell," "Our Lady of Bol-
ton," "Our Lady of Pity," " The Altar of the Virgin," and
"Our Lady of Pittie " in the north aisle.
Before 1 we leave the choir we must notice Bishop Hatfield's
episcopal throne. It is, as far as we know, unique. You
mount up to it by some half-dozen steps, so that the actual
seat is on a level with the canopies of the stalls. Beneath the
throne is his tomb and an altar where Mass was to be offered
for the repose of his soul.
But the most interesting portion of the church is the Lady-
chapel known as the " Galilee." When Bishop Pudsey failed
to build the Lady chapel at the east end, he placed it at the
west end. This chapel is in the late Norman style, and was in
building from 1154 to 1197. The arches supporting the roof
are very striking. On its east wall the " Mater Dolorosa " is still
faintly discernible, while here and there patches of color have
survived the efforts of the destroyers to obliterate them. Two
points in particular make this chapel noteworthy. It was the
only part of the church accessible to women and it contains
the tomb of the Venerable Bede.
St. Cuthbert, according to tradition, had a great dislike for
the gentler sex, and it is said that when curiosity induced a
fair dame to enter disguised as a monk, St. Cuthbert cried
1900.]
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
AN ANTIQUE KNOCKER.
out from his tomb. Certainly the following extract from
Anglia Sacra* shows the strength of the feeling on this
point: "In the year 1333, on Thursday in Easter week,
Edward the Third came to Durham, and lodged in the priory.
On the Wednesday following, Queen Philippa came from Knares-
borough in one day to meet him. and being unacquainted with
the custom of the church, went through the abbey gates to
the priory, and, after supping with the king, retired to rest.
This alarmed the monks, one of whom went to the king and
informed him that St. Cuthbert had a mortal aversion to the
*Cf., also, Surtees Society : De Vita S. Goderici, p. 463, note.
24 DURHAM CATHEDRAL. [Oct r ,
presence of a woman. Unwilling to give offence to the church,
Edward immediately ordered the queen to arise, who, in her
under garments only (her mantle, etc., being buried), returned
by the gate through which she had entered and went to the
castle, after most devoutly praying that St. Cuthbert would not
avenge a fault which she had through ignorance committed." *
This Galilee chapel, therefore, served for the women, and here
at ten every Sunday a sermon was preached for them by one
of the monks. Cardinal Langley lies buried here, died 1438,
while hard by we read : " Hie jacent fossa Venerabilis Bedse
ossa." We notice that the writer of the article " Durham " in
the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica speaks of St.
Bede's interment there as doubtful. No one else seems to
doubt it, but it is to be remarked that in Hegge's Legend we
read that in the tomb of St. Cuthbert Prior Turgot found the
bones of Venerable Bede, the head of St. Oswald, and the
remains of three bishops of Lindisfarne. If we are uncertain
as to the resting-place of St. Cuthbert after his rude disturb-
ance by the reformers, we may well be so with regard to that
of the Venerable Bede.
But the Galilee served for more purposes than one. Dur-
ham is a County Palatine i.e., its bishop has royal rights
there, and is said to judge " ut in palatio," viz., "regali." In
his own right -he is Earl of Sadburg, and judges hold their
commission from him. He is also sheriff paramount, and the
Galilee was his court. Hence we find in the Registrum
Palatinum Dunelmense citations to the Galilee of Durham .
Cathedral for inquisition to be made touching a divorce, as
also for the punishment of those who violated the rights of
Fame Island (cf. pp. 945 and 734).
The power of the bishop was thus enormous ; and while
we are perhaps astonished to find Edward III. ordering him
to provide a thousand armed men for the invasion of Scot-
land, to be ready at Newcastle by Palm Sunday, " pro quibus
volueritis respondere," f we are yet more astonished to find
Henry II. so far recognizing the bishop's palatinate rights as
to declare by charter, when sending his justices of assize
thither, that he did so by license of the bishop, and " pro
hac vice tantum."^: On the other hand, we find no less than
three letters from the Third Edward commanding the bishop
* Quoted in Beauties of England and Wales, vol. v. p. 40. From Angh'a Sacra, i. p. 760.
t Registrum Palatinum Dunelmense, p. 589.
JCamden's Britannia, Gough, vol. iii. p. 109.
1900.]
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
to send ten marks yearly for the support of the Friars Minor
at Oxford. These date from 1314 and 1315, and in the last
the writ runs thus: " De eo quod mandatis nostris parere non
curastis, plurimum admiramus," and concludes with a threat of
" GALILEE WAS A PLACE OF REFUGE."
force. This looks as though the bishop was not favorable to
the friars ! *
Besides this, the Galilee was a place of refuge, and all
criminals who could fled to the cathedral, where they knocked
to have it opened. The appointed watchers at once reported
their advent to the prior, who enjoined them to keep within
the precincts of the church-yard, and gave them a yellow cross
to wear on a black gown. This was known as St. Cuthbert's
Cross. The Galilee bell was then rung, so that all might
know that some one had taken sanctuary.f
"And if full oft the sanctuary save
Lives black with guilt, ferocity it calms."
Wordsworth, " Ecclesiastical Sketches"
In a little chamber off the Galilee is a newly-discovered
monastic well, the sources of which are many miles distant.
* Registnim Paiatinum Dunelmense, pp. 1027-1064-8. fCf. Hutchinson's Durham.
26
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
[Oct.,
If we open the window we look down upon the rushing Wear
far below us ; the jackdaws are sailing on the high wind, as
they sailed in Bishop Pudsey's time when the Galilee was
building. To the right lies the town, above us lies Elvet
Bridge, and below us was the "Old Bridge." Bishop Richard
of Durham made over to the monks the right of fishing be-
tween these two points.
We return to the church for one last peep. What a crowd
of memories come in upon us ! If we shut our eyes for a mo-
ment, we can see the cowled forms of old, we can hear the
sounds of the office chant, we can listen to the notes of " the
three paire of organs," once the cathedral's boast ; but we
open them again and the twentieth century rushes in as we
hear the guide saying : " Yes, sir, that 'ere 's the tomb of the
great 'Atfield." We take one last look at the mighty pillars
which drew from Dr. Johnson the truly Johnsonian remark,
" Rocky solidity and of indeterminate duration," and we feel
"there were giants in those days." How did they rear such a
fabric? How did they keep it in repair? The Register so often
quoted tells us that by order of the bishop the monks had to
pay twelve marks per annum to keep up the cathedral : " in
; WE CAN LISTEN TO THE NOTES OF 'THE THREE PAIRE OF ORGANS.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL.
27
" ADOWN THE STEEP STEPS."
recompensatione laesionis quam Dunolmensis ecclesia patitur
et patietur."*
We pass out into the cloisters, which have been ruined by
restoration. The windows are gone. Those on the east repre-
sented the life and miracles of St. Cuthbert. On the south
side used to be a stone where on Maundy-Thursday every
monk washed the feet of one boy and gave him thirty-three
pence, seven herrings, three loaves, a wafer-cake, and drink.
The prior at the same time did the same kind office to eigh-
teen poor men whose feet he washed and kissed. It is some-
* Registrum, p. 1233. ^
28 THE LULLABY. [Oct.,
what startling in this connection to read in the church-wardens'
account for the year 1694 : " Spent at ye summons of Mr.
Dobson maide for ye returning ye list of our poore, at the
Bishop of Durham's request, who promised to send moneys fn-
to ye parish that the poore might not come to his gates." *
It is time to finish, and we have not half exhausted the
cathedral and its precincts. The chapter-house, the manu-
scripts, the university, all demand a notice, but time and spa*ce
press.
We go down the steep path under the frowning battle-
ments of the castle, which stretches its buttresses all over the
hill. It was once the residence of the bishop, but "tempera
mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis."
" Monastic domes ! . . .
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still ;
Your spirit let me freely drink and live."
Wordsworth, "Ecclesiastical Sketches'*
THE
|HE Poet wandered, mute and slow,
Along his palace, Space,
Till Poesy, beneath the snow
Of Slumber's cozy lace,
Had laid her new-born babe of Thought
When lo, its fleeting smile
Unloosed the seal that Silence wrought
Upon his lips erewhile.
And then the silver palace-star
Outshone the light of day,
As Beauty lingered at the bar
Where Slumber sings her lay.
* Surtees Society : Memorials of St. Giles, Durham, p. 189.
1900.] GLEANINGS FROM " EVANGELINE" 29
GLEANINGS FROM " EVANGELINE."
PIRITUALLY-MINDED persons often find a
rather hard task facing them when they venture
to harmonize the claims of human affection with
those which Divine love possesses. The love of
man for woman or for his fellow-beings in gen-
eral, and the love, the personal and spiritual affection which
the Almighty demands, are seemingly in mutual rivalry. Yet
the genius of our poet Longfellow seized the slender thread
that links the two, and held it captive until it spun out into
that enchanting Tale of Love in Acadie.
And who will say that he was not a genius whose soul
yearned for what is heavenly ? It must have been thus with
him, else he scarcely would have sought for inspiration among
the children of that One, True Church whence the soul of
Poetry has never wandered. His keen insight made him realize
that his own Protestantism was without the genuine spirit of
poesy, and that he would have been dwarfing his genius had
he appealed to his own creed for the inspiration he desired
for his portrayal of the worth of human love. The worth of
that love was ever present to him. He takes it for granted,
in fact, as we may gather from his pleading in the Prelude to
the Tale :
" Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is
patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devo-
tion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung in the pines of the
forest ;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy."
He would tell us of human affection that is brimful of
hope, that knows no weariness, but is all endurance ; that,
while restless with unearthly yearning, is ever sweetened with
unending patience; of woman's devotion, its beauty, its vigor,
its queenly fortitude. And the oftener we read the poem we
feel somehow that the affection portrayed did not cease with
being merely human. We feel rather that it became elevated
30 GLEANINGS FROM "EVANGELINE" [Oct.,
to a higher sphere than that of earth, that Heaven bestowed a
reward for its constancy, that it was, if anything, the natural
branch whereon the spiritual fruit was to be grafted.
Some may wonder, perhaps, if Heaven has bestowed any
reward for such a condition of heart. But there is that en-
nobling scriptural appeal of St. John : " My little children, love
one another, for love is of God." It comes home to us more
forcibly when we remember that he who made it so repeatedly
was in deed and in truth the bosom friend of the Divine Mas-
ter. And it would really seem that St. John was the better
fitted to preach his message of world-embracing love from the
fact that he enjoyed the intimate confidence of his Lord.
And so we take it that Longfellow wished to proclaim the
excellence of affection. Apparently he endeavors to elicit for
it the sanction of Holy Church in the person of Evangeline's
guardian and companion, dear old Father Felician, who was
wont to cheer the maiden with those encouraging words :
" Patience, accomplish thy labor ; accomplish thy work of
affection !
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is god-
like.
Therefore, accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is made
god- like,
Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy of
heaven ! "
/
"Till the heart is made god-like"! was it ever thus made
in her case, or was her affection wasted after all ? Let us see.
There is that picture of her childhood days teeming with
joyousness and sunshine. She and Gabriel, the beloved object
of her later wanderings, were as brother and sister. They
learned their letters, their hymns, and their devotions under
the guidance of Father Felician. They were always together :
at the forge where Gabriel's father labored ; on the sledges in
winter; up among the swallows' nests that hung amid the raf-
ters of the neighboring barns. Thus passed a few swift years,
and they no longer were children.
In due time came their betrothal one evening at the old
farm-house, the abode of Evangeline and her father; then, on
the morning following, the feast in the orchard, where the
friendly peasants made merry and sang the bridal songs of
their native Acadie.
1900.] GLEANINGS FROM " EVANGELINE." 31
But alas for the length of mortal joy ! That same day the
drum-beat of a conquering hand resounded over the meadows
down by the sea. The doom of eternal exile unexampled in
story, the broken-hearted colonists preparing to set sail for
shores unknown, the ruins and ashes of beloved homes, the
service of sorrow, and the burial of the maiden's father in
sight of the departing ships, and Gabriel gone away whither
or for how long was a mystery of mysteries to her, these were
the ill-timed events that ushered in the long, immemorial wan-
dering of Eyangeline. To meet Gabriel again, to share with
him the cares and the delights of home life, and if so be, to
rear up and offer to their Lord, as the fruit of a blessed wed-
lock, a race of sturdy youths and daughters would it indeed
come to pass ?
You know how she haunted the church-yards, and gazed
upon the crosses and tomb-stones, and lingered by many a
nameless grave, wondering whether he might sleep within its
bosom ; how she would utter the sweet yet sad " I cannot,"
when people expostulated : " Dear child, why dreamest and
wait for him longer? Have not others hearts as tender and
true, and spirits as loyal ? " For you will remember that she
was but the fiancee of Gabriel, that merely the ceremony of
espousals had been performed and not the marriage rite, and
that hence she was free to take another if aught occurred to
prevent the reappearance of her beloved. You will recall, too,
the nearness of the meeting when she and her fellow-wan-
derers, sleeping in a boat one night along the Lower Missis-
sippi, were concealed from view by the willows just as Gabriel
and his companions sped northward on their hunting-trip, the
loud splash of their oars not sufficing to awaken the exiles ;
then, her disappointment at finding him departed when she
reached the bayou lands of Louisiana, whither his father had
fled from Acadie ; finally, her profitless search among the
Ozark Mountains, through the Michigan forests, the Moravian
missions and settlements, amid the noisy army-camps and bat-
tle-fields, through secluded hamlets, in towns and populous
cities.
Thus did the long, sad years glide on. Fair was she and
young when in hope began the pilgrimage to the shrine of
her heart ; faded was she and old when, in disappointment, it
ended. She never thought that those years would go while
they were going, and at her journey's end she seemed to
have done nothing at all. Her life, it appeared to her, had
32 GLEANINGS FROM " EVANGELJXE." [Oct.,
scarcely begun. Her days had grown old out of season, com-
pared with what was in her to do ; and, blessed inspiration !
she was driven by a sense of the littleness, the earthliness, the
limited power of even the fire of a woman's affection to look
on to a more spiritual state of life as to a sphere wherein all
that she was capable of might be brought out and become
effective.
The graces begotten of suffering were beginning to blossom
forth amid those streaks of gray upon her forehead. She was
now realizing the value of that chastening of soul produced
by painful trials, the refinement of spirit, the calmness, the
serenity of mind that they forestall and confer. It was given
her to know at last that this world is not a place of rest ;
that when her Lord t and Master had come hither, he chose
merely to sojourn, to pass a little while, and that during the
brief interval he had known no rest had not where to lay his
head.
She took courage, nevertheless, for Christ had overcome
this world of turmoil, had granted unto men the vision of that
abode whither their hearts could find the endless peace of the
elect. And thus it was that the depth of her affection went
out to Christ, and that she knelt to receive his blessing, and
the bridal ring which betokened her spiritual espousals, on the
day she entered the Sisterhood of Mercy. Human love had
become transformed by its blending with the divine. And so,
following meekly the Sacred Feet of her Lord, one Sabbath
morning she enters the plague-stricken almshouse in the City
of Renn. There she had at length found a home and a coun-
try full of sweet reminders of Acadie and Gabriel. His image
haunted her, it stood ever before her, radiant with beauty in
its death-like silence. Through the almshouse gate she passes
on into the garden. Sweet on the June air comes the odor
of the flowers. We watch her gathering the fairest ones, and
see her give them to the dying, that they may once more re-
joice in the rare gifts which God has given the earth.
" Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her
spirit." Something told her : " At length thy trials are ended."
Suddenly she thrilled through and through with an almost life-
rending shudder. With a cry of anguish so piteous that the
dying heard it and arose in wonder, she exclaimed : " Gabriel,
O my beloved ! " But no ; Gabriel, too, is dying ; not even her
name can he whisper. It dies unuttered upon his lips. And
while his head is yet resting upon her bosom, the sweet light
1900.] LOVE'S WITNESS. 33
of life leaves his eyes for ever, and Evangeline closes them
tenderly in death, sighing resignedly, with an adoring angel's
love : " Father, I thank Thee ! "
The poet tells us that they are sleeping side by. side in
their nameless graves in the little Catholic church-yard down
in the heart of the city sleeping unknown and unnoticed. It
remained for him to make immortal the wondrous story of
their mortal love, to write upon the memories of men in
letters of unfading gold the sweetest tale of woman's love
for man, of God's joy in beholding its constancy, of the two-
fold reward bestowed : the woman's consecration of herself for
ever in his service of mercy, and the consoling glances of her
dying Gabriel's eyes.
Her life, it is true, had been a " vexation of spirit." She had
known what it was to possess the power of loving, and the
object of her love was leaving earth for the last time when
she found him. And yet her disappointments served to en-
noble her life. They had cast her soul upon Christ alone, to
find in his infinite love that sense of spiritual satisfaction which
men and the things of earth are powerless to impart. And if
we remember Evangeline at all, it is indeed as the loving,
wandering maiden ; but above all as one who merited the
supernal vocation of a spouse of Christ, as one destined to be
numbered among that host of virgins whose exceeding great
blessing is to " follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth."
LOVE'S WITNESS.
WHO dwellest God in unity of Three,
Oh ! Love divine,
Behold on earth another Trinity,
A type of Thine.
BERT MARTEL.
VOL. LXXII. 3
34 THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES . [Oct.,
THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES FROM FRANCE
AND GERMANY.
BY REV. THOMAS J. SHAHAN, D.D.
has undertaken to deal scientifically
with the external conditions of Catholicism in
the nineteenth century knows how difficult it is
to find statistics that are at once full and re-
liable. Like the Sisters of Charity, the Catholic
Church is often too busy to indulge in the contemplation of
its success. It knows well that the strong organic forces that
it disposes of are working with more or less freedom, and
that they are for ever accomplishing some measure of progress.
They are like the tides and currents of the sea, which cannot
be balked of their appointed functions by any human obstacle
or interference. But since the social sciences have opened up
a new world of endeavor to man, the statistics of every form
of organized humanity have taken on a new value. Hence the
appearance within the last few years of a number of works
destined to show with accuracy the progress of that oldest
and most wide-spread of social organisms the Catholic Church.
As the mediaeval dioceses and abbeys opened annals and chroni-
cles in imitation of the "Liber Pontificalis " of the popes, so
the various national churches of Europe and America have
been imitating certain traditional publications of the Papacy
and improving their ecclesiastical almanacs and " annuaires."
From the pen of Father Werner, S.J., have come several
volumes of ecclesiastical geography that permit the student to
keep abreast of the actual administration of Catholicism. The
Anne"e Eccle'siastique of Egremont and the Annuaire Pontifical
of Battandier are the beginning of works that may furnish the
churchman with the counterpart of the Statesman s Year Book
or the Annual Register. To the Gerarchia Cattolica, that pursues
its stately way, the Roman authorities have been adding the
Missiones Catholicce, a publication appearing at irregular inter-
vals and giving trustworthy official figures of the missions that
depend on the Congregation de Propaganda Fide.' For some
thirty years the Society of the Propagation of the Faith has
been publishing, besides its monthly bulletins and yearly
1900.] FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY. 35
compte-rendus, an illustrated monthly magazine entitled Catho-
lic Missions, in French and German. In addition, one of its
members, Monseigneur Louvet, has given us a valuable sum-
mary of the missionary activity of the Catholic Church in
this century in his extensive work Les Missions Catholiques au
XIX siecle (1898). The Leo Society of Vienna has undertaken
the creation of a voluminous work in German, Die Katholische
Kirc/ie, which is to furnish reliable information concerning the
status of Catholicism throughout the world. The Vatican of
Georges Goyau and others has made known to the non-
religious world a field of spiritual activity that it little sus-
pected. In all such and similar works the truly catholic and
organic character of ecclesiastical unity becomes tangible ; the
results of a powerful spiritual life get themselves expressed in
mathematical formulae; the elements of a stimulating compari-
son are furnished, and to no small extent the hemming bar-
riers of language, nationality, distance are lowered.
On the heels of general and comprehensive works appear
others of a more detailed and local character, some of them
of permanent value, like the Catholiques Allemands of the Abbe
Kannengieser (1893) and the Allemagne Religieuse of Georges
Goyau (1898), works written with tact, criticism, and sympathy,
models of conscientious scrutiny of the religious conditions of
a national church. The Abb Kannengieser, in particular, is a
strenuous Catholic publicist whose graceful and erudite pen is
consecrated to the work of reconciliation of France and Ger-
many on the basis of a better mutual knowledge. He believes,
with Silvio Pellico, that men hate one another only because
they do not know one another. His Reveil d'un Peuple is a
classic description of the way in which German Catholicism
arose from its fatal lethargy; his account of the good Pfarrer
Kneipp has been translated into several languages ; his vigor-
ous handling of the actual impossible conditions in Hungary,
where three million Jews and Calvinists oppress the consciences
of nine million Catholics, shows a more than ordinary sense of
precision and power of condensation.* It was Kannengieser
who revealed the great soul of Ketteler to France, f and made
known the irresistible power that lies in the organization of
the Catholic community for specific purposes of defence or
propaganda.
The phenomenal growth of the German Empire within the
* fuifs et Catholiques en Autriche-Hongrie. Paris, 1895.
t Ketteler et P organisation sociale en Allemagne. Paris, 1894.
36 THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES [Oct.,
last two decades awoke, not unnaturally, the religious forces
of the nation. Imperial colonies opened the way to German
missionaries and sisterhoods. The carefully cultivated good will
of the Sultan ; the dramatic journey of the Kaiser to Jerusa-
lem and his gift of the House of the Blessed Virgin to the
German Catholics ; the vengeance on China for the murder of
two German missionaries ; the reception at Berlin of Bishop
Anzer, have enabled the Protestant Emperor to take on the
character of a Charlemagne, and to emphasize with considera-
ble effect the chief duty of an imperial authority efficient
protection of all the interests of his subjects. So it comes
about that the time-honored protectorate which France has
exercised in the Orient over all Catholic interests is called in
question at Berlin. The dignity 'and independence of the
empire, the malevolence and sectarian spirit of the dominant
politicians in France, the very patriotism of the German clergy,
conspire to further the contention of the Kaiser. Thus France
must see her ancient prestige diminish with the growth of
German Catholic missions in the Orient, notably in Turkey,
Palestine, and China. Once she stood for all the " Latinie " of
Islam and all the interests of Europe in China. The heroism
of her Crusaders and the diplomacy of her kings made the
nation of the " Franks " synonymous with the power and in-
fluence of the entire West. Henceforth Mohammed and Confu-
cius will keep their eyes upon the ancient rival of France ; its
growing wealth, commerce, population, have earned for it a
larger place in the sun. Surely no modern nation that has ac-
cepted the gods of commercialism and industrialism can com-
plain if Germany is skilful enough to evoke them as far as
the Spree and the Pleisse.
Nevertheless, the Holy See has not yet failed to recognize
for France the immemorial right of protection and surveillance
of the interests of Catholicism in the Orient. In spite of the
pitiable warfare carried on since 1880 against vital interests of
the Catholic religion in France ; in spite of the furtherance of
the political designs of Russia in Palestine, the Holy See has
not yet admitted that the French protectorate of Catholicism
in the Orient is the " strange anachronism " that prominent
Catholic organs of Germany proclaim it. On May 22, 1888,
the Congregation of the Propaganda recalled by a formal cir-
cular to its missionaries that the consuls and diplomatic agents
of France were still, as of old, the official intermediaries with
the governors of Oriental society. On his return from the
1900.] FROM .FRANCE AND GERMANY. 37
Eucharistic Congress at Jerusalem, in 1894, Cardinal Lavigerie
obtained from Leo XIII. a decisive declaration in the same
sense. With his usual energy, Lavigerie founded a society " pour
la conservation et defense du protectorat franc.ais," and on
July 20, 1898, the Holy Father wrote him that the Holy See
fully recognized that the French protectorate of Christianity
in the Orient was a glorious heirloom of the past, a noble
mission assured by secular custom, and by international trea-
ties, one which the Holy See had not the slightest intention
of interfering with. Only a year ago Monsignor Lorenzelli, papal
nuncio at Paris, in presenting his letters to the President of
the French Republic (July 22, 1899), seized the occasion to
refer to the " prerogatives " and the " acquired positions " of
Catholic France in the Orient, declared them of growing im-
portance, and assured the government of France that the Holy
See considered these quasi-immemorial rights as a natural con-
sequence of the attachment of the French people to Catholi-
cism, the heroism of their missionaries, and the " heureuses
intuitions du pouvoir politique." On the other hand, the
Emperor of China recognized formally, no later than March,
1899, that the protectorate of Catholicism in China was still
incumbent on France, that only the French minister could
treat officially with the administration. What will become
of this time honored responsibility when the new China is
evolved out of the revolution that is now raging, who can
foretell ?
The latest work of the Abb6 Kannengieser undertakes to
furnish the statistics that confirm beyond a doubt the flatter-
ing words in which Leo XIII. justifies the political prestige
that France has so long enjoyed among the Catholic com-
munities of the Orient.* It is in reality a comparison of the
religious forces that each of these great nations disposes of
in the great province of the foreign missions. En passant, is
not the concern which the statesmen of the world are be-
ginning to show for the foreign missions an index that the
spirit of religion is far from dead or decaying among the
people ; that, with Montesquieu, the popular heart everywhere
recognizes the religion of Christ as infinitely superior to all
others, not only for the welfare of the soul but even for that
of the body? What a light all this throws upon past history;
for the living, real paganism of Greece and Rome was, as a
* Les Missions Catholiques : France et Allemagne. Par A. Kannengieser. Paris:
Lethielleux. 1900.
38 THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES [Oct.,
matter of fact, not a whit more lovable or beneficial than the
ferocious and intractable gentilism of Pekin. Insert Alexandria
and Carthage in the place of the latter capital, and many pages
of Cyprian and Eusebius will be seen to be identical with the
despatches of modern journalism.
The French nation is, indeed, entitled to the protectorate
of Catholicism in the East, for it is everywhere the propaga-
tor and the nurse of that religion. It seems incredible that
7,745 French missionaries, mostly priests, are scattered through
the foreign missions a body that almost equals the entire
Catholic clergy of the United States in the last census. They
are everywhere, in Turkey and China, in farther Asia and in
Africa, in Madagascar and in Egypt, in Palestine and Persia,
wherever the name of Christ is preached. From one hundred
to one hundred and twenty orders and congregations are de-
voted to this sublime task. Sixty of these societies count,
each, over a thousand members. What an army of reserve !
And how justly Brunetiere said lately at Besan9on that outside
of France the interests of the nation were identical with those
of Catholicism ! That overflow of men which France never
gave for the development of the material world she willingly
grants to extend the limits of the " kingdom of heaven." Who
can count the labors and the merits of this vast host, the
churches and chapels, from the splendid basilica at Tunis to
the palm-hut chapel of Madagascar ; the schools and academies,
from the superb institution at Beyrouth to the schools for
catechists in Japan ! This new apostolate pursues everywhere
fanaticism, ignorance, and human suffering, in those Oriental
lands so long neglected by the politicians of Europe and
America, only to be drowned in blood when the cruel passion
of avarice was taught that they were at last too weak to de-
fend their ancient wealth and power !
M. Kannengieser has gathered for the first time, and al-
most entirely at first hand, the statistics of these numerous
missionary bodies of French Catholicism. The reader will find
in his pages a detailed account of the organization of the
French missions; the correct name of each order, congrega-
tion, society, or brotherhood ; the number of its houses or
enterprises, a brief account of its origin and purpose,
the sum total of its missionaries. The Society for Foreign
Missions at Paris (Socie"te" des Missions Etrangeres) rightly opens
this glorious catalogue of martyr es designati with its 1,200 priests,
nearly all laboring in India, Indo-China, China, Japan, Corea,
1900.] FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY. 39
and Thibet. Founded in 1663, long before the thought of
foreign missions had entered the heart of Protestantism, this
noble institution has sent more than 2,000 priests to the Orient
since 1840. 77 martyrs are written on its Golden Book, and
of these 26 were executed by formal sentence for the crime
of being Christians. Yet it counts to-day 340 young clerics in
the famous S6minaire de la Rue du Bac at Paris. They will
take the place of those whom the whirlwind of pagan revolu-
tion in China has lately destroyed. The society has 28 great
provinces, and 33 archbishops and bishops. Are not these
figures enough to prove the vigorous survival of religion in
France? Here is the material for some writer of genius who
will write us a Catholic work after the style of the " Peuple "
of Michelet, and show of what marvellous generosity the great
heart of France is still capable. These missionaries are sel-
dom " born in the purple." They are the plain men of France.
But they know how to labor, to love, and to die for the high-
est goods of humanity the soul, the future, their neighbor.
And the race that produces them must one day return to its
high pedestal among the nations of the earth.
The Society of Jesus keeps 750 French Jesuits in the field
of the Oriental missions. Its services at Constantinople, in
Siam, and in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centur-
ies are among the brightest gems in its crown of merit ; but
they are not superior to the deeds of sacrifice daily performed
by this army of apostles in China, Japan, Syria, Asia Minor,
Egypt, and South Africa. Their colleges at Beyrouth, Cairo,
and Alexandria are famous in the Orient. In Syria they
possess some 180 schools, and train over 13,000 children
a greater victory than that of Napoleon over the Mame-
lukes, a more permanent glory than the famous campaign of
Syria.
The French Lazarists extend their activity from Constanti-
nople to Pekin, from Egypt to the depths of China. The
Sisters of Charity and the Christian Brothers follow In their
wake, and teach, with Catholicism, the French language to a
countless army of children of the poorer and middle classes.
The Lazarists have excellent colleges at Constantinople, Smyrna,
and Alexandria. They are numerous in South America, where
they have between 60 and 70 establishments, with at least
100 priests. For further details of this apostolic zeal of
France we refer our readers to the work of the Abb6 Kan-
nengieser.
4O THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES [Oct.,
The Catholic women of France have not been less generous
in self-sacrifice ; indeed, they have surpassed the missionaries.
There were in January of this year 9,150 French Sisters at-
tached to the Catholic missions in Asia Minor, China, India,
and Africa. Prominent among them are the Sisters of Charity
(Filles de St. Vincent de Paul). They keep no statistics of
themselves or their works, for the edification or curiosity of
the public, preferring to let their good deeds go on unnoticed,
like the sun or the sea. It is calculated that the French
Sisters of Charity are in number about 33,000 an army of
angels who do not need the plaudits of a Whittier, a Gerald
Griffin, or a Dalton Williams to encourage them in their sub-
lime calling. Bravery and devotion are their atmosphere, the
love of all humankind their ordinary motive-power, exhaustion
and death their common reward. Every age, every misery,
every abandonment, every suffering, finds in them gentle hearts
to compassionate, strong and willing hands to soothe and heal.
They have on the Oriental foreign missions 83 establishments,
not to speak of the numerous sisters of French nationality in
the South American houses. In all there are about 1,500
French Sisters of Charity engaged in the work of the missions.
The French Sisters of St. Joseph de Cluny number about
4,000. They are the creation of that strong woman 1 , Anne-
Marie Javouhey, who dared to face the barricades of Paris in
1848, and was known as "la plus remarquable figure de la
colonisation franaise au dix-neuvieme siecle " because of
her labors in all the French colonies. There are about 1,200
sisters of the foundation of " Mere Javouhey," the prop of
their native land as well as Catholicism.
Catholic Germany has no such figures to show. Indeed, it
would be unjust to ask them. United Germany is a new
creation. The colonial life of the Fatherland is yet embryonic.
The Catholic pDpulation of Germany is not more than 19,000,-
ooo.* The wealth, prestige, and political power are largely in
the hands of Protestants. The dominant state, Prussia, can-
not be accused of any serious leaning toward Catholicism.
Heresy and indifference are for ever gnawing at the vitals
of the Catholic communities of the empire, by reason of
mixed marriages and the strong pressure that a bureaucratic
state exercises in favor of Acatholicism in the land of the
" Paritat." Catholic Germany sends 1,100 missionaries to the
* From these figures Kannengieser excepts the Catholic population of Alsace-Lorraine
(1,230,792;, since it furnishes missionaries and religious women to both nations.
1900.] FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY. 41
whitening harvests, and 364 religious women. The missions
cared for by the German Jesuits are those of Bombay in India,
of Brazil (Rio Grande), and of the Zambesi in Southern Africa.
They number 489 fathers, scholastics, and brothers.*
The Society " du Verbe Divin " at Steyl, in Holland, founded
in 1875 by an exiled German priest, Arnold Janssen, has 117
missionaries in Argentina, Africa, Brazil, and Oceania. Within
a decade the Peres du Saint Esprit, the Peres Blancs of
Cardinal Lavigerie, the Oblats de Marie, the Missionaires du
Sacr Cceur, whose seats are at Paris, have opened separate
novitiates in Germany. These original French enterprises extend
thereby their activity throughout the German colonial posses-
sions.
The figures of the parent stock from which this multitude
of brave and holy men and women is drawn are not uninter-
esting. There are 36,847 religious of both sexes in the Ger-
man Empire (inclusive of Alsace-Lorraine, which contributes
about 4,000). Of these 32,731 are religious women, and 4,116
are men.f It is calculated that the members of the religious
orders and congregations in France number, inclusive of postu-
lants and novices, about 200,0004
One would think that domestic persecution, instead of thin-
ning the ranks of the orders and congregations, was multiply-
ing them. In 1879 the " Foreign Missions " had only 480 mem-
bers, they are now about 1,200; the " Filles de la Sagesse "
were 3,600, they are now 4,650 ; the Sisters of St. Joseph of
Cluny were 2,067, they are now 4,650 ; the Petits Freres de
Marie were 3,600, they are now 4,850. In spite of the tyran-
nous and iniquitous fiscal spoliation that really holds the knife
at the throat of all these communities, they have thriven, for
the spirit of sacrifice and charity is apparently immortal on the
* In this number Kannengieser includes the 78 fathers, 68 scholastics, and 77 brothers
of such institutions as Canisius College, Buffalo ; St. Ignatius' College, Cleveland ; Sacred
Heart College, Prairie du Chien, etc. These are not missionanes in the sense of the Oriental
or African missionaries. To some extent the same is true of the Jesuit missionaries in Brazil,
where they look after the religious interests of the German colonists, grown quite numerous.
t These figures are taken from Kannengieser's summary of the second " fascicule " of
Die Katholische Kirche, published by the Leo-Gesellschaft at Vienna. Cf., also, Kloster-
Schematismus fuer das deutsche Reich u. Oesterreich-Ungarn (Paderborn, 1899, 3d ed.), with
the criticisms of Kannengieser (pp. 13-23).
t The chief authority for the status of the religious orders of France is Emile Keller, Les
Congregations religieuses en France, leurs oeuvres et leurs services (Paris, Poussielgue, 1880).
The figures of this voluminous book (pp. liv.-758) have been corrected to date by the personal
researches of M. Kannengieser. According to the annual almanac of the French clergy (Le
Clergi Franfais, Annuaire Ecclesiastique, zSqo) there are in France 681 religious congrega-
tions, 131 of men and 550 of women.
42 THE CA T HO LIC MISSIONARIES [Oct.,
soil of France.* Neither Voltaire, nor Renan, nor Constans,
nor Paul Bert have been able to extinguish the stout old Gallic
spirit of faith. The figures of this article justify yet the old
Crusader- cry : " Gesta Dei per Francos."
When we consider the budget of this wonderful French
work of the foreign missions we are still more astonished. In
1898 the Lyons Society of the Propagation of the Faith collected
6,700921 francs. Of this sum 37,000,000 of French Catholics
gave 4,077,085 francs, while the 49,000,000 Catholics of Italy and
Spain gave only 430,692 francs. Since 1822 the Lyons Society
has collected, mostly in France, and spent entirely abroad and
without distinction of the nationality of its prote'ge's, over forty
million dollars, while the kindred " Work of the Holy Infancy "
has collected and spent some twenty million dollars, more than
one-half of which came from France. In the fifty years of its
existence the Bonifatius Verein of Catholic Germany has col-
lected for internal missions the handsome sum of $6,200,000.
In the same period Catholic France has spent on the basilica
of the Sacred Heart at Montmartre $6,800,000; on Our Lady
of Fourvieres (Lyons) $2,400,000; on the basilica of Lourdes
$3,000,000. Her five Catholic pro-universities have cost her
$8,000,000, while yearly nearly one million dollars are spent on
the Catholic " free schools " of Paris, in protest against an
iniquitous school legislation. Since the " lois sce'le'rates " the
Catholics of Northern France have spent $8,000,000 on their
primary schools.
Clearly, if figures speak the truth, France remains yet the
" heart of oak " of Catholicism a land of Catholic conviction,
good will, and generosity. Kannengieser may rightly conclude
that " in spite of malevolence and calumny France remains one
of the essential elements of Catholicism not because of her
numbers (for Austria-Hungary has almost as large a Catholic
population, and Germany and Austria combined have a larger
one), but because France is first in all that pertains to the ex-
pansion of Catholicism, because all the great Catholic works of
this century are the fruit of her heart and her brain, because
if she disappeared from the scene there would be made at
*The following words of Taine are instructive : " Whoever is concerned for the public
welfare and for justice must impose a halt in presence of such institutions (the monastic). All
the more, as it is useless to persecute them. It is in vain that the rude hand of the law-
maker is raised to crush ; they will flourish again, since they lie in the very blood of every
Catholic nation. Instead of 37,000 religious women of France at the outbreak of the
Revolution, there are now 86,000; /'. ., forty-five out of every ten thousand Frenchwomen,
as against twenty-eight in the last century " (La Revolution frattfatse, v. i. pp. 218 sqq.)
1900.]
FROM FRANCE AND GERMANY.
43
once a void in the Christian world the mere imagination of
which makes one shudder."
The missions of Catholicism have been always our pride,
but we too often forget that they are almost entirely the
creation of the Church of France. Her sons and daughters
founded them, bedewed them with their sweat and blood, spent
themselves on them. Her citizens have been the principal con-
tributors to the work, notably in this century. The total of the
genuine army of salvation that labors on the foreign missions
of Catholicism is about 60,000 men and women, priests and
brothers. Most of the 12,000 Catholic missionaries are French-
men ; a still greater share of the 44,000 Catholic Sisters of the
missions comes from the " sweet land of France." Her laymen
have gone by thousands as working brothers, humble servants,
masons, carpenters, in any capacity, so as to aid in the good
work. Only the construction of the mighty cathedrals of the
Middle Ages, only the Crusades, only the development of our
American Catholicism, ever called forth such devotion. It is,
perhaps, the most architectonic manifestation of the great notes
of unity, catholicity, sanctity, and apostolicity by which the
true church is known.
Catholic University, Washington, D. C.
44 THE AMERICAN MAIL. [Oct.,
THE AMERICAN MAIL
BY KATHARINE ROCHE.
;ES, Stephen's wife is very pretty ; she is nice too,
and Val and I are very fond of her. But for us,
you know, she might never have married Stephen.
You never heard that story? Well, I will tell
it to you ; but you must not repeat it, for Val
and I would not like it talked about, you see.
Stephen first met Effie three years ago Effie Van Dessen
she was then ; she is an American. She , and her father were
over, seeing the old country. Not that it is their old country,
for of course they were Dutch originally ; oldest inhabitants of
New York, and that sort of thing. It was in Dublin that they
met. Val and I were at school at the time, so I don't know
much of the course of events ; but I know that Stephen came
home to Kildonnel very much in love, but without having
asked Effie to marry him. Old Van Dessen was a millionaire,
and perhaps that many times over, so Stephen was afraid to speak
up, and was very bad with a broken heart in consequence, and
a great nuisance to his family. Val and I decided that it
would be better to get him married and done for, and then,
perhaps, he would fall out of love again and be good for
something. (Our hopes on this point have not been realized,
but that 's no matter.) So we made up our minds to help him
we had met Effie two or three times when Stephen had had
us out for a day, and we approved of her but we did not
exactly know how to set about it. However, we had to make
up our minds pretty quick in the end, and this was how it
happened.
One Saturday morning, near the end of the summer holi-
days, Stephen got a letter the mere sight of which turned him
sky-blue and scarlet, and which he put into his pocket unread.
We knew who it was from, of course, and we were very much
interested, and very nice to Stephen ; and in the course of the
day he told us all about it. The letter was to say that old
Van had gpt a cablegram which obliged him to go right back
to New York, and that they were going down by the Ameri-
can Mail on Sunday morning so as to catch the Cunard steamer
1900.] THE AMERICAN MAIL. 45
Algeria in Queenstown. There must have been something in
the letter about wishing to see Stephen ; any way, his one idea
was to go to Dublin that evening, so as to travel down with
them on Sunday and see them on board. He was to go by a
train that stopped at our station about nine in the evening,
and when the time came he and I set off in the polo cart.
But as luck would have it, something went wrong with one of
the wheels ; it came off, and there we were landed in the
middle of the road, unable to go a step farther, and the train
due in five minutes at a station nearly a mile off.
Stephen jumped out and ran, taking his bag in his hand
and calling out :
"I '11 send some one up from the station to help you."
So there I sat, on the ruins of the cart, after I had taken
out the horse and tied him to a gate. At the end of the five
minutes I heard the train go by, sharp on time, so I knew that
Stephen had not caught it ; and presently he came back, look-
ing so wretched that I had not the heart to laugh. He did
not say a word, but began to help me with the cart, which we
pushed into a field where we knew it would be safe till morn-
ing, and then we led the horse home.
When we got to the house Stephen went straight upstairs,
and Val and I went into the drawing-room and told Alice
what had happened. She was very sorry ; she knew more
about Effie even than we did, I think ; and she took out the
railway time-table to see if there was any possible way in
which Stephen could get to Dublin in time. But there was
not ; the only train which arrived in time was the night mail,
which, of course, was an express.
"If we could only stop the night mail," said I.
" You might as well stop the American Mail to-morrow
morning while you are about it," said Val, " and save him the
journey to Dublin."
" If we only could. O Val ! what fun it would be."
V We could stop them right enough ; they would n't dare
to pass a red flag. But it would be no use ; they 'd be so
mad that they would n't let Stephen into the train at all."
" That 's true. There 's no use in thinking any more about
it. Stephen must only do without seeing Effie Van Dessen
this time."
" After all," said Val, " there are plenty of girls just as nice
as Effie."
" Shut up ! " said I. " You don't understand. When a
46 THE AMERICAN MAIL. [Oct.
man is in love, if he can't get the right girl his heart breaks,
and he turns into an old bachelor, crusty and selfish. I would n't
like that to happen to Stephen. Besides, if he does not marry,
the Dalys of Kildonnel will die out ; for, of course, neither
you nor I would ever be such fools as to have girls tied
to us."
" I would n't mind Stephen's having a girl tied to him," said
Val "at least, not if the girl was as nice as Effie. Suppos-
ing Alice were to marry, it would be nice to have Effie living
here. Come, Hugh, isn't it time to go to bed?"
"All right," said I, but I hadn't any intention of going to
bed yet awhile ; an idea had come into my head and I meant
to try and carry it out. So I waited until Val had had time
to be in bed and asleep, and then I went up to Stephen's
room. He was n't in bed, of course, but standing at the open
window, looking out at the line of telegraph posts that marked
the railway, and thinking, I suppose, of what might have been.
"Stephen," I said, "wouldn't it be a sort of a comfort to
your mind just to see the American Mail go by in the morn-
ing? Effie might be looking out of the window, you know."
" Of course," said Stephen gloomily ; " I intend going."
" All right," said I. " Val and I will come with you.
We'd like to see the last of Effie too."
" No, no," said Stephen crossly. " I don't want a pair of
jeering cubs at my heels."
" Jeering cubs ! " The words cut me to the heart, but I
answered calmly.
" That won't do," I said. " We are quite as fond of Effie
as you are, and we won't be deprived of the consolation of a
last glimpse of her. How can you be such a dog-in-the-manger,
Stephen ? "
"Well, well! You can come if you like. It does n't -much
matter. Be off now, any way."
I was off, and went back to my own room, where I found
Val fast asleep. I woke him up and took him into my con-
fidence, and then I kicked off my boots and lay down in my
clothes, first placing my alarm-clock, set for four o'clock, on a
chair by my side.
Two minutes after, apparently, it went off with a screech.
I jumped up to see what the matter was, and there was the
daylight shining in. I woke Val, and a hard job it was, and
we stole out by the kitchen door and went down to the rail-
way line.
" VAL AND I RAN DOWN THE TRACK TO FLAG THE ON-COMING TRAIN.
48 THE AMERICAN MAIL. [Oct.,
We did not take any special care to complete our wardrobe.
It was early dawn and we intended after the train had gone
by to go back to our beds. When we reached the track we
had some time to spare. We thought it more convenient to
walk down the track a little to a place where we knew the ex-
press trains were accustomed to slow up. It was at this place
we would seize our opportunity to have a look at Effie and
possibly a word with her. We hastened down the track. We
had not gone far before we noticed something was wrong. Some
of the rails had been loosened by some agency or other, either by
the train that had passed some hours ago or by some band of rob-
bers with intent to wreck the " Mail " and seize the rich plunder
in the agent's care. The full significance of the situation came
to us in a flash. In fifteen minutes the " Mail " would be due.
The engineer with his keen eyes would probably see the danger
ahead, for it was broad daylight, and he would slow up any-
how before reaching this point. Anyhow the train might pass
along safely. But then the other alternative flashed on us.
Suppose he should not see the loosened rails ; suppose he
should be behind time, and rush on without stopping. To us the
thought was dreadful, and in an instant I knew what I would
do. I seized a pole I found lying close by the track, and
taking the red neckerchief that I had tied about my throat, I
fastened it to the pole, and together Val and I ran down the
track to flag the on-coming train. We had not gone far be-
fore we saw a puff of steam in the distance. The train was on
time. We ran on, holding up the red flag as high as possible
and waving it vigorously. The train came rushing on appar-
ently without any slowing down. The train seemed very close
to me, but I stood my ground. They saw me presently and
whistled, first an ordinary whistle and then an unearthly yell.
Then the steam was shut off. The train was so close to me
by this time that I thought it would never be able to stop
soon enough and I tried to move to one side, but I seemed to
be paralyzed. However they have powerful brakes, and after
what seemed to me an interminable time, the train was pulled
up, a few feet from me, and the guard was shaking me and
asking how I dared to stop his train.
I recovered myself then and told him about the loosened
rails, as I called them, and his anger was diverted from me to
the danger that had possibly been averted. He and a couple
of passengers went down the line to investigate. For our main
purpose, which was to see Effie, nothing could have been
1900.] THE AMERICAN MAIL. 49
more favorable. The train was sure to be held here for some
minutes until the rail could be replaced, so I set out to make
the best use of my time. The train was a short one, with
only two passenger carriages in addition to the mail vans,
for they only carry first-class passengers by that train. It
seemed very crowded ; some of the men climbed down to the
line, and the ladies, most of them looking very sleepy, put
their heads out of the windows. Sure enough there was Effie
among them, and there was Stephen jumping over the fence
to get at her. As the guard's back was turned, we allowed him
to scramble up the side of the carriage and get into the Van
Dessens' compartment.
1 believe he thought that Providence had stopped the train
on purpose to let him go to Queenstown with Effie Van
Dessen. I wondered if he had money enough to pay his fare.
I had brought all mine and Val' with me, and I had put
Stephen's purse into his pocket while he was dressing, but I
did n't know how much was in it. If he had even enough to
pay his fare he could borrow some in Cork, but it would be
awkward if he had not enough for that. In fact it might be
awkward even if he had. Just as I was thinking about this who
should I see but a barrister chap, called Jem Hayes, a friend
of Stephen's, who had been staying with us at Easter. I went
up to him and caught him by the sleeve.
"Halloo, Hugh!" he said. "Are you the hero who has
saved all our lives?"
"Yes," said I. "What brings you here? Are you going
to America ? "
" No such luck," said he. " I 'm going to the Cork assizes."
" Do the Cork assizes begin at nine o'clock of a Sunday
morning ? "
"They don't begin till to-morrow at eleven," he said, as if
I had really been asking for information ; " but an old friend
of mine has a house in Queenstown for the summer, and I am
going to spend the day with him."
"Oh, Mr. Hayes! if you are not really obliged to go to
Queenstown to day, will you give your ticket to Stephen ? He
wants to go with Effie Van Dessen, and the trap broke down
last night, so that he missed the train ; but now that the Mail
has stopped he could go if he had a ticket."
" It was providential that the train stopped," said Mr.
Hayes, looking hard at me. " And suppose I do give my
ticket to Stephen, what is to become of me ? "
VOL. LXXIT. 4
50 THE AMERICAN MAIL. [Oct.,
" You can spend the day with us and go on by the even-
Ing train."
" But I promised O'Brien."
" You can go to him another day. Come with us now ; the
governor will be delighted to see you."
"And so will Alice," said Val, who came up at that moment.
Val is sharper than he looks. It never once occurred to me
that there was anything up between Hayes and Alice until I saw
how he veered about the moment he found that she was at home.
"Well," said he, "if your people won't think it an in-
trusion "
" No, no ; they '11 be delighted. Here, give me the ticket."
And I almost snatched it from him as he took it out of his
purse. " Good luck to you ; you are making a deserving pair
happy." And I scrambled up into the carriage where Stephen
was sitting next to Effie, beaming in the most absurd manner.
"Here," said I, handing him the ticket; "and here, in case
you should be short. And be grateful to Providence for stop-
ping the train for you."
It was magnanimous of me to give all the credit to Provi-
dence, but I wanted Stephen to be innocent of the knowledge
for the present. He took the ticket out of my hand as if it
was quite natural that I should have been able to get it on a
desolate stretch of railway line, two miles from any station. -
"Thanks," said he. "Tell Alice that I'll be back to-
morrow. Don't you know Miss Van Dessen, Hugh?"
" Of course he does," said Effie, holding out her hand. I
don't think she gave all the credit to Providence. But if she
did not look quite so idiotic as Stephen, she looked pleased
enough to make me glad I had helped them.
' Here 's the guard coming back. Good-by, Miss Van
Dessen. A pleasant voyage. Good-by, sir," to old Van, won-
dering at the same time what relation he was going to be to
Val and me, and I jumped down.
The guard was very polite by this time, saying that I had
saved the train ; which was nonsense, for of course the engineer
would have seen the broken rails in time to stop ; but I an-
swered most graciously that I was glad I had happened to be
there, but that any one else would have done the same in the
circumstances.
And then the guard hunted the passengers into their places,
I waved my cap to Miss Van Dessen, and the train went on.
Alice at home had missed her three worthy brothers very soon
1900.]
THE AMERICAN MAIL.
"ALICE HAD STOLEN OUT TO SCOUT AROUND THE PLACE."
after our departure, and had stolen out to
scout around the place in order to get some
clue to our mysterious disappearance.
Val had with great presence" of mind taken Jem Hayes
away as soon as I had secured his ticket, and when I got
home I found them having coffee in the dining room. I had
some, too goodness knows I wanted it ; and then we took
him out and amused him till breakfast time.
The governor and Alice were very much surprised to see the
barrister when they came down to breakfast ; but the governor
is always hospitable, and we soon found what a blessing it was
to have some one who could tell., the story from the right
point of view. That 's the good of those barristers ; they can
keep on looking at a thing from any point of view they please.
If Mr. Hayes had any suspicions, as I was afraid at first he
had, he did not let them out, but spoke of the presence of
mind and readiness of resource that was true, anyway that
I had shown, until the governor "hoped that I would turn
52 THE AMERICAN MAIL. [Oct.,
out good for something after all " ; and Alice looked at me as
if I had saved the country.
Mr. Hayes had a very pleasant day ; and so, I think, had
Alice ; and in the evening we put him into a quiet train of a
placid disposition, which never fussed or over-exerted itself,
but which was sure to bring him into Cork in good time for
the assizes next morning.
The next day there were paragraphs in all the papers
about the courage and presence of mind shown by the sons
of Mr. Daly, of Kildonnel, and much bad language about the
miscreants who had tried to wreck the train. Val and I were
savage about it, but the governor was delighted, and Alice
cut them out and stuck them into a book, which was acci-
dentally burned some time after.
Stephen came home on the Tuesday, in such good spirits
that we hardly knew him. He told us in confidence that it
was all right between him "and Effie, and that he was going
out to New York in the spring to be married. Her father
had been very good about it, he said. His big signet ring
was gone, but he had a little 'one, stuck with pearls, hanging
to his watch-chain. It had not yet dawned on him that we had
had anything to do with stopping the train, but he was grateful
to us for getting him his ticket and backing him up generally.
In a few days there came a letter to me from the secre*
tary of the railway company expressing the "thanks of the
directors for my prompt and courageous action in the case of
the American Mail," and enclosing a perpetual free ticket over
all the company's roads. For one moment after I read that
letter I was in heaven. I really was so proud of my perform-
ance that I forgot that the railway directors had no very
great reason to be grateful to me.
" Look, look, Val ! " I shouted, thrusting the letter into his
hand. " Oh, I wish you had one too ! "
" But you can't keep it," said Val quietly. " Don't you see?
They think you saved their train, whereas in all probability it
would have stopped anyhow. You can't possibly keep that
ticket, Hugh."
Of course Val's theory was probably correct, but it was
hard to be obliged to refuse such a thing.
However, the following Wednesday, Board-day, I went up
to Kingsbridge. I had made Alice give me cake and sand-
wiches, so as to make her think I was going for a long bicycle
ride, and I used my free ticket for the first and last time.
1900.] THE AMERICAN MAIL. 53
When I gave my name to the officials, one of them took me
to the board-room without making any difficulty.
I felt more frightened when I found myself sitting at the
long table opposite to the chairman than I did when I faced
the American Mail, but they were very polite at first.
"I am very much obliged to you for the free ticket, sir," I
said to the chairman, " but I can't take it."
" Cannot take it," said he. " Why not ? You deserve it if
ever any one did."
" I don't deserve it, sir. The engineer would surely have
seen the danger anyway. Moreover nothing could have been
more providential for us than the stopping of the train just
then and there ; and even if there were no danger, we had a
scheme to stop the Mail anyhow as it slowed up. My brother
was extremely anxious to go to Queenstown with some friends,
who were leaving by the Algeria. He intended to go to Dublin
the evening before so as to catch the Mail at Kingsbridge, but
the trap broke down and he lost the train at Arduff."
" How did you happen to be on the spot at the time, then?"
"We came down to the track in the hope of seeing our
friends at the window as the train passed."
"Who were your friends?"
" Mr. Van Dessen, of New York."
I could see that the name made an impression. The direc-
tors were most of them business men, and they could appre-
ciate old Van's dollars.
" Mr. Van Dessen is a great man in his own line," said the
chairman, " but I should not have thought him likely to inspire
such romantic devotion."
Two or three of the others laughed. I think they guessed.
The chairman went on : " Well, Mr. Hugh Daly, much as I
respect Mr. Van Dessen, I cannot admit that a desire for the
pleasure of his company is a sufficient reason for stopping the
American Mail. That is an offence which cannot be allowed
to go unpunished. Mr. Hare, will you take this boy into your
office while we decide on our action in the matter."
The secretary took me by the arm and led me out of the
board-room and across the passage into a small office. Putting
me into a big arm-chair by the window, he sat down at his
desk, put his chin on his hands and looked at me. It made
me feel queer to be stared at like that, but I did not want
the fellow to see that I minded it, so I sat as quiet as I could
and wondered if Jem Hayes would defend me at my trial.
54
THE AMERICAN MAIL.
[Oct.,
" ONE OF THOSE BARRISTER CHAPS.''
After some time an electric bell sounded ; the secretary caught
hold of me by the collar this time and we went back into
the board-room.
There the chairman talked to me for an hour or so about
the iniquity of stopping trains at all, and particularly those on
the Great Southern and Western line, and how they could get
me put in jail, and make the governor pay damages for the
inconvenience I had caused. That frightened me more than
the jail, I can tell you. However, in the end I found that
they were not going to do either this time ; because of their
great respect for the governor, and also because they would
never have known anything about my intention if I had not
told them myself.
" What made you tell ? " one of them asked.
"Because of the free ticket you sent me. I couldn't keep
that; and then I was not going to tell lies when you ques-
tioned me."
Then they said I should promise never, in any circum-
1900.] THE AMERICAN MAIL. 55
stances short of life and death, to stop a train in Ireland
again. I promised ; it was not likely that I would ever want
to do it again; and I had to listen to another lecture on the
kindness of the board, and then I was told I might go.
"Will you give me a pass home, sir?" I said to the chair-
man. "I haven't money enough to pay my fare."
"How dig! you come up?"
" On the ticket you sent me " ; and I could hardly keep
the choke out of my voice as I said it.
The chairman nodded to the secretary, who left the room
and came back in a minute or two with the printed form, filled
up with writing in his hand.
" Good-by ; remember me to your father," said the chair-
man ; as if I were likely to talk the matter over with the
governor! And then I got out of the room somehow, and
went down to the platform, where I met an engine-driver that
I knew, and I talked to him till my train started.
Stephen went to New York in the spring to be married ;
he took me with him to be best man, and I had a high old
time of it. He knew all by that time. He wanted to take
Val, too, but the governor said one of us was enough. But
we had a wedding of our own at Kildonnel first : Alice and
Jem Hayes.
I tried to make them admit that I had had a hand in their
marriage too ; but some people have no gratitude. Stephen
and EfEe show much nicer feeling on that point, and recog-
nize their benefactor. My nephew is called after me. Oh ! of
course, the governor's name is Hugh also, but it is after me
the little chap is called. I think he is going to be a credit
to the name.
CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT, LL.D., PKESIDENT OF HARVARD ,UNIVERSITY.
PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS AT TREMONT
TEMPLE.
BY REV. GEORGE McDERMOT, C.S.P.
UR attention has been directed to an address
pronounced some time ago by the President of
Harvard University to the American Unitarian
Association. We regret that it was delivered ;
we think it unfortunate that a man in the
speaker's position and with his responsibilities should have
given expression to the views put forward by him ; we think
it lamentable that the representatives of a very considerable
religious influence should be an approving audience of the
views stated in that address.
There was an incident in connection with his appearance
there which pleased and interested us. It was a practical
i goo.] PRESIDENT ELIOT' s ADDRESS. 57.
refutation of the philosophy to which Dr. Eliot was to give
voice, in presence of the association, when his son, as head of
that important body, introduced him to the meeting. We
heartily congratulate the distinguished father and the distin-
guished son on an event so graceful ; we have to go to Catho-
lic sources almost exclusively for a parallel to the sympathy
and union exhibited in the incident. In the monuments of
art and letters the Catholic son piously acknowledged what,
under God. and next to Our Lady, he owed to parental care
in the shaping of his career. When at Tremont Temple the
father stood, for the moment, under the patronage of his son,
there must have been one of those impulses of feeling which
compensate for much that frets even the most favored lives.
The " love and freedom " which the President of Harvard
takes as the distinguishing characteristics of the coming time
takes as the leading tokens of the religion of science, or, as
others call it, the religion of humanity, do not account for the
incident and the exquisite pleasure it afforded to the actors
and the spectators. If the religion of science were in posses-
sion, if it went down into the depths of society, soothed the
sorrowful, lifted despair from the defeated life, and shed
charity on the heart poisoned by envy or embittered by the
thought of sordid poverty, then it might claim it had borne a
message of love and freedom. But as long as it only utters
its encouragements or consolations to audiences resting in the
ease of wealth, accustomed to the refining and luxurious charm
of marbles, paintings, flowers, breathing the delicate atmos-
phere of choice essences, enjoying the graceful indolence of
polite literature and the recreative labor of scientific specula-
tion, the religion of science, if it do not unchain furious pas-
sions to overthrow society at the moment, will surely pave the
way for its destruction in the future.
This prospect is what Dr. Eliot gives in certain principles
he has enunciated. It is strange, when he saw his son, and
felt at the sight the pleasure which only a parent can feel
when he saw his son, we say, in a position so creditable and
in a relation to himself so unusual and delightful, it is strange
it did not occur to him that his theory of unrelated succes-
sions in the history of mankind could not account for the
position and explain the feeling of pride and triumph he must
have experienced in that moment. To us it was a moral and
intellectual consequence of the activities of six thousand years
transmitted through their ancestors frcm Adam to the two
gentlemen in Tremont Temple. The family is a unit, as it
58 PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. [Oct.,
was when the home constituted the university, when the father
was king under an authority above expediency, and priest
when religion was not a seventh-day posturing, and morality
was not the eclecticism of interests or whims. The President
of Harvard and the President of the American Unitarian As-
sociation were drawn towards each other by moral relations
cultivated in the earliest home, born in home after home in the
march of their fathers from the cradle of the race, on over the
face of Europe, on over the broad Atlantic, and under the vic i 's-
situdes of American life. These affinities of soul, recognized
with varying degrees of intelligence from pole to pole, and com-
manded by the revelation of God to be guarded with the phy-
sical ties by which they are united, the President of Harvard re-
fines down into an essence which he labels " the sense of kin.*'
This term, which is intended to stand for religion, morality,
all that comes within the super-animal life of man, is an
equivalent for what the psycho moralists of social solidarity
style " the instinct of kind." Social solidarity, the scientific
suggestion of new politico-social ventures, vague indeed whtn
employed by Dr. Eliot, refers everything to the sense of kin,,
the basis and the cement of society, as society itself is the
copartnership of Dives and Lazarus. It is true he recognizes
the rags, the sores, the hunger of the one partner, but the
system becomes a solidarity whenever and that is now
Lazarus demands a share of the good things from Dives, in-
stead of waiting for a reward in Abraham's bosom. The sense
of kin ! the instinct of kind ! this hypothesis of the religion of
science in lieu of the charity of Christ! in lieu of the moral
principles on which the nations of the world stand, and the life
of intercourse, of mutual help depends! That is to say, on which
the only life possible to man depends, because he is a creature
to whom society is essential. Now, for this being, drawn by
moral forces into union with his brethren, Dr. Eliot, with the
ethico psycho-physiologists, would forge the chain of " instinct
of kind," "sense of kin"; in other words, the "instinct," the
" sense " which draws the wolf to each fellow of the pack. We
misrepresent the school, it may be said. But the difference,
if any, between the tie which links sheep to the flock and
wolves to the pack has not been pointed out. The thinkers
of biological sociology rely on the economy of the bees, the
ants, the beavers, to prove the social sense in these and in a
man a matter of degree. Why not the social sense of wolves ?
We are only pushing this principle of " sense of kin " home ;
we are not misrepresenting any class of scientific speculators.
1900.] PRESIDENT ELIOI'S ADDRESS. 59
Notwithstanding his " social solidarity," the wolf has remained
unpopular; there is no sympathy with him. Yet he has "a
sense of kin," and a very decided one too, for he objects to
the confusion of close animal affinities as much as though he
had a sense of moral affinities.
Even the title, " Progressive Modern Liberalism," presents
a difficulty. If it were selected by the honest fellow who-
reports Dr. Eliot, we would not object, because a wide and
comprehensive heading can hardly be said to be altogether
wrong. Something spoken will have come under it, and so the
reporter deserves his honorarium ; but the President of Har-
vard is at the head of one of the greatest universities in the
world ; we look for exactness from him. Progressive liberalism
alone might mean anything in thought, reform of institutions,,
the art of poetry, or criticism from the days of Babylonian
state papers on brick until our own day ; it might mean any-
thing, in fact. The word " modern " only limits the meaning
in sound ; for although Dr. Eliot's school denies the authority
of the past and refuses to take anything on " transmission,""
" hearsay," " tradition," it is all the time busy with the past.
But as we look over the address we find political institutions
have no accredited place ; so French Liberals and English
Whigs are out of court. Broadly, what he conveys by it is
the rejection of authority in religion, in morals, and in "jus-
tice " ; or possibly he meant jurisprudence for we find him
confounding infallibility with inspiration, and possibly he may
confound the science of law with that part of justice which is
expressed in enactments and precedents.
Of this last there can hardly be much question. We regret
to write about him in a way which seems discourteous ; but
let it be remembered that a great deal of the controversy, nay,,
the jarring of the world, is due to the inexact use of terms,
just as many honest but animated differences dividing men are
owing to the point of view. In illustration of his position, that
authority had gone by the board, he passed from the considera-
tion of divine justice to that of human justice, and mentioned
that many jurists confessed their inability to say what even
human justice meant. It is hardly fair of Dr. Eliot to advance
a statement which, while verbally true, is absolutely misleading;
we use no stronger term.
Human justice, as within the scope of the jurist, is practi-
cally covered by tort and contract. In -your active relations-
with a man you may be said to be limited to an agreement of
some kind with him, or the doing of some wrong to him..
60 PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. [Oct.,
From this it is very clear that in a civilized state you have
expressed a wide range of justice. Now, it happens that any
contract for which a consideration has passed may be enforced ;
and any wrong to an individual which is at the same time in-
jurious to society may be punished. We are guardedly narrow
in our statements in order to escape objections which our space
would not permit us to dispose of, but in what we have said we
have practically secured Dr. Eliot in person and property against
his neighbors, and his neighbors against him; and though posi-
tive law may not be coincident with the Golden Rule, it ex-
tends very close to the frontier of that magnificent aphorism.
We should be glad to know whether the Golden Rule con-
veys to the speaker anything but a gilded sentence. That posi-
tive law does not quite cover the ground is owing to difficul-
ties which jurists and moralists recognize ; but the inability to
frame enactments to meet every kind of injustice is simply in
superable, but that does not release men from the obligations
of morality. Lazarus, who seems to be a favorite of Dr. Eliot's
we are afraid an ad captandum favorite is, in our opinion,
entitled to relief from Dives; the only thing wanted is to com-
pel the latter to relieve him. It is possible that the paternal
legislation which the speaker fairly enough vindicates against
doctrinaire criticism, but on utterly mistaken grounds, would
meet many difficulties in the life of Lazarus not the beggar
but the worker which the policy of the law has not yet recog-
nized as coming within the scope of practical enactment. This,
however, so far from proving the point that we cannot know
what human justice means, rather tends to prove the contrary.
Whatever the jurists in question meant, the truth is, no
legislation, no foresight, in the very imperfect condition of
mankind in this world of probation, can anticipate all possible
cases of injustice. Cruelties are practised for which no law
could be devised, and which form a large part of the misery of
life. The proud man's contumely, the insolence of office, and
so on, whatever of suffering patient merit takes, whatever bends
the weak beneath the strong, the scoff which chills the gaiety
of childhood, are evils which no law of parliaments can reach.
To relegate these things to the future of humanity, when the
millennium of sociology dawns, is to abandon the central point
of his address ; but this is what Dr. Eliot has really done in
his hypothesis of the curative effect of improved surroundings.
We do not deny the importance of these as an aid to moral influ-
ences, but we object to them as the substitute for morality. Are
there no tyrannies, no injustices in wealthy homes, no incompati-
1900.] PRESIDENT ELIOT' s ADDRESS. 61
bilities of temper, striking at the life of the state itself in their ten-
dency to break up the exemplary element of society the family?
The address not only points to the disintegration of Prot-
estantism as a controlling influence, but to the failure of Chris-
tianity as an elevating power. Yet surely Christianity intro-
duced ideas and motives to which the world owes all its pro-
gress since the establishment of the Roman Empire. The
grandeur of the Augustan reign was the beginning of deca-
dence, or disruption, or of cycles of Cathay. Even Gibbon ad-
mits this. The worst he can say against Christianity is that it
was one of the causes hastening the decline, not even a cause
of the decline. Even though it were a cause of the decline of
that state, this would be no ground for condemnation if it im-
parted a new principle of life to a dying world. Now, this is
exactly what it has done. Rome fell, not through Christianity
but inherent principles of dissolution, while Christianity saved
mankind by the new vigor and the order it infused into the
conflicting elements.
In this address not only is the divinity of the Lord ex-
punged from the record, but His honesty as a man, His integ-
rity as a teacher, is seriously impeached. It is to be supposed
that the hearers of an address on progressive modern liberal-
ism were not prepared for this latter part of the result. It is
probable Dr. Eliot would not admit this consequence in so
many words. But what will be the effect when a prelection
treats of intellectual and moral progress on lines independent
of authority ? The Divine Life is simply looked at as if it were
contained in ancient documents which saw the light for the
first time to day, and not as the foundation of a world-wide
system which has existed for centuries, and of which it has
been the constant centre and inspiration.
The truth of the New Testament miracles cannot be got rid
of by saying the advancement of knowledge shows that many
things accounted miracles can be explained by natural causes ;
still less by the fact that we cannot assign causes for the sim-
plest phenomena we observe. The modesty which Dr. Eliot
claims as the striking feature of modern inquiry should go a
step beyond the color of a flower, or the varying shades of
leaves of the same flower, to the supernatural facts he so
lightly dismisses as incredible because he cannot account for
them by the knowledge he possesses. It is idle to talk of the
pathos of the Lord's suffering, the elevation of His morality, and
the influence which the beauty of His character must for ever ex-
ercise, when the speaker simply rates Him as an impostor. Even
62 PRESIDENT ELIOT' s ADDRESS. (.Oct.,
if we are confined to the New Testament record, we must take
the whole record, the Lord's own testimony to His divinity,
that of others, the facts of His Birth, Resurrection, and Ascen-
sion. Either the whole is an unexampled fabrication, or the
whole is true. Dr. Eliot would not speak of the Lord as an
impostor we are very sure, but He was that or He is God. The
question was largely debated through the civilized world be-
fore, at, and even after the Council of Nicaea ; debated, if not
in the form it now assumes, certainly on considerations tend-
ing to this form. That circumstance has at least this value :
it shows that within a space of time comparatively near His
own day our Lord was a real character of more than human im-
portance in the eyes of all civilized men, friend and foe alike.
He was by no means the abstraction into which He is refined
in the alembic.of Dr. Eliot's critical imagination. He is no longer
above all men, immeasurably above all men, as He was then, in
fortitude and courage ; He seems to the speaker as though He
were a quasi-poetical conception of sorrow, gentleness, weakness,
inconsistency; and the estimate of nineteen centuries is folly.
We are obliged to pass from this aspect of the prelection
an examination of it would be in the highest degree valuable
for such Protestants as are still loyal to the revelation of God,
and to all Catholics tempted by the curiosity of "the liberal
spirit " to see the foundations of supernatural religion laid
bare, if not altogether removed but we would require more
space than can be afforded. In a word, we may say that if
the Lord were merely a man, He was simply mad in standing
up against the established religion of His country, with the vast
wealth and traditional strength that made it humanly impreg-
nable. The measure of its prestige and power can hardly be
conceived ; we can but faintly suggest it by the massive force
of the English Church before " Brummagem " statesmanship
and the polities of company-promoting turned England to the
idolatry of Carthage. The weight of the English Establish-
ment pressed on the heart and mind of the outsider that is,
the Baptist, the Presbyterian, the Dissenter generally as some-
thing overwhelming. He might rave against the parson, as his
political ally inveighed against the squire as the personification
of the landed interest, but he felt that he gnashed his teeth in
vain. Yet in comparison to the iron rule of the Jewish Church
the strength of the English Establishment was as a reed.
To overthrow an institution of unbounded wealth and an
influence to which all kinds of motive and all kinds of interest
contributed, the selection of a few ignorant peasants, timid as
1900.] PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. 63
their class has been at all times in the presence of knowledge
and power, would be simply unaccountable on any ordinary
hypothesis save that the Lord was an imbecile. Read into this
the doctrine of the forgiveness of injuries, His holding aloof
from the governing classes, His refusal to avail Himself of
the enthusiasm of the masses, which at one time waited on
His will, and walking to His death like a sheep to the slaughter.
It was a character changeable as the wind, and compact of
qualities never united in the same individual in any such
degree. A mere man possessing in the highest degree qualities
absolutely antagonistic, while he declares a mission searching
and revolutionary beyond anything ever dreamt of by Roman
agitators or conceived by Greek philosophers and tyrannicides, and
to the promotion of which He brought these reciprocally destruc-
tive qualities, strikes one as the creation of an unregulated fancy.
We have " the Man who Laughs," we have the monster of Mrs.
Shelley each a remarkable creation but the Christ of Dr.
Eliot, despite the appeal to the pathetic story, we commit to
the category of those narratives which the parish priest of
Don Quixote gave to the flames.
But when we know it was God that came to send fire upon
the earth, to bring the sword and to set families at war in their
own bosom, and that all this proceeded from a heart the ful-
ness of whose love for man cannot be measured, we under-
stand the Galilean peasants, the fearless resistance to the rulers,
the protecting hand over the outcast or the weak, the victory
of the ignominious death. This was how the world at Nicaea
as of the preceding centuries still vibrating with the events,
viewed the Lord's character. From its presence the pru-
dence of Socrates, the high philosophy of Plato, the infinitely
.practical genius of Aristotle, the speculations of the schools,
had gone like the talk of childhood. As the tale was re-
peated with more precision to persons who already possessed
some outline of the facts to senators sick of a life which was
as death, to philosophers tired of the emptiness of words, to
matrons living in a loveless void, maidens hanging on the edge
of the gulf as their relaxing hands clung passionately to higher
and purer memories the Man of Sorrows stood before them
all, laid hold of heart and fancy, body and soul, as He does to-
day under the law and order of Britain, or amid the fury of
Chinese massacres.
And now we ask, can it be disputed that all modern society,
in its highest aspirations and its characteristic graces, its
manners, its unselfish principles, its accomplishments, the small
64 PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. [Oct.,
charities and the great by which civilized men are marked off
from the savage or the slave can it be disputed that this
modern civilization rests on the Christian dispensation ? The
love which Dr. Eliot tells us is to be the bond of the future, the
chord responding to progressive liberty, the cement of society,
the hope and the triumph of Lazarus this is what he would
convey when he speaks of the beggar lying unrelieved at the
rich man's gate ; this love is in reality the keystone of the
Christian arch. It will not be deepened and widened by
calling it "instinct of kind," "sense of kin." Indeed, we are
reminded of the sharp contrast suggested in the employment
of these words " kin " and " kind " by Hamlet, reminded of
what the experience of the world tells us, that the " kin " or
the "kind" has been violating natural and revealed laws since
man had a brother, the father an heir waiting in expectancy, the
wife or husband desires outside the home which ought to be
consecrated by their children's presence.
No, it was the deprecated motive of salvation which gave to
the words kin or kind the most human, because most humane,
meaning that is, the Christian acceptation. The reward of
eternal union with God in heaven, which Dr. Eliot condemns
as the inspiration of a selfish spirit of good will to others, has
been always the sufficing, can alone be the sufficing power to
prompt men not merely to sacrifice themselves for others, but
to be barely just to them. We have read a good deal of this
kind of thing, partly with amusement, partly with contempt ;
but we speak distinctly, we must speak distinctly, when we
find a man with the responsibilities of the President of Harvard
preferring a mere name for this is what altruism is to the
imperial law of charity, which by the commands of Christ clings
to each one's life, as the religion itself clings to it. If we can-
not escape from what we owe to God, if our indebtedness
begins with the moment when our eyes open to the cares
coming with the day, sits with us at the desk, in the mill, in tlie
senate, at the bar ; so does this law of charity preside over
each moment of our lives. This was the force which trans-
formed the world every one knows it ; the ergastulum of the
Roman slave-owner brightened in its presence as the prison to-
day is made lightsome when the priest or the Sister of Charity
brings something more than the hysterical or emotional rotun-
dities of parsonical or blue-stocking declamation. Why should
we be asked to yield up this love of our neighbor for the sake
of the Lord Christ because Auguste Comte took the idea that
sociology could replace Christianity, and Socinus's followers
1900.] PRESIDENT ELIOT' s ADDRESS. 65
went farther than the wildest Arians infuriated by disappointed
ambition and defeated hate ? What security can these give us
for the exchange? They promise us the elevation of the race
through our self-sacrifice, our self-effacement now. But we do
not see our own advantage in that; we say, with the unprinci-
pled Irishman, Posterity has not done anything for us ; and
then what security have we for the elevation of the race ?
Comte's prediction ? Dr. Eliot's promise ? As Falstaff's tailor
says, " We like not the security."
In very truth Dr. Eliot makes his security of no value by
declaring that progress hitherto had been made by " a succession
of sudden, spasmodic, and unconnected shocks." If we concede
this, he rightly infers we have no part in the past from this posi-
tion ; but then, we ask, what part have we in the future ? What
security have we that the next generation will not be divided
from us by a cataclysm so wide that there could be no possible
inheritance of our good qualities and the merits of our deeds of
sacrifice and altruistic self extinction. The President's view, that
there will be no more shocks because the entire past has been
a succession of shocks, does not sound quite convincing ; we
should be inclined to draw quite the opposite conclusion. We
are afraid we must still hold that there is a continuity in the
life of the race, proving its origin from God, its preservation by
Him, and its destiny a union with Him for ever. We think this a
very reasonable view ; we are satisfied to do good to others be-
cause it pleases our best Friend, the Friend of whose goodness
to us we are unable to say a word. We simply ask, What right
has Dr. Eliot to require Lazarus, in one breath, to observe the
obligations he owes to law and order, if he have nothing to
give him except the gratification of what people call the great
correcting principle of altruism ? It will not do. He is more
healthy, in a way, when he says that Lazarus will insist on his
share of the good things, and not allow himself to be put off
by promises of rectification in a future life. If Dr. Eliot
believed there was such a life that is to say, in a real sense
he would take it as a compensation for all. Because he will
not allow the sufficiency of the readjustment for any disappoint-
ment or tribulation here, we are compelled to think he does
not believe in another world except in some way more shadowy,
dim, and unsatisfying than the beliefs in those regions of the
ancient world to which no special revelation had gone.
We sincerely regret to have to say this ; we are very sure
Dr. Eliot is a most amiable and excellent man, as well as a
VOL. LXXII. 5
66 PRESIDENT ELIOT'S ADDRESS. [Oct.,
man of high attainment. But we find nothing to anchor our
opinion in throughout the whole address. Certainly it speaks
the language of modern science, as a particular view of rela-
tions in physical and social phenomena and a particular method
of criticism on historical and religious monuments are called;
but this language, like the terminology of clubs and drawing,
rooms, merely means that one belongs to a set, is free of the
guild. We fear it partakes too much of the character of
mutual admiration societies to afford guidance in solving the
profound and appalling problems which have been standing
before mankind since it started on its career. We fear more:
that if this pronouncement of Dr. Eliot represents the general
opinion of the leisured and the cultivated classes, there is a
near breaking up of the law and order which insure him the
advantages he enjoys, while Lazarus is lying at the gate or
fretting out his heart in sordid and harsh surroundings. The
cry has taken form before our time. We read of it in old
Rome: To the Coelian Hill! We read of it in French cities:
Up with the barricades ! We read it in the passionate verse
of Heine: Now for a spell of hatred! Turning the world of
men into an African forest and this is what the cry portends,
what the implications of Dr. Eliot lead to is not the way to
secure the progress of the race. We are as anxious for that
as he is. We see that an improvement of immense degree
accompanied the early spread of Christianity, an improvement
so vast as to resemble a new creation. The principles and
motives so powerful then have been equally efficacious since;
they are holding the states together now by their influence on
individual conduct. There is much which shocks the under-
standing and the heart wars, fraudulent monopolies, the op-
pressive powers of capital but these evils have not their origin
in the teaching of the Lord ; they are in direct antagonism to
His commands and the example of His life. But when they
exercise their baleful influence despite the restraints of Chris-
tian morality, we are very sure that the removal of all such
restraints, so far from leading to the perfection dreamt of by
the apostles of the Religion of Humanity, would land the
world in an anarchy of horror in comparison with which the
excesses of revolutions at their worst would be a crowning
mercy. The civilization which Christianity wrought has, in
addition to other things, infused perceptions which Dr. Eliot
sees very clearly, and which would make the revolted Lazarus
a man-eater more insatiable than the tyrant he overthrew.
i poo.] THE HONOR OF SHAUN MA LI A. 67
THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALIA.
BY JOHN A. FOOTE.
fl
|!F the terrible periods of starvation that swept
over Ireland, beginning in the year 1845, the
famine of '48 will -be remembered as the most
destructive and devastating. While the suffering
in the congested districts of the larger cities was
wide-spread, yet, to counterbalance this, there was in these
places an organized system of relief conducted along both
public and private lines. It was in the small hamlets and
among the isolated tenant-farmers that the famine wreaked the
greatest havoc, for among those people there were no philan-
thropists to give aid.
The cabin of Shaun Malia was situated on a barren tract
of land, in the mountain region, some twenty-five miles north-
west of Cork. There he lived with his wife and child for the
five years that had ensued since the death of Captain Sander-
son. This death marked an epoch in Shaun's hitherto unevent-
ful life ; for the old captain, and his ancestors for generations
back, had been lords of the broad domain that surrounded
Sanderson Manor. A typical country " squire " of that period,
the captain was a heavy drinker, an ardent sportsman, and a
poor business man. His estates were so heavily encumbered at
his death that his son despaired of reclaiming them, and con-
sequently they passed into other hands.
With the passing of the old family Shaun lost his position
as gardener, for the manor house was boarded up after the sale
and the Sanderson family moved away. Many a time after-
wards, while tilling the soil of his stony farm on the mountain-
side, he sighed for the good old days of the easy-going cap-
tain. It was hard work, the markets were far away, and
rent-day came with certainty whether the crop proved good
or bad.
It had been a weary enough struggle since the first famine
year to keep starvation away ; but now, with the failure of the
potato crop through the blight, the end seemed very near.
For awhile they managed to subsist on the half-decayed pota-
toes that they dug from the ground ; but Shaun knew that this
68 THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALIA. [Oct.,
was almost as bad as starvation, and that they must soon be
made ill by the decaying vegetables.
Even this source of food was nearly exhausted when little
five-year-old Mary fell ill. The first day of her sickness Shaun
sat by her bedside, motionless, a despairing glare in his eyes,
and his pale, bearded face haggard with both mental and
physical anguish. Maggie, his wife, with a wistful smile on
her wan face, sought to comfort him with words of hope as
the night wore on ; but in the gray hours of dawn, when she
thought that he was sleeping, she softly stole out of the cabin.
When he followed her/ he found her leaning against the window-
ledge, sobbing as if her heart would break.
"Come, Maggie, machree" he said; "sure it'll do ye no
good to be actin' this way. I was thinkin* uv a plan just whin
ye wint out, an' whin the daylight comes I '11 thry it."
Drying her eyes confusedly, she allowed him to lead her
back to the dwelling while he eagerly unfolded his plan.
" A good many years ago," he said, " I had a chance to do
a favor fur a great an' good man- a priest now he is, in the
City of Cork. At the time he told me if I ever needed a frind
to write to him. Maybe he 's forgotten me, but it '11 do no
harrum to thry an* see. So, whin the daylight breaks, I '11 walk
to the village, an' although God knows it '11 go aginst me to
do it I '11 beg the price uv the paper an' postage, an' write to
him."
"It's a long way to the village a good eight miles," she
said, dubiously; "an' ye 're not sthrong."
" Yes," he answered wearily, as he sat on the side of the
bed where the sick child lay tossing uneasily, " it 's a long way,
but it 's our last chance. We must thry and save her."
With the first glint of the rising sun he made ready to de-
part, and he kissed the child before leaving. Maggie followed
him to the door and laid her hand on his coat sleeve with a
pathetic little gesture :
"Are ye sure ye have the strength, Shaun?" she said.
"Ye know Pat Murray, the ould man, started for the village
two days ago, an', an' "
Shaun looked at her curiously as he noticed her hesitation.
"I know what ye mane," he said. "They found him along
the road yesterday. But don't worry. I 'm sthrong, an' I '11
be back to-night, with the help of God. Good-by!" She
stood at the door, crumpling her worn apron in her hands,
and watched him until he was swallowed up in the hazy mist
1900.] THE HONOR OF SHAUN MA LI A. 69
of the dawn that covered the valley and made the landscape a
nebulous blur. A cry from the sick child drew her into the
cabin. She smoothed the little sufferer's tangled auburn locks
and moistened her fevered lips with water. Then, taking her
in her arms, she crooned a soothing air until the child slept.
It was night when Shaun returned, dragging his feet after
him as if they were weighted. He stumbled toward the bed,
and lay on it with a long-drawn sigh of weariness, closing his
eyes that he might the more thoroughly enjoy the sense of
rest that came to him. Maggie came close to him with evi-
dent anxiety to hear the result of his errand. After awhile
he opened his eyes and spoke :
" I sint the letter on the first mail. I met Squire Bagley
him that used to visit at Sanderson's and I tould him that I
wanted sixpence to post a letter. He gave me a shillin', an' I
bought this for her."
He pointed with his thumb towards little Mary, and Maggie
noticed for the first time that he held a package in his hand.
She opened the parcel and found a sixpenny loaf of dark
bread, and then she broke some of the loaf into water, treasur-
ing the crumbs as if they were gold. Before feeding the mix-
ture to the child she offered some to Shaun ; but he would not
eat any, and turned to gnaw the sodden potatoes that were on
the rude table.
Another day dawned with no change in the situation. To-
wards evening a gale began to blow, followed by a cold, pelt-
ing rain a hint of the approaching winter. Here and there
the rain dripped through holes in the worn thatch, and fell in
monotonous splashes into little pools on the earthen floor of
the hut. The scanty nourishment that had been given to little
Mary seemed to have served no purpose but to feed the fever
that was consuming her, for after nightfall she commenced to
rave violently. Towards midnight the air grew very chilly, and
Shaun put a fresh piece of turf, of which he had a plentiful
supply, on the smouldering embers in the huge stone fireplace.
The wind wailed dismally down the chimney, and, as if in
answer to an unexpressed thought, Shaun shook his head de-
jectedly, saying : " No, there 's no use thinkin' that anny one
would vinture out to-night."
A few minutes later there was a contradiction to his speech
in a guarded knock that came to the door. Shaun and Maggie
both rose to their feet and listened. The knock was repeated.
" It 's the answer to me letter," said Shaun, trembling with
70 THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALI A. [Oct.,
agitation as he started toward the door to unbar it. A tall,
heavily-cloaked man in riding costume stepped in, in the wake
of a gust of wind-driven rain and dead leaves. He shook the
rain from his hat, and took in the outlines of the room as best
he could by the turf light, his eyes at last resting on Shaun.
"You are Shaun Malia ? " His voice, proportioned to his
physique, was deep and resonant.
" I am," said Shaun. The stranger walked over to the
door, and after peering out for an instant, set the bar in
place. Then he continued :
" You wrote to a certain priest in Cork asking for assist-
ance. He was on the point of sending you some money when
I came to him, a fugitive from justice on account of a political
offence. My needs were urgent, immediate ; I had to leave
for America. I knew that I could not take shipping from Cork,
so I decided to ride through these mountains on horseback to
Limerick and sail from there. He gave me the money that was
intended for you, and he told me that I might take refuge
with you to-night, and tell you that he would send you relief
as soon as he could within two or three days at the longest."
Shaun reeled as if he had been struck. " Two or three
days!" he muttered weakly, clutching at the doorpost for
support. "Two or three days! " Lurid fires of anger burned in
his sunken eyes, and grasping the stranger roughly by the coat
lapel he drew him over to the bedside of the sick child :
" Will death wait two or three days ? Can ye tell me that,
you that was so ready takin' what was hers to save yerself ?
Oh! but ye 're a brave man to come an' tell me."
"Shaun! Shaun!" cried Maggie, clutching his arm in
alarm, "don't be talkin' like that. The priest had a right to
do as he plazed with his money, for 'twas not ours. An' sure
he knew best annyhow. Don't be abusin' the man that comes
to our door for shelter."
The stranger, surprised at Shaun's outburst, remained silent,
gazing with an expression of sympathy at little Mary, who
tossed and muttered in the throes of her fever. Then, when
Maggie hesitated, he began, speaking slowly :
"I'm very sorry. Of course I did not know that things
were as they are' or I would not have taken the money. But
it is not yet too late, and if you will accept "
" No, no ! " said Shaun. " Don't mind what I said. I'm not
right in me mind, I guess, since she took sick. Maggie is
right, for the money did n't belong to me."
1900.] THE HONOR OF SHAUN MA LI A. 71
" Hark ! " said the stranger, and he stole over to the single
window and peered out into the darkness. Commanding silence
by a gesture of his hand, he listened intently for a few mo-
ments and then came back to the group at the bedside. He
spoke without any evidence of excitement :
"It is as I suspected; my trail has been discovered and I
have been pursued. There is a company of soldiers down
there in the roadway ; even now they are surrounding the
house. Of course I cannot escape, so, my friend, you can free
yourself of blame for harboring me and save your child's life
by giving me up to the soldiers. There is a reward offered
for me; if I am captured in here it may go hard with you."
Shaun stood for an instant, dazed with the sudden turn
events had taken.
" If ye can't escape," he said, his eyes vacantly following the
outlines of the one room of the cabin, "an' it'll mane life to
her, I but, O God! help me; I can't be a thraitor!" He
said this with a sudden energy, as if he feared that the tempta-
tion might prove too strong for him.
"Quick! Decide!" said the stranger. "I hear footsteps
outside."
Shaun, not answering, ran across the room to the chimney.
There was a loud hammering at the door and a voice
shouted: "Open, in the queen's name!"
" Come on," whispered Shaun ; " there 's a way to escape.
Off with yer cloak an* up the chimney. It 's wide enough to
hould ye, an' it's built rough inside, so ye can climb. Go
to the top an' stay there until the soldiers lave. Maybe they
won't find your horse."
"But " said the stranger, making ready to talk.
" Hurry," said Shaun, stripping off the stranger's cloak and
throwing it under the bed. "In with ye now an' up; an' may
Heaven speed ye!"
The stranger disappeared from view in the yawning black
hole above the fireplace, and an occasional chip of plaster fall-
ing told of his progress upward. The hammering at the door
redoubled ; and Shaun, quickly removing his coat to make be-
lieve that he had just risen, withdrew the bar and let the
searching party enter. Two officers came first, followed by a
file of soldiers.
" Well," said the elder officer, " you seem to be mighty
hard sleepers here ; it took you a long time to open that
door."
72 THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALTA. [Oct.,
" I ax yer pardon, sirs," said Shaun. " We have sickness
here an' I 'm not overly nimble meself."
" We are in search of an escaped criminal, accused of
several treasonable acts against her Majesty's government,"
said the officer. " We have every reason to believe that you
are harboring such a person, in defiance of the law. But be-
fore searching the premises I will inform you that a reward
of fifty pounds is offered for information that will lead to this
man's apprehension."
Maggie sat by the bedside soothing the sick child. The
little sufferer began to call her father's name in a piteous tone
of voice, and x he hurried to her and kissed her, whispering
terms of endearment in her ear.
" Well, what do you say to my proposition ? You need the
money ; your child requires attention ; we will capture him
anyhow.'
Shaun sat at the head of the bed staring at the wall with
a strange, blanched face. \
" I need the money an' she needs it," he repeated absently,
fingering the bedclothes. Maggie looked at his face and be-
came frightened at its expression.
" Shaun ! Shaun ! " she cried. He buried his face in his
arms, and a half-smothered sob was heard. The soldiers looked
on curiously.
Suddenly Shaun rose to his feet, and shouted hoarsely :
" Search the place ; don't tempt me anny more ; I can't tell
ye annything! "
It took but a few minutes to examine the hut. The cloak
worn by the fugitive, still wet with rain, was taken from
under the bed. Shaun looked on with a stolid face. Prepara-
tions were then begun to start a roaring fire in the fireplace,
so as to smoke the fugitive out if, as they suspected, he had
taken refuge in the chimney. Suddenly several shots were
heard, and a soldier ran in, saluting the commanding officer,
and said :
" Sir, a man on horseback has just ridden through our lines
on the roadway below. We fired on him, but did not succeed
in wounding him."
" Curse the luck ! " said the officer ; " we shall never find
him now among these mountain roads. But to your saddles
and after him; we must do our best."
Then he addressed himself to Shaun, saying: "The finding
of the criminal's cloak here in your dwelling looks bad for
1900.] THE HONOR OF SHAUN MA LI A. 73
you, my man ; but in view of your unfortunate condition, and
the consistent, though in this case reprehensible, sense of
honor you have manifested, I have decided to overlook your
part in to-night's business."
In a few minutes the cabin was cleared of its unwelcome
visitors ; and Shaun and Maggie, uttering prayers for the
escape of the unfortunate they had harbored, sat down to await
the coming of daylight. But weakness, coupled with the excit-
ing events of the night, proved too much for them, and after
awhile both slept.
Sunlight was streaming in through the window when Shaun
awoke, and outside a blackbird was lustily warbling his last
song before flying to the south. The sound of strange voices
blended with the song of the bird, and Shaun, throwing open
the door, looked out. Two gentlemen were coming up the
path from the roadway. One of them was a stranger to
Shaun; but in the other, a gray-haired, kindly-faced man in
clerical garb, he recognized his friend of long ago the man to
whom all Ireland turned in the dread years of famine Rever-
end Theobald Mathew.
" Thank God ! Thank God ! " was alP that he could utter
as the priest came towards him and grasped his hand.
" I was afraid that you had forgotten me, until you sint
word last night," he managed to say at last.
" No, indeed, Shaun," said the priest ; " I have often
thought of you, and often prayed for you, since that time
when we met in Cork."
Turning to his companion, then he said :
" Dr. Burnham, this is Shaun Malia, of whom you have
heard me speak. He was a gardener in Cork when I was a
young priest there, and one day I asked him to do some
work on the grave of a dear friend of mine, Father O'Neil.
I was away for over a year, and when I returned I learned,
quite by accident, that he had cared for the grave all of
that time. And he thought that I might have forgotten
him!"
Father Mathew laughed a merry, contagious laugh it was;
and the doctor said :
" Father Mathew does not forget friends In a hurry ; he
only makes them in a hurry."
"Won't ye step inside?" said Shaun. The two visitors
entered, and the doctor made an examination of little Mary
while Father Mathew learned from Shaun and his wife of the
74 THE HONOR OF SHAUN MALIA. [Oct.,
escape of the mysterious fugitive. Then, the doctor having
finished his diagnosis, they awaited his decision.
" It is a condition of malarial fever brought about by im-
proper food and exposure," said the medical man, " and there
need be no fear of an unfavorable prognosis if she receives
proper treatment and nourishment."
" That 's the point," said the priest. " Now, Shaun, I have
made arrangements with Dr. Burnham to have your little girl
taken care of at his hospital until she is entirely well. The
doctor needs a hostler and a gardener, so, if you can come to
terms with him, the position is yours."
Father Mathew, smiling expectantly, looked from Shaun to
his wife. The little woman, overcome with joy, buried her
face in her apron and sobbed hysterically; while Shaun, with a
lump in his throat and his heart beating as if it would burst,
could only say :
" God bless you ! It 's more than I desarve."
One afternoon in the early autumn, about a year after these
events took place, Shaun was trimming the hedge in front of
Dr. Burnham's lawn when one of the servants handed him a
letter. It was addressed in a bold hand and bore an American
post-mark. A thought of the fugitive he had harbored and
saved a year before came to Shaun's mind.
"It must be from him," he said; "now I'll find out his
name."
He eagerly tore the envelope open and found enclosed two
slips of paper. One of them was a draft for $100; and on the
other, written in the same bold handwriting, were the words:
" A birthday present to the little girl, from one who has
had reason to kno<v and appreciate the honor of Shaun Malia."
1900.] AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 75
AUTHORITY IN RELIGION.
BY RICHARD E. DAY, LITT.D.
.HE difficulties that encompass man as a spiritual
being are those of a finite mind occupied with
infinite concerns. If man were released from
the infinite in the forms which it assumes to
his reason and conscience, the problem of his
existence would no longer appeal to him. The questions of
his origin and his end derive their interest and charm not, as
the physicist often supposes, from his structural and functional
affinities with the animal kingdom, but from his conscious ob-
ligations to a Being of absolute might and perfection. Even
physical science derives its dignity from the moral character
of man.
A BENEVOLENT POWER MUST SUPPLY FOR THE DEFICIENCIES
OF PHILOSOPHY.
Man's subjection to a spiritual order and a Divine disposer
is not more evident to him than his unfitness to trace his defi-
nite and practical relations to that order and its Architect by
the light of nature. The history of philosophy and natural re-
ligion is the history of a pursuit, more or less sincere, directed
to that end, and never issuing in certainty or unanimity. The
tragedy of philosophy is the moral impulse goading humanity
to the discovery of religious truth, and the darkness in which
that object is lodged. The explanation of man's position most
consistent with the government of the world by a benevolent
Power is that the knowledge suited to his needs is offered for
his apprehension by other means than philosophical inquiry.
One is led to suppose that a body of teachings bearing on
the spiritual constitution and duties of men must have been
directly delivered at an early period to the human race ; and
such a body of teachings is found in the Holy Scriptures, and
in the apparent relics of a primitive Revelation preserved by
the ancient nations. I assume that the Jewish system and the
Christian are, as they purport to be, partly supernatural in
substance, merely premising that no one has ever regarded
them as products of philosophy in any accepted use of the
76 AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [Oct.,
term, and we adopt without discussion the intimations of science
as well as of theology, that the oldest traditions of mankind
contain memorials of its primary spiritual experiences.
AUTHORITATIVE TEACHING NECESSARY FOR CERTAINTY.
It follows inevitably from the nature of Revelation that it
must be accepted by the majority of men, if at all, on other
than philosophic grounds. The close relation subsisting be-
tween revealed religion and the moral sentiments indicates the
dependence of the former on an internal instinct for its vindi-
cation ; while the objective character of supernatural Revela-
tion implies its connection with external authority. The
internal and the external witness alike make their final appeal
to faith, by which moral probability is raised to practical
certainty. Emerson's dictum, " The faith that stands on au-
thority is not faith," has doubtless formed the opinion of
many, but it is a curious error. The most perfect type of
faith is the trust exercised by a young child, and his faith is
always supported by authority. It reposes on the word and
character of another. To Emerson faith signified immediate
knowledge of God. Such knowledge exists ; recognition of it
is not confined to Transcendentalists. But it is not faith.
Many look upon authority as something independent of rea-
son, forgetting that in the family, the school, the market-place
and the court of law, as well as in the temple, authority is
the chief medium between truth and the mind . of man.
Authority is but another name for evidence evidence clothed
with personality. A revelation from God is received on the
evidence of the prophets through whom it is delivered, and,
after them, on that of societies or books that preserve the
divine utterances. Thus evidence comes to be embodied in
a holy society or a sacred volume. The society may itself
require evidence, so much as is necessary to establish its
possession of the prophetic teachings.
Christianity has a book and a church, using the latter term
in a loose and indistinct sense ; and the controversies in which
bearers of the Christian name are involved concern both. For
them the only question that should arise relates to the continu-
ity of existing organizations with that which was founded by
Christ and the Apostles ; for, if a religious body having such
continuity exist, it is competent to interpret the book and
testify to its inerrancy. One would expect on a priori reasons
to find a perpetual corporate power commissioned to declare
1900.] AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 77
the tenets of the Christian faith, and would rationally suppose
that one of the many organizations which profess to hold that
faith in its purity must be its divinely constituted interpreter.
AUTHORITY MAINTAINING UNITY.
Two distinguishing marks of the early church were unity
and authority. Error and disobedience were equally abhorred.
Variation was often present in the opinions of the Fathers;
theological inquiry was never more active or more truly free
than at that period. But speculation was subject to the love
of Catholic unity, and the church possessed in the great coun-
cil an infallible organ for defining the truth. Not only were
the venerable creeds of the first five centuries brought into
enduring form under the fashioning of authority, but the
canon of Scripture was determined by the operation of the
same unquestioned principle. While unity was preserved and
a spiritual supremacy everywhere allowed, the Bible and the
creeds were venerated. The violation of unity and the rejec-
tion of authority in the sixteenth century opened the way for
that destructive criticism which is dissolving the faith of
entire communities in the modern world.
The original intention of private judgment was to determine
the sense of the inspired text ; and in the sixteenth and the
seventeenth century barriers were erected in the shape of
creeds, confessions, and catechisms against its too liberal use,
while a corrective could be applied as occasion required by
means of heresy trials. But a principle so agreeable to human
nature could ill be restrained ; and to-day, in alliance with a
false scientific spirit, it assails the Word of God in very sub-
stance. So long as this criticism was practised only by the
avowed enemies of Christianity a Strauss, a Renan the
churches that had introduced so novel 'an instrument into the
sphere of theological definition could regard the ultimate ap
plication of their principle without alarm. Their alarm began
when chairs of theology, and even pulpits, began to re-echo
the revolutionary opinions, while assemblies of religious leaders
divided on the inerrancy of the Bible.
BIBLICAL CRITICISM DESTRUCTIVE.
The biblical criticism most in evidence to-day is engaged
in removing the historic basis of Christianity, reducing it to a
mass of poetic myth, priestly invention, and "tendentious"
apologetics. Besides disputing records and traditions of the
78 AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [Oct.,
Jewish race that antedate by many centuries the Babylonish
captivity, the radical critics seek to destroy the very fibre of
belief, the supernaturalism which is a distinctive element in
the history of the chosen people and the primitive church.
The master assumption of the advanced school is that a miracle
is incredible, no matter how well attested, and that writings
which bear the form of predictive prophecy, yet relate to
actual occurrences, must have been penned after the event.
These views are adopted in quarters hitherto conservative in
association with the exercise of private judgment. Individual
judgment generally tends to associate itself with authoritative
opinion of some sort; and, if it discards organized authority,
it can do no better than ally itself with that current opinion
which has the intellectual preponderance. The Higher Criti-
cism to day enjoys an intellectual eminence, and speaks with a
sonorous tone.
STREAM OF TRUTH DEFILED WITHOUT A LIVING TEACHING
AUTHORITY.
With the failure of belief, the sects that acknowledge no
living, teaching authority are exposed to the inroads of spirit-
ism, Christian Science, theosophy and esoteric Buddhism,
which threaten to swarm over the new world like that brood
of secret and sorcerous cults which overran the Roman Empire
early in the Christian era, contending with Christianity for
spiritual dominion. The professors of magic, conjurers and
diviners that have " familiar spirits " and " wizards that peep
and mutter," have invaded the old strongholds of faith. The
occult is taking the place of the miraculous in a multitude of
minds ; and many whom the rationalistic critics had convinced
that Jesus wrought no miracles have become persuaded that he
was an adept, a secret Buddhist, or an esoteric philosopher.
Tubingen and Leyden prepared the way for Isis and Hermes
Trismegistus.
A supernatural Revelation, imparted by means of super-
natural agencies, in language often obscure and mystical, re-
quires a divinely guided interpreter. If God has spoken to
men through the medium of a book like the Bible, he has ap-
pointed an authoritative court for the determination of that
which he has uttered. It is conceivable that he might have
given a Revelation the full sense of which would have been
patent on its face, as he might have created a material and
intellectual universe that would offer no secret for science to ex-
1900.] AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 79
plore. But he has chosen to do neither. It is conceivable, also,
that he might have left the understanding of the inspired books,
as he has left the study of matter and mind, to unassisted reason
as an intellectual and moral exercise ; but he would hardly
have done so if the comprehension of that Revelation was
vitally related to the eternal destiny of his creatures. There
is this further consideration. The universe is constructed on a
harmonious plan capable of comprehension by human faculties;
and it is a philosophical possibility that man will ultimately
trace all the laws of created things by the illumination of
reason. But the Gospel without an infallible teaching church
is an absurdity. Christ established a church as a means of
salvation ; and, if this church were not endued with the power
of directing men to its fold and guiding them aright after they
had submitted to its instruction, the end of its institution
would be defeated. Revelation would be a contradiction in its
essence.
THERE MUST BE AN INFALLIBLE CHURCH TO GUARD THE
SUPERNATURAL.
A church endowed with infallibility can have no desire to
lay down its office of declaring the miraculous in Revelation ;
for it is itself upheld by that element. Since the exercise of
its teaching gift requires the perpetual assistance of the Holy
Spirit, it will have no object in belittling the Divine presence
and power, and accommodating mysteries to the temper of a
secular age. Whatever value the Higher Criticism may have
in its eyes, that value will not be enhanced by the applicabil-
ity of this method to subjects justly within the province of
faith. Depending for the exercise of a prime function on a
supernatural agency, it can never regard the supernatural as
foreign to religion, .or find its defence an onerous task. To an
infallible church the miracles of the Old and the New Testa-
ment are not something to ignore, apologize for, or extenuate.
On the contrary, it will vindicate this element of religion most
earnestly at a time when unbelief is most arrogant and a false
spirit of science most presumptuous. Authority in religion
would cloud its own title if it denied the supernatural.
The conservative office of a living authority extends not
only to doctrines, but to the sphere of morals and life. It
has often appeared to the critics of that church which alone
professes to embody the principle of authority that it was
more concerned about dogma and sacrament than moral belief
8o AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [Oct.,
and practice. A current ethical philosophy insists that no
necessary relation exists between morality and the observance
of sacraments. Surely this assertion springs from a superficial
survey of the spiritual life and Christian history. According
as devout attention has been given to the Eucharist, the in-
terior life has risen in excellence, and this result has been re-
flected in outward purity and charity. When the Eucharist is
received as " the bread which cometh down from heaven, that
a man may eat thereof and not die," the contemplative nature
is ready to exclaim with Thomas a Kempis: "This Holy
Communion draweth men back from evil, and strengthened!
them in good"; while active natures, going forth like Sir
Galahad in his quest of the Holy Grail, are inspired to heroic
doing in the service of holy things. I am aware that some
ethical thinkers conceive of holiness as a state external to
morality, if not altogether visionary and unpractical. No
religious mind will have difficulty in perceiving that holiness
is the perfection of virtue ; and the mind that regards spiritual
perfection as a thing unreal and unmeaning will still be com-
pelled to admit that the initial approach to Christian holiness
has always been by the pathway of self-denial and strict per-
sonal morality. I cannot imagine how historic Christianity
could have served the moral interest of mankind more effect-
ually than it has done by exalting this sacrament for eighteen
hundred years as the medium of a personal union between
the soul' of man and its Maker. But it would be even more
difficult to imagine how a doctrine so repugnant to carnal
reason could have been preserved for eighteen centuries with-
out the support of an authority claiming a divine commission.
SIJBMISSIVENESS TO AUTHORITY CREATES THE BEST RELIGIOUS
TEMPER.
The submissiveness which religious authority enjoins is
often unwelcome to the intellect ; but it is, I believe, in the
spirit of the teachings of Jesus. It is likewise most favorable
to the development of a true personality ; for it demands the
subordination of private reason to the mind of Christian so-
ciety, as expressed for nearly two thousand years through an
unerring oracle.
There is an important analogy between the individual in
the church and the individual in the state. The idea of indi-
vidual liberty in politics as opposed to social obligation is
withering fast. It belongs to that set of crude eighteenth cen-
1900.] AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 81
tury notions which obtained a strong hold on the popular
mind, but which probably no respectable philosopher now
maintains. Their ground assumption is that society is fur-
nished forth with powers and attributes out of a fund of
natural rights which individuals have surrendered for their
common advantage. From this error arises the conception of
a conflict between individual rights retained and social obliga-
tions created. Forty years ago men were still debating how
to reconcile the warring rights of society and the individual ;
and to some thinkers the solution seemed to be in the tri-
umph of the individual by moral perfection and the gradual
abolition of positive law. Today none but the Anarchist
dreams of the abolition of political society ; and it is coming
to be universally admitted that the individual good and the
social weal are identical. There never was a time when the
individual could stand apart from society to criticise it. Indi-
vidual liberty under the state has no existence apart from
social duty. Equally hollow is the conception of individual
liberty in religion apart from the religious organism, or of
Christian liberty as distinct from the authority of the church.
Christian society was not formed by the voluntary action of
Christians giving up their individual privileges : it sprang into
being by the word of Christ ; and the privileges of the per-
sonal religious life depend on a vital relation with the organic
unity. The life that is simply individual is starved and barren.
The opinion that is merely personal is an eccentricity and
anomaly. The true being of the private mind consists in its
subordination to the whole, and in that relation its useful-
ness and honor are found. Real freedom is not in isolated
independence, but in joyful obedience. The only guarantee
of such freedom is an authority just and benevolent in its
character, immutable in its basis, unvarying and unerring in
its rule.
VOL. LXXII. 6
HIS YOUNG LIFE WAS SPENT AMIDST WILD SCENERY.
A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE.
BY CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD.
HERE are few German poets whose songs are
read as widely by English and Americans as
those of Gottfried August Burger, and his im-
mortal ballad of " Lenore " has been translated
into every modern tongue. Sir Walter Scott
was the first to study and translate Burger into English, and his
paraphrase of " William and Ellen," as he prosaically called
the German " Lenore," gives one who is not acquainted with
the beautiful original a vivid picture of it. The swing and
rhythm of the German lines are rendered exactly by Scott's
" Tramp, tramp, along the land they rode,
Splash, splash, along the sea."
Scott also translated " The Wild Huntsman," and there are
six or more excellent English versions of the " Lenore." The
1900.] A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE.
Danish and Portuguese languages have poetical translations,
and our own Bryant loved Burger and gave him a high place
in German literature.
Burger's ambition was to write for the people, and he suc-
ceeded far better than he dreamed, for it is safe to say that
his ballads are loved and learned by heart as universally by
the peasant as by the upper classes. The Harz people all
know him, and many an old peasant believes firmly in the
legend of the "Wild Huntsman" and can point out the spots
immortalized by the witches and ghosts Burger so graphically
portrayed.
His birthplace in the little village of Molmerschwende is
visited by many a tourist, and the old house stands just as it
did when the poet first opened his eyes on the night of Decem-
ber 31, 1747. It is interesting to state that many biographers
have fixed the date on the first of January, 1748, but the latest
researches have proven it wrong.
A tile roof has taken the place of the original straw, but
nothing else has been altered, and the house bids fair to stand
another century or so. These old Harz houses were built to
last, and the elements beat in vain upon their staunch founda-
tions and tough oaken frames.
Molmerschwende lies far from the beaten track of the Harz
tourist, and the nearest railroad station is a two hours' walk
over the hills. This but adds to the attraction, and it -was fas-
cinating to look upon the very same houses, the tiny church
and grave-
yard, which
Burger must
have passed
so many
times in life.
There are
many remote
descendants
still living in
the village,
and upon my
asking an old
man where THE QUAINT CUSTOMS OF THE
the poet Bur- PEOPLE '
ger's house was, he pointed to him-
self and answered laconically, " I am
84 A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE. [Oct.,
the poet Burger." It seems that he was really the village
" bard," and he appeared quite miffed when I had to explain
that the poet I was looking for had been dead over a hundred
years.
Burger's father was the pastor of the little community of
four hundred souls, and the parsonage is still used by the
Molmerschwende ministers. The present incumbent took the
greatest interest in showing me Burger's bedroom, which he
now used as his study, and from the windows we looked
out upon the dearest old garden in the world, terraced and
filled with the most delightful jumble of flowers and vege-
tables, rare roses as big as a tea-cup side by side with the
gaudy poppy or cornflower, beloved by every German, and fruit
trees just planted anywhere. The pastor assured me that he
loved his garden, it was his delight ; and he did not greatly
share my admiration for Burger, which was not to be wondered
at considering Burger's sharp epigrams on the clerical pro-
fession.
But to go back to the house, which was well worth the two
hours' tramp to see. It is a solid, two- story, old-fashioned
structure, with oaken frame, crossed and intercrossed with
beams and filled in with withes and earth mixed and bound
firmly together, and the whole covered inside and out with a
smooth coating of plaster. The walls are enormously thick,
ceilings very low, and the lower rooms are damp and musty;
but the sun shines cheerfully through the casement windows
of the upper story, and there were boxes of flowers standing
on the wide window ledges.
The house stands in the church-yard enclosure, but the old
wall has made way for a fence. One gable end faces the
v street, and the front door is reached by entering the gate and
walking down the length of the house till you reach it.
These old Germans did not enjoy having their doors open
on the street, and the harder they were to find the better it
must have pleased them.
The interior is odd and characteristic of its time, especially
the smooth floors of slate, which looked and felt decidedly
cold, the tiny casement windows, and the massive rafters which
stretched across every ceiling. These were all ruined, as far as
picturesque effect was concerned, by being painted white. Just
fancy painting oaken beams two hundred years old a glaring
white ! It was a sin. The walls, which were bare in Burger's
day, are now papered, but the furniture in the house was much
1900.] A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE.
LEGENDS ARE TOLD OF THE MANY CASTLES THROUGHOUT THE
HARZ COUNTRY.
the same, some of it being stationary, and the arrangement of
the stiff front parlor was just as Burger's mother most admired.
Poor Burger had little comfort in his. father's house, and
his childhood is one of the most pathetic in history. His
mother neglected or scolded him, and her character was such
that he could not love it. She was a woman of the most un-
bridled temper, with scarcely any education ; yet her famous
son wrote that he had never met a more wonderful mind and
spirit than hers. " Had she been educated, she would have
been the greatest of all women," he said, " but she was not,
and 'she and the Herr Pastor spent most of their time quarrel-
ing." One of her fiery tirades is still quoted, and she is sup-
posed to have said that " Hell was paved with the skulls of
ministers, and one place was being kept for her husband, who
richly deserved it."
Instead of educating his son as he should have done, the
easy old pastor, who loved his long pipe and comfort better
than anything else in the world, sent the little fellow when only
seven years old to the distant village of Pansfeld, where he
was supposed to take lessons of the resident minister; but
86
A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE. [Oct.,
where he played, instead, with the charming little daughter.
His whole after life showed the evil effects of the home influ-
ence, and the lack of right direction explains most of the sins
of his checkered career.
Never was poet or man more unfortunate than Burger in
his married life; it does not seem possible to imagine more
terrible and trying circumstances, and his unfortunate passion
for his wife's sister changed and embittered his entire youth.
Why Burger married the older sister when he knew that he
loved the younger, he never explained ; but it nearly drove him
crazy, and in sheer desperation he opened his heart and con-
fessed the whole tragedy to his wife. The letters in which he
tells how she received the confession and the amazing domestic
arrangement which the trio entered upon are more interesting
than a novel, and indeed far stranger, since no novelist would
attempt to portray or to make capital out of so unnatural a plot.
But Burger was fortunate in one thing, in that he was born
in so lovely a spot and in being allowed such freedom to roam
over hill and dale. It was just the education he needed, and
it is not so much to be regretted
that he could not decline " mensa "
in his twelfth year. The old le-
gends were all there to be gather-
ed, the peasants all believed im-
plicitly in them, and no one could
have entered so intimately as did
Burger into their daily life. He
loved the common people, and al-
ways thought they had something
real to say. Had his moral train-
ing been' good, the rest might
easily have
been acquired
in later life.
German lit-
erature was
waiting for
some one to
study her. in-
finitude of le-
gends and old-
wife tales, and
THE SOURCE OF THE DANUBE. immor t a 1 i Z e
1900.] A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE.
"IT IS A WONDER THAT THIS BEAUTIFUL
COUNTRY HAS NOT PRODUCED MORE
POETS.''
them through the alembic of the poet's brain, and no other part
of Germany could have been as favorable as this Harz country.
Here there is a story for every spot ; the wild huntsman still
roams over the hills and sweeps through the valleys with his
ghostly train, and it is easy to find old peasants who solemnly
declare that they too have seen his dread figure, or assure you
that no grass has yet grown on the spot where the pastor's
daughter killed her babe, which Burger has immortalized in
his poem of the unhappy girl.
It is a wonder that this beautiful country has not produced
more poets. Klopstock, Korner, Burger, and Kleim are the
greatest thus far ; but the curious dialects of the mountaineers,
the unique customs and manners, have aroused many Harz-
born professors in the different universities to investigate them,
and this literature is copious and most interesting. The best
biographer Burger has had is a Harz man, Professor Proehl, who
has also collected the legends of the entire Harz range.
Burger loved his beautiful Harz, and he wrote that his first
acquaintance with Mother Nature dated back to the long
88
A PILGRIMAGE TO BURGER'S BIRTHPLACE. [Oct.,
walks which he took to the pastor in Pansfeld. It was then,
as he strolled through the fields of nodding poppies or waving
grain, and climbed the hills all covered with groves of pine,
oak, and fir, that he first realized the influence which nature
was to exert over him. " Back to Nature ! " was his cry in
after years to the poets of his day, and it may be said that
no German poet expressed so well the theories
whichj. Herder was trying to popularize among
his contemporaries.
There was at that time no nationality in Ger-
man literature ; no political union, and no com-
mon bond to unite the various peoples, dialects,
and customs of the Fatherland, and Herder
was the first to
see that there
could be no ex-
pansion of their
literature till it
had become na-
tional. But Bur-
ger was the first
great poet to
translate H e r-
der's revolution-
ary theories of
national poetry
into practice, and
he went so far as
to add that the
only poetry which
was destined to
lastwas that
which is written
for the people,
about the people,
and, if possible,
by the people
themselves.
He was to Germany what [Burns was to Scotland, though
in richer measure ; both poets drew their material from the
people's songs, and both had many personal traits in common.
The weak, loving heart of each man was too illy controlled
by reason and judgment, and though Burger's life was far
A HARZ MAIDEN IN BRIDAL DRESS.
IQOO.] A PILGRIMAGE TO BERGER'S BIRTHPLACE. 89
more tragic and unhappy than Burns's, the foundation of their
misfortunes rested upon the same causes.
Political and literary life had died in Germany with the
Thirty Years' War; and Grimmelshausen, the German Cer-
vantes, had sung the swan song. Till Burger came with the
genius to sing of the underlying life of the people, no poet,,
great or otherwise, had thought it worth while, and his ser-
vices are for this reason beyond calculation. If Herder was
the Columbus to show the way, Burger was the poet to im-
mortalize it for all time.
The motive of all his ballads is taken directly from old
tales and legends, some from the French and Italian ; but he
was specially indebted to English ballads, and Percy's Reliques
of Ancient Poetry exerted a strong influence upon his genius.
He urged Herder and other poets to make some such collec-
tion in German, and he considered that it would be of the
highest poetical worth. His own failing health and the fierce
struggle against poverty which embittered all his years pre-
vented him from attempting it himself, and his third and last
most miserable marriage ended so tragically that his spirit
was broken, and he welcomed the death which came in his
forty-sixth year.
Poor unhappy Burger ! His best life was in his poems ;
his sins and shortcomings were but the result of his faulty
education ; and his sweetness of temper, his tender charity
and humility, and his loving, impulsive heart are what we
choose to remember of the man.
Indianapolis, Ind.
90 ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
ISABEL, LADY BURTON.
BY GEORGINA P. CURTIS.
'MONG the biographies of noted Catholic women
that have appeared of late years the Life of
Isabel, Lady Burton, recently published in England,
stands out pre-eminently. It reads like a romance
or a fairy tale, while at the same time it shows
forth clearly the devoted love and faith of a woman to her
church, while living in the world and wedded to a non-Catholic.
Born of an ancient English Catholic family, Lady Burton
was married to a man who took her to many countries and
scenes. She shared his travels, his vicissitudes, and all the
varied phases of his public career.
The account of her own and her husband's life is brought
out in two large volumes, and is edited by Mr. W. H. Wilkins,
who has proved fully equal to his task, both in talent and in
sympathy with his subject. The biography occupies nearly eight
hundred pages, and is so teeming with interest that it is diffi-
cult to select any one part as being most worthy of attention.
Lady Burton's father, Mr. Henry Raymond Arundell of
Wardour,- was twice married. His first wife, Lady Mary
Isabel, daughter of Sir Hugh Clifford Constable, died a year
after her marriage, leaving one son. Mr. Arundell married, two
years later, a Miss Eliza Gerard, sister of Sir Robert Gerard
of Garswood, and an intimate friend of his first wife. Of his
numerous family by his second marriage Isabel, the subject of
this memoir, was the eldest. The house of Wardour is one of
the most ancient in England, and all its members have been
loyal Catholics. They form a living and historical witness to
the fact that Catholicism is the ancient faith, and make it
difficult for the Anglican Church in England to prove that
there was no change in belief at the Reformation.
Sir Thomas Arundell, who was born in 1500 and who
married Margaret, daughter of Lord Howard, son of the Duke
of Norfolk, founded the house of Wardour. There had been
knights of Arundell before the Conquest, of whom it was said
that
" Ere William fought and Harold fell
There were 'Earls of Arundell."
1900.] ISABEL, LADY BURTON. 91
Lady Burton's mother was descended from the Dukes of Leinster
in Ireland and the Earls of Plymouth (now extinct) in England.
Thomas, the second Baron Arundell, married Blanche,
daughter of the Earl of Worcester, and it is this ancestress
that Lady Burton was thought to strongly resemble both in
character and personality. In the Great Rebellion, when her
husband was away serving with the king, Blanche, Lady Arun-
dell, held Wardour Castle for nine days, with only a few men,
against the Parliamentary forces. She then gave up the castle
on honorable terms, which the enemy broke as soon as they
had taken possession. On Lord Arundell's return he drove
them out, and proceeded to blow up his castle, sacrificing his
home to his loyalty to his king.
The grandson of Sir Thomas Arundell went to Germany
and 'entered the service of Rudolph II. He took the standard
from the Turks with his own hands at Grau, while fighting
with the imperial army of Hungary. For this act of bravery
he earned the title of "the Valiant." Rudolph II. made him
a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, and decreed that his
descendants of both sexes shoulcf for ever enjoy the title.
They appear in the Austrian lists as counts of the empire.
Lady Burton always used the title when not in England, and
took rank of precedence at foreign courts as the^ Countess
Isabel Arundell (of Wardour). This title was not recognized
by Elizabeth or James I. ; but was acknowledged by James
II., as a document still extant shows. Lady Burton used
to say: "If the 'thing had been bought, I should not have
cared ; but since it was given for a brave deed, I am right
proud of it." Her ideas on the psychical and physical aspects
of heredity are expressed in her own words, anent the fact
that she never had any children: "Since I have none to come
after me, I must needs strive to be worthy of those who have
gone before me."
And worthy she certainly was. She possessed all the
qualities that made her ancestors famous. We see in her the
roving spirit of adventure of the knights of Arundell ; the in-
tellectual and administrative traits, the clear-headed decision
and worldly wisdom of the founder of the house of Wardour.
We see also the courage, the fighting instincts, and the dare-
deviltry of the old Knight of Arundell who in the reign of
Henry VII. raised the sieges of Tiroven and Tourney, and of
" the Valiant " who wrested the banner from the infidel Turks.
In her, also, breathed that devotion and loyalty to the
92 ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
throne which marked the Lord Arundell who died fighting for
his king. She herself has left on record how deeply she was
moved, when travelling in Jerusalem, to hear some English
sailors singing the national songs.
She was like her ancestress, Blanche, in her bravery, her
proud but generous spirit, in her determination and resources,
and in her passionate love for her husband. Above all Isabel
Arundell was a true daughter of her race in her devotion to
the ancient faith ; a loyalty that never left her, that ruled her
whole life, and that no amount of learning or worldly knowl-
edge (and her intellectual gifts and cultivation were remark-
able) ever weakened. This faith we trace years after her
marriage, at a time when she had lived the best part of her
life, and had tasted about all it is given to mortals to know
of joy and pain. During the absence of her husband in Syria,
while in retreat at the Convent della Osolini at Gorizia, she
wrote the following thoughts in her journal:
" My life seems to be like an express train, every day bring-
ing fresh things which must be done. I am goaded on by
time and circumstances, and God, my first beginning and last
end, is always put off thrust out of the way, to make place
for the unimportant, and gets served last and badly. ... I
thought I heard Him cry : ' Go voluntarily into solitude ; pre-
pare for me, and wait for me till I come to abide with you/
I am here, my God, according to thy command Thou and I,
I and Thou face to face in the silence. Oh, speak to my heart,
and clear out from it every thing that is not of thee, and let
me abide with thee awhile ! Not only speak, but make me
understand, and turn my body and spirit and soul into feelings
and actions, not words and thoughts alone."
She says elsewhere : " Solitude is a necessary consolation ' r
no great mind was ever known that dreaded it." And again :
" Every right-minded person must think, and thought comes
only in solitude." She thinks also that there is " danger of
eccentricity in an excess of solitude."
Isabel Arundell was born on Sunday, March 30, 1831, in
London. She was educated chiefly at the convent of the
Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre at New Hall, Chelmsford.
Her earliest years were passed at Furze Hall, near Inglestone,
Essex, a charming old-fashioned house in the midst of beauti-
ful country. One of the first books mentioned in her child-
hood is Disraeli's Tancred. A liking for books of Eastern lore
and scenes is one of her earliest characteristics.
ISABEL, LADY BURTON.
93
Even in her youth her character and personality were re-
markable. Added to this she was very handsome, with an air
of high breeding. In person she was tall and well formed,
with a very expressive and mobile face. At eighteen years of
age she left Furze Hall and went to London with her parents,
brothers, and sisters. The following winter she and her sister
Blanche were introduced to London society. Here Isabel en-
joyed herself thoroughly, as every happy, healthy girl must
when society is not indulged in to excess, or made the sole
aim of life. Her introduction took place under favorable con-
ditions ; her parents' position, and her own beauty and wit,
making her at once a well-known favorite. But the end of the
season found her still heart-whole and single, although many
had asked for her hand in marriage.
The following year the whole family went
Mr.Arundell's
limited that a
dence abroad
necessary,
not impress
ably at first,
it dirty, and
be told it was
cleanest towns
But she grew
place, and re-
thought ever
ate devotion,
that she met
ton, her hus-
Burton was
Joseph N e t-
ton, a lieuten-
the 36th Regi-
born in 1821
SIR RICHARD BURTON.
to Boulogne,
means were so
short resi-
was deemed
Boulogne did
Isabel favor-
She thought
was amazed to
one of the
in France,
to love the
turned to it in
with affection-
for it was here
Richard Bur-
band.
the son of
terville Bur-
ant-colonel in
ment. He was
and was the
was
eldest of three children. No account of Isabel Arundell's life
would be complete without a thorough understanding (if any
one could be said to have understood him) of this most extra-
ordinary man. Burton entered the army and was commissioned
to the Indian service when he was twenty- one.
His intellectual gifts, his power of assuming any character
he pleased, his facility in acquiring languages, his love of ad-
venture and contempt for danger all singled him out as a
94 ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
remarkable man. He was very dark, of an almost gypsy
aspect. In fact, although he had no known Oriental blood,
Lady Burton always thought it strange that he had so many
characteristics of the race. He possessed the same power to
read the hand at a glance, the same restlessness and inability
to stay long in one place, the same philosophic endurance of
any evil, and the same horror of a corpse, that distinguish
the highest gypsy races. While in the East he could disguise
himself so well as to pass for a dervish in the mosques or as
a merchant in the bazaars. He undertook a pilgrimage to
Mecca, disguised as a pilgrim, and accomplished it in safety,
his real identity and nationality never being suspected. It is a
proof of the power of the man that he carried the assumed
character through to 'the end for one mistake or slip would
have caused him to pay the forfeit with his life.
Such was the man to whom Isabel Arundell gave the whole
pure, devoted love of her passionate and loyal heart. Burton
on his part was strongly drawn to her, but they left Boulogne
without coming to any understanding, and it was not until six
years later, when she met him again in London, that he finally
offered himself. Meanwhile Isabel had refused many brilliant
offers ; she had waited and watched and followed his career,
and hungered for him, as only a woman of her type could do.
Having made up his mind, Burton's wooing was quick and
passionate, and ten days from the time they met again they were
engaged. She said to him : " I would rather have a crust and
a tent with you, than be queen of all the world."
It was eminently characteristic of Burton that it was three
years from the time of their engagement before they were
married. In the interim Burton made a trip to Africa and
another to Salt Lake City, setting forth on each expedition
without telling Isabel good-by, so as to spare himself pain,
and writing to her very irregularly. It needed a mighty love
to tide a woman over these three years, as it needed a loyal
love to make her faithful to her choice the six years that pre-
ceded her engagement.
But Isabel came out of it loving Barton more instead of
less. She employed her time in preparing herself for her
future life. She learned to cook, to fence, to shoot, to groom
horses, milk cows, and do any and all of the work that she
might be called on to perform when travelling or stopping in
out of the-way places. Life with Richard Burton would have
been intolerable to some women. He was by nature selfish
1900.] ISABEL, LADY BURTON. 95
and disposed, perhaps unconsciously, to make demands on the
faith and endurance of a wife that many would have utterly
failed to fulfil. Not so Isabel. Joined to her life-long and
unswerving devotion to Burton she had splendid health and
strong nerves, and the ability to go with him everywhere, even
to inaccessible and dangerous places. "She could ride, walk,
swim, shoot, and defend herself if attacked ; make a bed, ar-
range a tent, cook the dinner, wash the clothes in the river,
mend them and spread them to dry ; nurse the sick, dress
wounds, pick up a smattering of the language; make a camp
of natives respect and obey her; groom her horse, saddle him,
teach him to wade through rivers, and sleep on the ground
with the saddle for a pillow."
Will it seem from this that she was masculine or strident ?
Never was a woman more intensely feminine and tender, as
perfect a combination of strength and gentleness as could be
found.
They were married in January, 1861, with Mr. Arun-
dell's consent, but unknown to his wife, who strongly opposed
the match.
Isabel says, in the early days of her married life :
" I belong to God the God who made all this beautiful
world which perpetually makes my heart so glad. I cannot
see him, but I feel him. He is with me, within me, around
me, everywhere. If I lost him, what would become of me ?
How I have bowed down before my husband's intellect. If I
lost Richard, life would be worthless. Yet he and I and life
are perishable, and will soon be over; but God and my soul
and eternity are everlasting. I pray to be better moulded to
the will of God, and for love of him to become indifferent to
what may befall me."
The first few months of their married life were spent in
modest lodgings in London, Burton's means being too limited
to allow of anything else. Mrs. Arundell had objected to the
match because of unpleasant rumors about Burton's character ;
but she in time became reconciled to it, and very fond of her
son in-law.
We cannot enter on the question of Burton's career with-
out mention being made of his public life. He was never a
favorite at the Foreign Office, and never obtained such a posi-
tion as his gifts and education entitled him to. Burton was a
man of honor, but he lacked policy and discretion, and had
a sublime disregard for consequences, even when he knew he
96 ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
was spoiling his own chances and laying himself open to sus-
picion and doubt. He was too high-handed and interfering ;
and thus, in spite of his gifts, he was not fitted to be a
diplomat or to hold the post of consul at a foreign port, and
his wife's whole life was devoted to a defence of him, to
fighting his battles, and trying to get the Foreign Office to
give him the preferment he coveted. There is no doubt that
if Burton had possessed, in addition to his great talents, his
knowledge of languages, and his experience in Eastern affairs^
a policy and tact that dealt with issues diplomatically, he
would have had a great career ; but he did not know how
to be honest and politic both.
A few months after their marriage Burton was given an
insignificant post at Fernando Po, on the West Coast of
Africa, with a climate so deadly for European women that
Lady Burton could not accompany her husband. She re-
mained at home for several months ; then Burton obtained
leave of absence, and his wife joined him and they made a
charming trip to Madeira and Teneriffe, with a month at
Ortova. Here they ascended to the highest peak of a neigh-
boring mountain, an expedition that lasted for several days,
and which Lady Burton describes delightfully. She says,
quoting Ibsen : " I went up into the infinite solitudes. I saw
the sunrise gleaming on the mountain peaks. I felt myself
nearer the stars. I seemed almost to be in sympathy and
communion with them."
Their second post was at Santos, Brazil, whither Lady
Burton accompanied her husband ; but by far the most inter-
esting part of her biography is their next post, Damascus,
where Burton was consul for about three years. They both
loved Damascus and its Eastern life. Here they had a unique
position, as well as interesting and varied society, and two
charming residences, one on the outskirts of the city, and a
summer retreat at Bluddn, among the mountains.
It was a difficult post to fill successfully, owing to the dif-
ferent races which had to be dealt with. There were the Beda-
win Arabs ; the Wali, or Governor General of Syria, and his
followers; the Jews, the Christian Protestant missionaries and
their families, and the native residents of Damascus. Burton,
unfortunately, made himself disliked by all classes. It was
said of him that " he usually did the right thing in the wrong
way," and it was so in this case. Not all his wife's tact, the
pains she took to please all classes, and to smooth over his
1900.] ISABEL, LADY BURTON. 97
mistakes, succeeded in shielding Burton from official displeas-
ure, and he was finally recalled home. Their course at Damas-
cus in one way was full of honor. They refused all bribes
that were offered from many quarters if they would act on
certain lines. At one time Burton was promised one hundred
thousand dollars if he would lend his influence and support to
a certain scheme.
Burton departed very hastily for England, and Lady Burton
was left behind, as their custom always was, " to pay, pack,
and follow." The hard work disposing of their effects, the
saying good-by, and winding up of their affairs always de-
volved on her; but she was not a woman to shrink from what
had to be done. The Burtons remained some time in London,
and then were given the consulate at Trieste, in Austria. Here
they lived for eighteen years, and in time Lady Burton became
attached to it. Wherever she went she always made a home,
and found interests and charitable work to occupy her.
During their consular life they made several trips to other
countries, one while at Damascus through the desert to Pal-
myra, and later to Jerusalem and India. While in India they
went on a journey to Goa, thirty-six hours by steamer from
Bombay, so as to visit the church that contained the remains
of St. Francis Xavier. The saint's body is enclosed in a gold
box that rests in a beautiful silver sarcophagus enriched with
alto-relievi. The remains are displayed once in a century to
the pilgrims who flock to Goa.
Besides these long journeys the Burtons made many shorter
trips. The last years of their life at Trieste were chiefly occu-
pied with literature. Burton wrote a great deal, and also
translated the Alf-Laylah wa Laylah, or Arabian Nights. For
this work he received $50,000. At the time of his death he
had just finished another translation from the Arabic, called
the Scented Garden.
Burton might certainly have used his great talents as a
writer and master of Oriental languages to translate some-
thing better than these two books, notably the Scented Garden.
About this latter book so much controversy has raged, and
Lady Burton was so involved in it, that mention must be
made of it. Here again Burton's peculiar character comes in.
It was his habit to investigate every thing on earth, both
good and bad, and when he was at Rome to do as the
Romans did.
He was a Mussulman in Arabia, a Mormon in Salt Lake
VOL. LXXII. 7
98 ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
City, and an Englishman in England. Hence he set about
translating the Scented Garden in the same spirit. It was a
notorious book, and one that could do no good. As Lady
Burton said : " Fifteen men would read it as my husband wrote
it, from a scientific stand point. The rest of the world would
only read it to gather evil." Burton had left his wift control
of all his MSS. at his death. The prices offered her for this
book were enormous, and would have made her comfortable
for the rest of her life. Did she accept it and let the matter
go out of her hands ? She herself has recorded what a tre-
mendous struggle she had. It was the first time she had ever
gone against her husband's known wishes, but her duty in the
matter was so clear that she did not hesitate. She burned the
whole MSS., and by so .doing believed that she " cut the cords
that held her husband's soul to earth, and left him free to soar
to his native heaven." It was typical of her strong faith and
resolute spirit.
A woman of her character, living a life so much before the
world, could not avoid frequently being misjudged. In nothing
was this more apparent than in her action in regard to her
husband's conversion. Whether Burton was ever really a Catho-
lic we do not know. His character was so complex, he was
so steeped in Eastern mysticism and Sufism, that what he
really believed it would be difficult to say. But one thing is
clear : that he gave his wife to understand that he was at
heart a Catholic, and that he signed a paper to that effect, and
also that he habitually wore a crucifix she gave him. Burton
died very suddenly in October, 1890, and as soon as Lady
Burton saw that his illness was serious she sent for a priest,
who administered Extreme Unction.
No one who knew her could doubt that she acted in good
faith, but as the action has again and again been criticised as
" the usual method of Roman Catholics," it may be well to
say a few words about it.
The Church, as a prudent and tender mother, is ever
anxious to give her children the benefit of a doubt. It may
be that a man has not approached the sacraments, or lived the
life of a Catholic, for years, or even openly declared himself.
But if he has been a Catholic the sacrament is administered to
him when he is dying, and the act is in accordance with the
belief that no one knows what passes between God and the
soul at the hour of death. A man may be to all appearances
deaf and insensible to the things of earth, but he may be able
1900.] ISABEL, LADY BURTON. 99
to hold communion with God that we know not of. How far
he is aided by the last rites of the church we cannot tell t
though our faith can make us guess. In this sense alone
Isabel Burton acted as she did, and was abundantly justified in
so doing.
After her husband's death she went to live in London, and
employed her time in works of charity," in editing the record
of her husband's life, and in building a beautiful tomb, shaped
like an Arab tent, over his grave in Mortlake.
Her own writings are, an Inner Life in Syria, and Arabia,
Egypt, and India.
It is fortunate that the world has the Life of Captain Sir
Richard Burton by his wife, and also the Life of Lady Burton
edited by Mr. Wilkins, for otherwise the only record of these
two interesting people would be from the pen of Sir Richard
Burton's niece, Miss Georgiana Stisted a book that is almost
beneath contempt. Miss Stisted, who seems to have a bitter
hatred for the Catholic Church in general, and for Lady Bur-
ton in particular, has spared no pains to gather as much slan-
der and falsehood within the compass of one volume as could
well be met with. She does not seem to be so much concerned
about upholding her uncle's Protestantism as with vilifying the
wife he loved. This book came out after Lady Burton's death,
when she could not refute it ; but her friend, Mr. Wilkins, has
made such a splendid defence of her life and character that
we are fain to think Miss Stisted is disposed of in the minds
of all who love justice, whatever their religion may be. Cer-
tainly Lidy Burton's memory remains untarnished.
This beautiful and noble woman died in London on the
22d of March, 1896. She was conscious up to the last, and
passed away after months of great suffering. After receiving
Extreme Unction she bowed her head and said " Thank
God ! " a few moments before her spirit returned to Him who
created it.
Her life is a lesson for all time to women living in the
world, and especially to those married to non-Catholic hus-
bands, of what an ardent faith and resolute will can do to pre-
serve the religion of their childhood intact. Burton always
made it plain that he honored and respected his wife's devo-
tion to her church. She wrote of her husband in her diary
years before :
" I am like a swimmer battling against strong waves, and I
think my life will always be thus. Were I struggling only fcr
ioo ISABEL, LADY BURTON. [Oct.,
myself, I should long before have tired ; but since it is for my
dear one's sake, I shall fight on so long as life lasts. Every
now and then one seems to reach the crest of the wave, and
that gives one courage ; but how long a time it is when one is
in the depths ! "
In every crisis of her life this woman turned to the one
Source where many look for strength and some find it.
Lady Burton found it. To quote from her memoir :
" The secret of her strength was this : to her the things
spiritual and invisible, which' to many of us are unreal, how-
ever loudly we may profess our belief in them, were living
realities. . . . There are some natures who can believe, who
can look forward to a prize so great and wonderful as to hold
the pain and trouble of the race of very small account when
weighed against the hope of victory. Lady Burton was one of
these ; she had her feet firm set upon the everlasting Rock.
The teaching of her church was to her divinest truth. The super-
natural was real, the spiritual actual. The conflict between the
powers of light and the powers of darkness, between good an-
gels and evil angels, between benign influences and malefic
forces, was no figure of speech with her, but a reality. In these
last years of her life more especially the earthly veil seemed
to have fallen from her eyes. She seemed to have grasped
something of the vision of the servant of Elisha, for whom the
prophet prayed : ' Lord, I pray thee open his eyes that he may
see, and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man ; and he
saw. And behold the mountain was full of horses and chariots
f fire round about Elisha.' "
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 101
NEAR BLADENSBURG : A WAR TALE.
BY J. O. AUSTIN.
:T lies near the old highway, some two or three
miles from Bladensburg a great lichen covered
rock, with faint scratches on its upper face.
The big oak alongside leans over it protecting-
ly, so that dead leaves and falling twigs often
catch in its crevices for a moment's visit on their way to earth.
The lazy water in the gully alongside, rippling over the
pebbles, is ever splashing out a laughing salute. Overhead the
saucy chipmunks peer down sharply, as if they alone could
read its story. And, indeed, true it is that the tale has well-
nigh passed from the memory of men.
.A score of years ago rude letters, carved upon the stone,
were barely visible ; now the dripping rain has worn still deeper,
and a few green, moss-filled scratches are sole remnants of the
old inscription. Strange enough ! Had the slightest tilt been
given to that big boulder when first it came there, those letters
would stare up undyingly. As it is, every rain storm helps to
wipe away the last faint traces of human handiwork, and ere
long they will have gone to join the torrent that once rushed
through that choked-up gully, and the primeval forest that
darkened the sky above. This is why it seems well to us that
the tale, even though a gruesome one, should be recorded.
One evening in August, years and years ago, a horseman
was passing along the high-road towards Bladensburg. The
country was rife with war and rumors of war just then, and
every farmer lad for miles around had abandoned spade and
plough to join the force defending Washington against General
Ross. These were no days for pleasure trips, for men had to
ride life in hand. And still our traveller, though holster- pistols
and side-arms proved him not unprepared for possible dangers,
cantered along unconcernedly straight toward the English
camp. By this and by his weary look one might have guessed
him to be a messenger from the Patuxent, seeking the English
general at Bladensburg. Both he and his horse were well
travel-stained ; and his sharp survey from the top of every hill,
102 NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. [Oct.,
and the impatient grunt given as he invariably sank back in
his saddle disappointed, marked him a stranger to the locality
expecting every instant to sight his journey's end.
On the hill just abreast of the great boulder the road was
lined on one side by a thick woods, and on the other by a
bois d'arc hedge, through which a five barred gate gave passage
to an open field. As the horseman, having passed the gate,
began to descend the hill, there sounded quick hoof-beats from a
bridle-path in the forest, and he wheeled about hastily and barely
in time to see a girl on a great brown mare break from amid the
trees, cross the road, and soar over the gate into the field be-
yond. A spring from the saddle, a few hurried steps, and he
reached the gate quickly enough to catch a glimpse of a blue
riding-habit vanishing in a clump of trees. He leaned thought-
fully against the bars for a moment or two and then walked
slowly towards his horse.
"By Jove!" he said, remounting, "I'd like to know . if
that 's Holt's daughter. I don't see who else it could possibly
be. The jump was simply stunning. Why, the Bradford
hunt's nothing to it!" Standing in his stirrups he shaded his
eyes and scanned the landscape ahead as far as he could see.
Rough and hilly country, a glimpse of a winding road now
and then, thick crowded forest of pine and cedar, with here
and there branches of red sumac, or the white leaves of a silver
maple in the great stretch of green, and behind it all the
western sky making gorgeous background for one or two airy
pink clouds floating along like wreaths of tinted smoke he
could discover nothing else.
" Well," he soliloquized, " at any rate I must try to reach
camp before that splendid sky fades away."
He gathered his reins, called to his horse, and was about to
again descend the hill, when somewhere over towards the setting
sun, and seeming scarce a hundred yards away, a bugle-call
awoke the echoes. Our traveller drew reins and smiled con-
tentedly.
" That saves us ! " he cried gaily. " I've done my very best
and missed the mark. They have no use for me now until
morning." And a few minutes later he was within the five-
barred gate and riding along the path that the young horse-
woman had followed. Very soon he reached a driveway lead-
ing toward a good, comfortable-looking dwelling, built of some
mud-colored, stucco like substance. Facing him was a wide
veranda, and around its pillars twined clustering vines of honey-
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 105
suckle, and thick ivy spreading over the side of the house hardly
left room for the windows. On the veranda, lying back in an
arm chair, with book and spectacles beside him, an old man
was nodding half-asleep.
He roused up as the stranger approached, and answered the
military salute with an invitation to ride around and put up at
the stable. There a negro boy relieved the visitor of his steed
and directed him further on to the north side of the dwelling.
This rather surprisingly turned out to be the front. From the
marble steps a great broad lawn stretched down into a valley
where night mists were already gathering. At the foot of the
steps the old gentleman was waiting, and, taking a letter pre-
sented by the stranger, began to read it while the two walked
together up the steps.
" Delighted you have come, lieutenant," he cried very
warmly at last, folding the note. " It was really good of our
friend the captain to think of sending you. Why, you 're a
godsend. We have n't had a visitor in an age, have we,
Miriam ?"
" Excepting Captain Whittaker," answered a lady from with-
in the threshold, and the young man found himself facing the
young horsewoman who had taken the five-barred gate in such
gallant style.
" Lieutenant Woodleigh, of his Majesty's goth Foot," an-
nounced the host, and " my daughter, .sir."
Then the old gentleman led the way into the interior of the
mansion, and the visitor followed until they reached the guest
chamber, where he was left alone to prepare for dinner.
At the evening meal the lieutenant found himself placed
next to Miss Holt and opposite a broad-shouldered young
fellow whom the host introduced as his nephew, Mr. Caleb
Curtis. " Not a bad looking brute " was the soldier's internal
comment, and indeed, for a mere "backwoodsman," Curtis
proved wonderfully well-bred and quite at ease.
" I had the captain's note," the girl found opportunity to
whisper to the guest while Mr. Holt and his nephew were dis-
tracted with conversation about some business. The lieutenant
smiled and bowed grandly. He did not fully understand, but
he did appreciate that the young lady must have been whiling
away some of her weary hours by conducting a clandestine
correspondence. He smiled again as he recalled how the
captain had warned him to be very circumspect. That ad-
monition was followed about as carefully as is usual in similar
104 NEAR BLADENSBURG: A- WAR TALE. [Oct.,
cases. While telling Mr. Holt various interesting anecdotes of
the campaign under General Ross, Woodleigh's glance would
wander over admiringly to the bright eyes and auburn hair of
the girl listening with such vivid interest. She was all the
more attractive to him because the war had given such scant
opportunity for feminine society.
"As simple as a child," Whittaker had said, and Wood-
leigh wondered for a time how a " simple child " could manage
to secure interesting visitors despite watch and ward. He un-
derstood her better as her character came out in conversation.
Her training was homely. " Conventionality " and " propriety "
were words not found in her vocabulary. She was in perfect
ignorance of the way people act and talk in the great world.
But nevertheless she had views of her own on most subjects,
and among other convictions held that it was never a duty to
be miserable, even though Caleb's religion so taught. Her
naivett was simply charming to Woodleigh, man of the world. ;
and so it came to pass before many minutes that he was ask-
ing himself had not Whittaker made a mistake in considering
him a safe customer on account of having so constantly knocked
about in society. In London it might be so ; he could be
counted upon to amuse any young lady whose life was grow-
ing dull; but here, off in an American wilderness where he
had n't spoken to a well-dressed woman for months, his past
experience made him, if anything, a trifle more susceptible to
the influence of bright eyes and winning smiles. He did his
best to be witty and entertaining, and succeeded so well that
Caleb, after one or two unnoticed remarks, lapsed into utter
silence, while the father and daughter seemed content with
saying just enough to keep up Woodleigh's flow of anecdote.
Once the young men's eyes met, and Woodleigh saw a sullen
look that startled him for the moment ; but he thought no
more of it than to feel the glow of triumph which comes to
the winner of every race.
Et was in vain, though, that Woodleigh puzzled himself try-
ing to guess the reasons for the rather peculiar make-up of
this family circle, and for their residence in this lonely, out-
of-the-way place. Though almost certain that reduced fortune
must- have something to do with it, he could not reconcile this
theory with the splendid dinner-set, the cut glass, and the fine
old wine. The wine ah! it was long since the lieutenant had
tasted real Burgundy, and after Miriam's withdrawal he found
some difficulty in restraining a tendency to exuberant praise of
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 105
the vintage. Mr. Holt seemed determined to celebrate the ad-
vent of a visitor from the old country, and Woodleigh was in
poor training for a carouse. So before they left the table he
had grown so enthusiastic over the coming capture of Wash-
ington that he and Curtis, who had developed an unsuspected
patriotism, fell into a quarrel which ended with the latter's un-
cle ordering him from the room. Woodleigh was dimly con-
scious of having said something rather insulting concerning
American valor, and he now found Mr. Holt taking him
severely to task for his boyishness.
"You're right, I know," said his host; "these cursed col-
onists are utterly stupid. It makes one's blood boil raw
militia- men daring to face Ross and Coburn ! But the boy has
a lot of Yankee notions in his head, and you must be more
careful than at home. If I hadn't known how to keep a civil
tongue in my head Miriam would have been an orphan long
ago. Come, we '11 go into the parlor, and if you see Caleb
again don't be stiff ; remember he was born and brought up
in this place, and his good old blood is tainted from bad at-
mosphere."
In the parlor Miriam sang her father's favorite song, "The
Vicar of Bray," and the old fellow indicated approval partly
of the singing and partly, Woodleigh suspected, of the senti-
ment. The music over, they started their nightly game of
cards, Woodleigh supplying the place of Curtis, who did not
appear again. Even with the long windows open the room-
soon grew uncomfortably warm, and after a game or two some
one proposed taking a walk in the grounds. The three went
out together, but as they were descending the steps Mr. Holt
was called, and, turning back into the house, promised to be
out again in a moment.
The young people stood at the foot of the steps for an in-
stant and then began their promenade, keeping within a short
distance of the house. A little toward the east ran a narrow
lane, where on either side great high bushes lined the path,
locking their branches overhead. Into this, at Miriam's sug-
gestion, the young couple slipped to walk up and down
"while waiting for papa." The path was not very wide and
there was barely room for two to walk erect under the sloping
boughs.
"Did you know," said the young lady saucily, "that a
big shot-gun was covering you as you rode up that avenue?"
"No," very coolly.
io6 NEAR BLADENSBURG : A WAR TALE. [Oct.,
" Aren't you afraid ? "
"I think not."
She looked at him curiously. "Caleb's a dead shot if he is
a Puritan."
" We often have to face dangers more serious, perhaps, than
Mr. Curtis's shot-gun without being frightened."
She clapped her hands delightedly. " I '11 tell him that ;
he '11 like you more for being so brave " ; and they went on
toward the house.
Woodleigh could not tell whether or not his companion was
in earnest. In fact, he did not bother his head with thinking
much more about Curtis. He was out to enjoy himself, and
very soon began indulging in lively descriptions of London
society, with Miriam for an enchanted listener.
Now, of course the stars were shining and the late moon
just peeping over the far horizon. To be sure, the playful
evening wind softly rustling the leaves wafted the breath of
sweet scented honeysuckle down into the lane. What queer
figures waving branches make upon a moonlit path ? and how
strange a look faces wear when interlacing twigs play over
them in flitting shadows ? And in such circumstances how
great the temptation to become romantic ! Society sufficiently
discussed, Woodleigh chanced to mention something about
reading.
" Oh, I am so fond of books ! " was Miriam's instant excla-
mation.
" Have you read much ? "
" All of Miss Austen's works," she answered, rather proudly.
" Ah, yes ! I know them ; and have you read Mrs. Rad-
cliffe's stories?"
The girl blushed a little. " I have read half of Romance
of the Forest. There was an awful time about it ; Caleb said
it was a bad book and that I should n't be allowed to read
novels. Beg pardon, did you not speak?"
" Not a word."
Nor had he spoken, but mentally he had been punching
Caleb's head.
"It's cruel of papa," the girl went on. "He doesn't real-
ize how I am suffering. Business keeps him occupied from
morning till night, and I am alone with no amusement except
to ride Gypsy or read Watts's hymns and the Bible. The days
drag on so slowly, I often pray that the house will be attacked
by soldiers, or burned or something to vary the monotony."
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 107
Woodleigh was undoubtedly very sympathetic. "It's too
bid you have so little to read. I realize how much a book
will do to cheer one up. There was a young fellow named
Marryat whom I knew at home, and he lent me a tremendous
lot of stories and sketches once when I was sick. I assure
you they made the hours fly."
Now, he might well have let the subject drop there ; but
no, Miriam was interested and he continued, and some malig-
nant sprite hovering around those bushes prompted him to
repeat some of his friend's clever sketches.
" Shockingly sentimental, you know, some of them were ;
but it was all in fun. He '11 get into literature some day and
then he '11 change all that. I remember one story particularly
foolish, but rather interesting, called The Fair haired Bride."
And in a melodramatic way Woodleigh ran through the plot
as far as the fifteenth chapter, wherein the villain proposes to
the. heroine under an orange-tree in the conservatory.
It was now ten o'clock the locking-up time at the Holt
residence. A few minutes before that hour Caleb, as usual,
had left the house to unchain the big mastiff that served as
night guard. Everything was deathly still. A whisper might be
heard yards away, and the young people in the bushes were
speaking in tones perfectly audible to Caleb, distant though
he was. Woodleigh's words brought the angry blood to the
young fellow's temples and caused him to wheel suddenly
in the direction of the speaker. Then he heard Miriam's voice
and stopped short; she listening to such a sentence and an-
swering with a laugh! Curtis turned back, sick at heart. The
mastiff growled and rattled his chain unheard. His master
disappeared from sight, and the house door slammed with a
mighty crash that startled the couple in the lane and brought
the lieutenant's fingers to his sword-handle. Then they recog
nized the sound, laughed nervously at their momentary dis-
comfiture, and continued their promenade. Mr. Holt joined
them soon for a few minutes' walk, and then all three retreated
to the house ; for despite the visitor's laughing protestations,
the others insisted that he should retire early so as to be in
good trim for the morrow's battle. Soon the house grew dark,
and all slept. All? Over in one darkened room a man lay
face downwards on the floor, sobbing and panting like a
frightened child. Clenched fingers, and gritted teeth, and a
tear or two told that he was not asleep, and that his thoughts
were not of the pleasantest character.
io8 NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. [Oct. y
An hour or two before daybreak Woodleigh was awakened
by Mr. Holt, who, clad in dressing-gown and bearing a candle,
came to hurry the young 1 soldier off to the camp, where the
sound of a heavy fusillade could be heard. As the host had
surmised, the young lieutenant was but too anxious to be at
the scene of action. Jumping from his bed, he was ready to
start in short order.
" If you are willing to walk, my nephew can guide you by
a short cut which will save a great deal of time," suggested
Mr. Holt as Woodleigh came into the hall ; and Curtis at his
elbow, with sword girded on and a musket over his shoulder,
gave an assenting grunt. The lieutenant cared for nothing
but to reach the battle as quickly as possible. He imagined
that a night attack had been made by the Americans, and
he was blaming himself bitterly for his own unnecessary delay.
So they started off at once, and the old man stood at the
open door, candle in hand, until they passed from sight.
The two men walked along rapidly and in silence. Curtis
led the way down the hill into a part of the grounds Wood-
leigh had not seen before. Over a great sloping lawn and
down towards the fringe of cedars alongside the little river
they hurried, and as they emerged from the shade around
the house further on in the valley they could see the silver
stream winding in and out among scattered groups of pine
and cedar, with the lovely moonlight playing full upon it.
The trees up near the house behind them, outlined against
the sky like monster sentinels, were throwing long, slender
shadows down toward the water's edge. The firing had
ceased, and all was very still. Woodleigh could hear his guide
talking to himself in a low whisper.
"This may be a good chance to find out something about
this queer family group," thought Woodleigh. Who and what
was this young man, half-groom, half-gentleman ? The lieuten-
ant made up his mind to know.
" Do you read much ? " he broke in suddenly.
"Why I hardly know," said the other, startled, turning
around to answer. " I liked to read once, but since leaving
Harvard I have favored it but little. You see I have n't much
time to spare for recreation."
" Ah," said Woodleigh questioningly, " you were born in
the North?"
" I 'm a Yank, yes indeed," was the answer. " And I sup-
pose you wonder how I got into this part of the country," he
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 109
went on, smiling. "You see, I'm serving for my Rachel. My
uncle was very badly in need of an overseer, and he made it
a condition of our engagement that I should live here three
years as his manager. This way, if you please," and turning
into a path alongside the stream they went along more easily
and rapidly. " Another condition," continued Caleb, making a
wry face and smiling again at Woodleigh, " is that I must re-
main a non-combatant, support neither side, and hold my
tongue as to everything done in the house. I tell you " his
tone grew serious "it makes one ready to call himself a
traitor sometimes."
Woodleigh had been feeling a new sympathy for the young
fellow ; at the last sentence he was won over completely. The
boy had spirit. It was too bad he had been wounded by fool-
ish boasting, and Woodleigh was on the point of saying as
much when his guide, as though divining that intention, threw
up his hand haughtily with
" I know what you would say ; oblige me by not speaking
of it."
Woodleigh bit his lip. " What infernal Yankee impudence ! "
he muttered to himself; and the pair walked on in silence.
They were still in the thin wood that lined the stream
at this point. The water was very low, and from time to time
the bed of the river if river it could be called might be seen
only a foot or two beneath the surface. The current rippled
over sandy shoals and whirled around dead branches fastened
in the mud and bowing under their weight of leaves. Here
and there were great gaps in the bank torn by the roots of
fallen trees. Near one of them Curtis suddenly stopped, and
as he wheeled around Woodleigh could see his set teeth and
white face.
" Will you fight ? " he cried.
Woodleigh gasped in perfect amazement. They were in a
clearing some forty feet in width, and the moon directly over-
head lit up every inch of ground. The spot was well chosen
at any rate.
" I mean it," went on the other, unsheathing his sword.
"You can guess the reason; or if you cannot "
In vain did Woodleigh remonstrate. Curtis was bound to
fight, and on the moment. There was no help for it. W T ood-
leigh placed himself on guard, and the two blades crossed
with a ring. To a fencing-master it would have seemed a
farce. The two men were about evenly matched as to strength,
no NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. [Oct.,
but while the Englishman was perfect master of his weapon,
his opponent was but an awkward and untrained swordsman.
Almost at the first pass the lieutenant's blade drew blood. He
would have stopped, but the other obstinately refused, They
closed again, and again the American received a wound. The
Englishman dropped his point and retreated a few paces.
"This is mere foolishness!" he cried. "I am only playing
with you."
Caleb was too wild to see it. "Blast you!" he cried;
" one of us has got to die. On guard there ! " and he gave a
sudden rush at Woodleigh. The Englishman's sword caught in
Caleb's waist-coat and held, and the latter with a quick turn
snapping the blade, buried his own to the hilt in Woodleigh's
side ! It was done.
The victor looked down at the twitching corpse savagely,
drew his sword away, and after cleansing it on a bunch of
grass walked on again in the direction of Bladensburg, making
a detour sufficient to keep him clear of the English camp.
On reaching the American lines he was challenged and
halted, and when he had declared himself a recruit was at once
pounced upon by a stout, round faced, middle-aged person who
declared that Caleb was just the one to replace a man shot an hour
ago on picket duty. Then a couple of soldiers happened along
who knew Curtis by sight, and, looking askance at the new
recruit, hastened to tell what they knew of him. Their story
heard, the old fellow turned to Caleb.
"You may have heard of me?" he said "Joshua Barrey.
Now, if you really want to go into action with us there 's a
chance for you among my men. If you run, or do anything
suspicious, you '11 be shot."
"All right, commodore," was the answer; "I want only a
chance to prove myself."
So, with a hearty slap on the back, his new commander sent
him off in charge of a captain of marines. It was to be a hot
fight, Caleb learned, and he rejoiced at it ; with joy would he
have slain every man of the British force. And indeed the
chances seemed good for his having all the bloody work de-
sired. He saw his friend the commodore join a group of three
or four men in uniforms, among whom an excited talk was
going on. One of these he recognized as President Madison.
There was some difference of opinion among them, evidently, as
to the plan of operations to be adopted, and before long
Barney left the group arm-in-arm with one of the men the
1900.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. in
secretary of war, Caleb heard some one say. Then the Presi-
dent and the commander of the forces, General Winder, moved
toward the left, where the Maryland militia, arrived but a few
hours before, had taken up their position. It looked as if some
quarrel had occurred. That was about all Caleb had noticed
when, with the breaking of dawn, an artillery duel commenced
between Barney's marines on the right and the British batteries
facing them. Under cover of the English fire four thousand
of General Ross's troops came breasting up the hill. The first
line of Americans was driven in and scattered. On came the
charge with a terrific rush. Rattling musket shots, roaring
cannon, smoke that blinded eyes unused to powder, a sweeping
line of red coats bearing down upon them alas for raw militia-
men ! One regiment breaks and gives way, then another follows,
and soon three or four thousand of the American troops are
on the run, carrying the President and his officials off with
them. Over where Caleb is working at his gun the fight still
rages. Blood is flowing and men dropping to the ground at
every instant. The Americans are outflanked. Barney's face
is red with passion, his men are fighting hand to-hand with the
British, one against three or four of the enemy, while their
own comrades are vanishing on the road to Washington. The
old sea dog is storming away and slashing Britishers with might
and main when a wound in the thigh brings him to earth. His
men give up the unequal contest, and the battle is over. Then,
while the prisoners are forming in line of march, Caleb, half
dazed with the heat and the strangeness of it all, sees an officer
in a red coat walk up to Barney and, with a gracious bow,
hand the old hero his sword. It is the English general parol-
ing the foe deemed worthy of special honor.
That was the morning of the 24th of August. The evening
of the same day saw a strange scene in the old Holt mansion
near the Bladensburg road. First, without any ostensible reason,
Captain Whittaker appeared, asked for Caleb and commenced an
examination of the premises. Then, while the search was going
on, father and daughter were ordered down to the sitting-room,
where the captain put both under pledge to afford no aid to
any of the Americans.
"Unless they are particular friends," added Miriam laughing-
ly on concluding her promise, which she supposed to be some
requisite formality. But the captain was acting very qucerly
to-day. He faced her suddenly with a questioning look.
ii2 NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. [Oct.,
"Understand," he said rather rudely, "this is no child's
play" ; and after a moment's thought, "here, put your hand on
this Bible and swear that you have not aided and will not aid
any of our enemies. Perhaps you will have some regard for
your oath."
Miriam flatly refused.
" For your father's sake do it," pleaded the old man. " This
will ruin me."
The girl's cheeks were flushed with anger and shame. After
hesitating for an instant she stepped to the table, laid one
hand upon the book and, raising the other, repeated the oath
after the captain in a steady voice. This over she left the
room hurriedly. It was in vain that her father knocked at her
door, it was in vain that she was summoned to dinner, again
and again. She felt that she had made sufficient sacrifice in
submitting patiently to the soldier's insulting language, in listen-
ing to his insinuations against her own and her parent's honor,
in their own house. Nothing but reluctance to drive her
father forth disgraced and ruined would have induced her to
take the hateful oath. It was all so strange : Caleb's disappear-
ance, the search for concealed prisoners, Captain Whittaker's
transformation into a suspicious enemy.
A voice beneath her window startled her from a reverie, and
she found herself listening to the chat of a couple of soldiers
stationed below. She grew sick and faint as she heard one of
them relate how a foraging party had discovered the lieuten-
ant's body in the wood. And even as she stood beside the
window two or three men came slowly toward the house
solemnly bearing something covered over with a British flag.
Miriam fled from her room and out of the house, and, scarce
knowing where she went, hurried down toward the river, halting
only when she reached the big boulder where she and Caleb
had passed so many pleasant hours together. What could it all
mean ?
" Miriam!"
It was the barest whisper, but she recognized the voice,
and instantly her cousin stood beside her.
" Where is Lieutenant Woodleigh ? " were her first words.
Caleb's heart sank. He was in instant danger of his life,
and here she seemed anxious only for the Englishman. He
told his story in a few words. The conversation overheard, his
resolve to enter the army, the chance opportunity, and Wood-
leigh's death. Miriam was pale and shivering.
igoo.] NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 113
"And as soon as you tell I shall be hung," he concluded.
She stamped her foot angrily.
" How dare " and stopped. " Caleb ! Caleb ! how could
you ? It was all in fun. Haven't we always trusted one an-
other ?"
Her lover was silent.
" You may consider yourself safe, I think," she went on
more composedly; "I shall explain and you will be set free.
I understand the captain's conduct now."
Caleb nodded his head wearily.
" Good by," he said. " I am glad to go out of life. They
have no code of honor in the army, you know. Good-by, girl,
and God forgive you ! "
Miriam was walking away. She turned back at these
words.
" O Caleb ! if you would only understand ; if you knew
how I loved you ! "
There were big tears in her eyes. Caleb was puzzled. Had
he made a mistake ? But that laugh of hers in the lane last
night ! and now her slowness to assist him !
11 Caleb," broke in his cousin again tearfully, " I can do no
more to help you now, but I am true to you. You are mis-
taken, believe me." And sighing, as she remembered her pro-
mise, she walked toward the house. She was in the outskirts
of the wood. Through the scattered trees could be seen a
dozen soldiers standing in line beside an officer. A gruff word
of command and she heard the click of musket locks. A sec-
ond word and a row of gleaming brown barrels pointed up-
ward. Then there came a deafening roar as of a cannon.
While she stood wondering, the action was repeated and a
second roar rent the air. She understood now. That hole
yonder in, the field was Lieutenant Woodleigh's open grave,
the men were the firing party. And as there came a third
terrific crash of guns close by her, she clung to the nearest tree
for support. And then, then as she was praying wildly that
they would go away and let her move from the horrid place,
there rose to the silent evening sky the first low note of " Taps,"
the soldier's night-call. The men had grounded arms and were
standing motionless.
It almost drove her mad to wait there while the bugle-call
lasted, but it was over finally, and the firing party fell into
marching order and moved slowly toward the house with arms
reversed. They had said their last good-night to the young
VOL. LXXII. 8
ii4 NEAR BLADENSBURG : A WAR TALE. [Oct.,
lieutenant. Miriam was free to go. She glanced back toward
the rock ; Caleb had vanished. It was well. Hold ! some one
was lying beside the rock, with face buried in a heap of rotting
leaves. She hurried back. It was Caleb. Her cousin was
prostrate and motionless. There were no signs of blood upon
him ; simply he had collapsed under the long strain and was in
a faint. Miriam chafed his hands and smoothed his forehead
distractedly. Had she done wrong ? All this suffering was it
not for her sake ? Caleb opened his eyes.
" Not dead yet ? " he said slowly.
What would you have ? The girl was only mortal. An in-
stant more and she was speeding toward the house again ; this
time on a different errand, and Caleb, left sitting by the rock
gradually reviving, had been reconciled to life again by that
last word and a warm caress from Miriam.
As she drew nearer the house she slackened her footsteps
into a slow walk her plan was forming with womanly quick-
ness. Once get Gypsy to the rock what! would she perjure
herself ? That hateful oath crossed her mind again. Every in-
stinct in her soul prompted her to Caleb's aid, but could she
violate her sworn word ? As she walked along out came Eph,
the negro boy, from the house, tiptoeing along silently toward
her with mysterious finger upheld. Through the growing dark-
ness she could see he was in a state of terrible excitement.
" They 's a huntin' Marse Caleb ; some one saw him down
the road," he whispered, trembling. " Cap'n says he '11 hang him.
Jus* foun' lieutenant's body dead in the woods."
Her soul revolted against such justice as seemed likely to
be dealt by Woodleigh's friend. The dead man had fallen in
fair fight. And at any rate her cousin was a prisoner of war,
not a murderer ; or if he was not a prisoner, then her oath did
not apply to him. Ah, good ! that presented a loophole out of
her difficulty. A few sentences to Eph, and she walked
quietly into the house and sat down by her window awaiting
results. There were but one or two men around the house.
Doubtless the others were out on the search. Eph crept over
to the stable unseen, and fastened a bridle to Gypsy ; then,
leaving the saddle hanging on its nail, he hurriedly led the
mare down toward the river, keeping well within the shadow of
the fence.
Night was falling rapidly. Up on the hill behind him a
chance cry now and then betokened the presence of the search-
ing pirty. In a moment dark figures loomed up against the sky.
NEAR BLADENSBURG: A WAR TALE. 115
They were climbing the fence and advancing straight toward
Caleb's hiding place. As Eph came out into the open a shout
from one of the men at the house and an answering rush from
the searching party told that he was seen, and there came into
view a new line of figures running up from below. At the
.same instant Caleb appeared on the edge of the woods. Eph
loosed the bridle, and, as the mare sprang down to her mas-
ter's side, the latter vaulted upon her back. But armed men
were closing in upon him from every hand. To pass toward
the road was impossible. Behind, the river cut him off from
the woods, where darkness and safety awaited him. It seemed
as though aid had come merely to mock at his utter helpless-
ness. What chance was there now for escape ?
But Caleb was not the one to surrender while a single chance
remained. He wheeled the mare like a flash and dashed into
the wood. Rapid orders were given, a line of soldiers swept
down on either side, and a dozen followed in his tracks, driv-
ing him straight towards the river. Caught like a rat in a
trap, Gypsy as she faced the wide banks felt a sudden
vicious lash such as she had never received before in her life.
A quick dash, a mad bound, and she was across the stream
crashing through the bushes on the further side. Then a dozen
muskets spoke and shattered twigs and leaves went flying about
her master's head. Another second and both mare and rider
were lost to view amid the trees.
Gypsy returned next day riderless, her brown sides crusted
with horrid red. Beside the great rock the body was buried
when they brought it back from the place where it lay. Win-
ters came and went, and year by year the autumn leaves
would nestle in the rock just as of yore, but not many seasons
had passed before there were deep cut letters on its face pray-
ing for the repose of the betrothed resting underneath.
n6 GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. [Oct.,
THE GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM.
a man writes an article to advance a sordid and
unscrupulous policy he should have the cunning
not to permit his object to appear. The Pall
Mall Magazine for September contains an article
entitled " Justice to England," the aim of which
is avowed, namely, to transfer thirty seats to England from
Ireland, of which twenty are to be allotted to London in order
that there*shall be " a safeguard against effective and injurious
interference in Imperial affairs of British trade." This modest
proposal would confer on England what would be equivalent to
sixty seats on a division, as against Ireland and Scotland, and
this to maintain interests and speculations which have been
severely criticised by honorable men ; would confer on London
what would be equivalent to forty seats on a division in order
that those persons who profit by company-promoting at home
and abroad would possess a free hand to enrich themselves at
the expense of others. Even as things are there is an over-
whelming majority in both Houses of Parliament behind the
moneyed men ; but that majority may not last. The people
may for a time think of themselves. This is the awkward cir-
cumstance in connection with the activity of commercial bub-
bles in England, or the artificial inflation of the value of for-
eign concessions, or the political creation of financial interests
on the frontiers of colonies and dependencies. A few failures
causing general disaster, a few crashes arousing public excite-
ment or producing foreign difficulties, and the present majority
in the House of Commons would be swept away. For the time
the people would at least have the satisfaction of punishing un-
worthy representatives ; it might happen that thingswould go
on well for awhile ; that the interests of the working classes
would be looked to ; some measures wanting to their complete
emancipation would be passed if the House of Lords were in a
suitable state of panic. Then a change of feeling would come,
and once more the moneyed interest would return to power, to be
again wrecked by a new scandal. This is the story of the " ins "
and " outs " brought to light by the turns of the political wheel,
and men have been bearing patiently such alternate advancement
and retrogression in the hope that the cause of liberty and reason
i cpo.] GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 117
would ultimately triumph. The Pall Mall Magazine politician
would deprive Radicals of this hope. There has been upon the
whole a great advance since the Reform Bill of 1832. The
measure contained principles of growth which ripened under
necessity ; but only for the necessity, only for the hard pressure
put on labor by the strength behind the tyranny of capital, the
franchise would be as exclusive now as in 1832. That is, legislation
would be absolutely and not relatively in the hands of the classes.
One of the issues ingeniously presented that will go before the
electorate in October or November is the redistribution of seats
proposed in the interest of London. The rest of England does
not seem of much account in this reform ; the ten seats remaining
may be apportioned in a manner not unfavorable to wealth, but
in any case possibly the spreading of them over the electorate
may not inordinately change the proportion of influence in the
constituencies commanded by the government and the opposition
respectively. The twenty seats for London would unquestionably
render changes of power less frequent, and thereby indefinitely
postpone matters of vital consequence to the workingman indeed,
to all who earn small incomes by industry of the hand or brain.
The mischief of the proposal can hardly be conceived ; it
would be a constant danger to the rural districts and provin-
cial towns. The London members could, without any incon-
venience, be always on the spot ; it entails, on the other hand,
a considerable sacrifice to men from distant parts of England
and from Scotland to attend at all in London ; it would be
impossible for them to attend from day to day during the en-
tire session. We are not pressing the claims of Ireland to con-
sideration at this moment we shall say something about them
when we come to examine the question of the transfer of the
seats on its merits ; what is important for English readers of
the Radical party is the proposal which would give London a
dominant influence in Parliament. There are sixty-ond* mem-
bers from the London divisions now. In all matters of local
as distinguished from English interests these members can be
relied upon to vote as one man. Certainly in all London ob-
jects, where there is no excited hostility from the country out
side, the sixty-one votes would go solidly for such objects.
The' natural development of a capital is a thing to be de-
sired in the highest degree. There are accessories to the fact
that a town is the capital which must always promote its
prosperity. As the seat of government and patronage, of law
and legislation, large numbers are held in it by office and
drawn to it by interest and expectation. It is the centre of
n8 GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. [Oct.,
fashion, literature, and art ; but, besides these advantages
common to capitals wherever situated, London is the greatest
commercial centre in the world, its river the most crowded
port in the world. If the proposal put forward by the writer in
the magazine mentioned were carried out, the commercial interests
of every town and port in England would be sacrificed to those
of London, the welfare of the artisan and laborer all over Eng-
land would be at the mercy of employers, sustained in the com-
mon interest of capital by the eighty-one London representatives.
If thirty members maintaining the slave-owning interest
kept back the emancipation of the West Indian slaves for
three generations after the question had become not merely a
movement of justice and humanity on the part of able and
enlightened men, but one in which the possessions affected by
the institution were in danger, it would seem that twice that
number of representatives are more than sufficient to uphold
the interests of London. The truth is, that thirty members
would be as effective in watching over genuine London inter-
ests as distinguished from the schemes of company-promoters,
stock-jobbers, and money-lenders of all descriptions as ninety
members for preserving the interests of the more remote dis-
tricts of England. Eighty one members for London would be
a force of hardly less value than half of the representation of
Great Britain outside London. The Irish representation as it
stands saves the United Kingdom from the supremacy of the
classes. Not a movement for the benefit of the people since
very early in the nineteenth century but was aided by the
Irish Liberal members, and they for the greater part of the
time constituted the majority of the Irish representation.
Suppose we begin with the great Reform Act ; *we find that
Ireland sacrificed her own chances of political advantage to
the advancement of Liberal principles throughout the three
kingdoms. She has not been always fortunate in her self-
denial; for she was frequently betrayed by the official Liberals
that is, by the Whig section of the party. Her constant
friends were men like Bright and Cobden ; it is hardly to be
thought they would have been so faithful to her unless they
had found her faithful to their aspirations. If the Noncon-
formists are now within the constitution, they owe their place
to the Irish Liberals. If it should ever happen that no re-
ligious distinctions shall separate any part of the Protestants
of England from other Protestants there, the establishment
of equality will be due to principles vindicated in the long
contest between the Catholics and Presbyterians of Ireland
IQOO.] GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 119
against the Episcopal Protestantism of that country. The at-
tempt to separate the principle of a state church in Wales
from a state church in the rest of England is an effort to
throw dust in people's eyes ; and to separate the principle of
disestablishment in England and Wales from that which suc-
ceeded in Ireland, is nothing more than Mr. Lowe's metaphorical
application of " the mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother ";
clever indeed as a tu quoque of expediency, but not as a deduction
from principle. Clever it was for a man ready, while upholding
the Establishment in England, to ask concerning that in Ire-
land : " Why cumbereth it the ground ? " So far as to the useful-
ness of the Irish representation to the masses of England and the
enactment and assertion of the principles which protect the
weak, the ignorant, and all who are born under unfavorable
conditions, from the wealthy, the overmastering, and those \vho
are highly trained in the science of taking advantage of others.
But there is another and a more vital aspect of this ques-
tion of the transfer of part of the Irish representation to Eng-
land. As we face this we are astounded at the cynicism of
the reasons advanced for the proposal. The population of Ire-
land is diminishing and that of England increasing, therefore
the conditions of proportional representation on which the
numbers were originally based no longer exist. The amount
of taxes paid by Ireland relatively to that of England is nearly
six times less than it was when, at the union of the two legis-
latures, the Irish proportion of members in the Imperial Par-
liament was fixed. On this statement Ireland should now be
left only nineteen members. Then there is the Home Rule
difficulty, which the writer finds a nuisance. It will again be
raised, he says, to "bother" England, and prevent her from
attending to imperial interests in China, South Africa, and
wherever there is money to be made by the acquisition of ter-
ritory, or the compulsory recognition of a sphere of influence
where the territory may not be seized owing to the jealousy
of the other powers. If this were a reason at all for interfer-
ence with the Irish representation, it would go the whole
length of extinguishing it. If the company-promoters and the
usurers of London are not to be checked in their fraudulent
enterprises, Home Rule must be put away as a parliamentary
question. The time which the House would give to the inter-
ests of moneyed men in Asia and Africa is wasted by debates
on Home Rule. But this would be rather an argument for the
withdrawal of the whole representation, and as Ireland pa) s
; 10,000,000 yearly in taxes, the awkward consequence would fol-
120 GENERAL ELECTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. [Oct.
low that that country would be taxed without even the pretence
of consent for the benefit of capitalists in a hurry to grow rich
at the expense of labor, and of every interest apart from the
means by which a few individuals may accumulate vast fortunes.
In passing it may be said that the idea should not be en-
couraged that men are at liberty to compromise the relations of
the Empire in order to make money. If companies choose to em-
bark in adventures abroad, they should do so at their own risk.
It is immoral for men to go to a foreign country, whethef civ-
ilized or semi,-civilized, to make bargains, and carry the Empire
with them to enforce their compacts. By the grant of a railway
concession, say, they undertake to construct a line. If they fail to
obtain the necessary supply of labor in the country, they require
the Empire to insist that the government of the civilized or semi-
civilized country shall put its people at their disposal. This, we
submit, is immoral, and we do not think the immorality lessened
by the demand that Ireland shall be practically disfranchised.
But the writer has, without intending it, demonstrated the
justice and necessity of the Home- Rule cry. The figures
under his hand prove that by the Union Ireland has been
steadily sinking in wealth and population, England advancing
in both, not by steps but by bounds. " Sir, do not unite with
us," said Dr. Johnson to an Irishman; "if you do, we shall rob
you." This prediction has been verified ; and the writer in the
Pall Mall Magazine takes as the justification of his proposal
the effect which wise men said should follow when Ireland
handed over all control of her resources to England. Trusting
in the generosity of the more powerful country, as we may put
it, Ireland has been impoverished, the other enriched ; but
lest she should have the power to speak of her own folly and
of the advantage taken of it by England, she is to be silenced in
the only place where usage accorded some freedom of utterance.
The prospect is gloomy ; but we do not despair. There is a
court of public opinion wider than the British Isles. Whatever
happens in Ireland will in some degree be known in America,
in France, in Germany, in Russia in a word, all over the world.
Strange facts got out when Ireland was fenced from the rest of
mankind by fleets whose business was to prevent communication
with foreign nations. If there be an honest press in any country,
occasional excesses of power shall be heard of eventually to
serve as acts of impeachment in that day when civilized states
will come together to proclaim the rights of the whole human
race and to condemn the state which conspicuously violated them.
The Master Christian, by Marie Corelli,* is a
work intended to show that the author has a be-
lief in the facts of science founded on knowledge;
and this being so, we are not surprised that over
a hundred thousand copies of the book should be
sold. The population of a country dear to Miss Corelli was
spoken of by one of its philosophers as so many millions,
mostly fools; and we may say the dabblers in science are a
hundred thousand mostly simpletons, not fools quite. When
Squire Thornton took the two ladies from London to visit the
wife and daughters of the Vicar of Wakefield, the latter were
greatly impressed by their airs and fine conversation. Some
remarks sounded odd to the simpletons of the Wakefield vicar-
age, but then it was their own dulness and want of fashion
which failed to find a catastrophe in the quotation, "Jerning-
ham Jerningham, bring me my garters ! " or the greatest
elegance in the confession of one of the ladies that " she was
in a muck of sweat." When Miss Corelli opens her scientific
novel with a sentence of bad English, the hundred thousand
are only to be excused for expecting a woman of science and
a teacher should write like an ordinary, well-bred person.
They display ignorance of the privileges of a scientific female.
To do the fair writer justice, she manifests a consistent superi-
ority to usage in the employment of words. We once heard of
a man who took an action for libel on the ground that the
defendant, in a published statement, described him as so
ignorant that he could not spell the simplest words correctly.
As a matter of fact, the plaintiff's spelling was bad scanda-
lously bad but 'he retorted that as a gentleman he was entitled
to spell any way he liked. When Miss Corelli informs us that
the sacred chime pealed forth melodiously, "floating with
sweet and variable tone," we beg, with as much diffidence as
Mrs. Primrose and her daughters displayed towards the Lon-
* The Master Christian. By Marie Corelli. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
122 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
don ladies, to doubt is " variable " an activity. " Muck of
sweat," to their unsophisticated minds, sounded as vulgar;
and " variable," to our unscientific judgment, seems a capacity
and no more.
The statue of " Le Mourant " shows " with deft and
almost appalling exactitude the last convulsion of a strong
man's body gripped in the death agony." In such a sentence
as this, "exactitude," though unusual, may be permitted, but
"deft exactitude" is not only what Polonius would call a vile
phrase, but it does not bring out the idea the writer had in
what she would probably call her mind. She meant the piti-
less force of the perfect chiseling which made sinew, starting
vein, and eye of agony tell the sculptor's thought. A deft
hand for lace-making, type-writing, and tying parcels comes in
suitably.
She introduces the Archbishop of Rouen, who does not
seem to be a saint, because he is a handsome man, believing
the doctrines of the church of which he is a dignitary ; she
contrasts him with Cardinal Bonpre, who is a saint because
he has rejected the fundamental principle of the religion of
which he should be an authoritative expounder. That our
Lord founded a church she seems to deny with the cardinal,
but in her unpleasant way she admits it by saying it was
founded on the " Lying Apostle," with a capital L. She pro-
fesses to love the Lord, and we hope she does ; but why not
speak in other terms of the great servant to whom He said :
" Lovest thou Me more than these ? "
The cardinal's dream is worked up ; and possibly that class
of science man known as the medical student and science
woman called the mantua-maker will mark passages with mar-
ginal notes : How fine ! This is true ! Bravo, Corelli ! and so
on as the reserve or boldness of sex prompts. It is a very
turgid affair, in our poor opinion "lurid," "red," "dazzling,"
" a light that was neither of earth nor of heaven " ; but this
we accept, "and to be the inward reflection of millions of flash-
ing sword blades," which we give up in despair. We watch
for the cardinal's waking, an interesting event which comes to
pass his eminence " bathed in a cold perspiration " at which
we are not at all surprised, suffering under such rhetoric, in-
stead of sleeping the sleep of the just.
Angela, the cardinal's niece, "was a rare type of her sex
unlike any other woman in the world " ; we hope so, for she
is intended to be a model of purity, and we find her listening
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 123
without a blush to gross, hideous statements made by Aubrey
Leigh, a reformer of the world. She carries on a conversation
with a fashionable and vicious priest, who for some unknown
reason has the name of the orator of the Gironde. This makes
one think Miss Corelli such a priestess of liberty as that Delphic
one who " Philipized." Money in the case of the fair Greek
interpreter of the oracles, over a hundred thousand readers for
the prophetess of "science."
We are introduced to the Comtesse Sylvia Hermenstein,
who is led up to us as a " Lady Hamilton."
Now, Lady Hamilton was as profligate a woman as ever
lived, and would be a fit companion for the London ladies re-
ferred to in the beginning of this note. Why introduce her
name, unless the writer panders to Holywell Street ? As one
would expect, Sylvia communicates a matter in confidence to
the virtuous Angela nothing less than the dishonorable pur-
suit of her by a marquis. And yet a hundred thousand read-
ers ! The marquis turns up : she sees him in time, escapes
from Angela's apartments through the door used by the models,
and the marquis and Angela carry on a conversation of a
detestable character Angela representing virtue in the dialogue,
and the marquis, what shall we say ? the good taste of Miss
Corelli. It is hard to choose between Angela and the marquis,
or the good and bad side of the author's understanding.
We shall say nothing of the marriage of Leigh and the
Comtesse Sylvia except that the cardinal should not have been
present if he were a decent man, much less the saint the author
tries to make him. The religious idea which among Protestants
is attached to what they regard as the most important con-
tract in life would not permit a Protestant clergyman to
sanction by his presence such a travesty of the rite as we find
there depicted. It is enough to point out, when Miss Corelli
puts one who is a cardinal and an archbishop in the scene as
an approving spectator, she clearly shows what she thinks her
hundred thousand readers may be led to believe where the
doctrine and practice of the church are concerned. We pity
them ; we pity Miss Corelli.
The crisis in China has created a demand for books on
China and books of almost every kind are sent out to meet the
demand. The work * under consideration is meant to supple-
* World Crisis in China. By Allen S. Will, of the Baltimore Sun. New York and
Baltimore : John Murphy Company.
124 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
ment the older histories of China, and to give up to date in-
formation on the social, educational, and political systems of
that empire of 400,000,000 of people, particularly as to the
points of contact between China and the United States. Its
aim is to enable the reader to comprehend clearly and in their
full significance the successive stages of the crisis as they are
presented from day to day. This is a very difficult undertak-
ing, and we are not aware that the author is specially quali-
fied for the task. But as no two experts are in agreement
as to the full significance and meaning of the recent events,
and still less as to what is to be the outcome of it all, Mr.
Will is as well entitled to be heard as any one else. The
first chapter deals with the causes of the crisis in 1900. It is,
in our opinion, superficial and immature. The second chapter
brings down the narrative of events to the 26th of July, when the
fate of the legations was still in suspense. It is a compilation
from the newspapers, and belongs now to past history, so much
having transpired since. The third chapter, on the interests of
the United States in China, is mainly a reprint of the correspond-
ence which took place between September 6, 1899, and March 20,
1900, with the governments of Great Britain, Russia, France,
Germany, Italy, and Japan on the preservation of the " open
door" by the powers in their respective spheres of interest.
Subsequent chapters the author goes backwards give ac-
counts of the Chinese-Japanese War, the great Taeping Rebel-
lion, a glance at Chinese history from the beginning, and an
account of the era of Foreign Interference. Chapters on
Chinese government, Chinese religion and civilization, and an
account of the four notable characters, the Empress Dowager,
the Emperor, Li Hung Chang, and Kang Yu Wei, complete
the list of the contents. The useful purpose of bringing with-
in easy reach, for the sake of reference, the events of recent
years is served by this book. . No attempt is made at style.
" Europe stepped in and by a show of force gobbled the chief
plums," " France took a slice of the pie," are specimens which
relieve the usual monotony of bald statements. There is a
fairly good map of China showing the railways built and the
projected railways; but the provinces into which China is
divided, and to which continual reference is being made, are
not indicated.
Praise is the first and the easiest duty of man to God ; then
service will follow naturally; for if we sincerely praise God, we
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 125
shall more readily serve and obey him. " Praise," says Cardinal
Manning, " is the voice of grateful and generous love, lifted
up in thanks, benediction, and worship. It is the free, loving
joy of a heart grateful for the past, and for blessings now at
hand. The spirit of thanksgiving and praise ought, therefore,
to have a larger part in our devotions."
This little book * is devoted to the cultivation of the spirit of
praise ; and is almost in its entirety taken from Holy Scripture,
chiefly from the Psalter that best treasure-house of the high-
est devotion. The recourse to Holy Scripture and to its use
in the devotions of the faithful is in the highest degree to be
desired, and since the bestowal so recently of an indulgence on
the devotional use of Scripture, is evidently according to the
church's mind and desire. The volume contains selections for
every day for three months, with an appendix for the Sundays,
and for the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and of the Blessed
Sacrament.
People who are seeking for a volume of profitable spiritual
reading might advisedly give Peregrinus a trial. The very
conception of his volume f is an omen of success that becomes
guaranteed when we find him accomplishing his task with such
abundance of patient care, fervor, solid devotion, and graceful
finish. The book is one we are grateful for having received.
How true is Father Tyrrell's striking preface ! The learned
Jesuit has been multiplying claims upon the favor of the
Catholic public until now one is forced into a state of wonder-
ment that men have so long been blind to the precious and
beautiful suggestions he is ever discovering in the common
heritage of the Christian Church. The Introduction to the
present volume may be said practically to insure its favor, for
it will bring every intelligent reader to perceive the crying
need that the author so aptly meets.
That Catholics as a rule do not use the Sacred Scripture
half enough is a byword. That the most intelligent and cul-
tured of our people utterly fail to appreciate the transcendent
beauty of the Divine Psalms is being borne in upon the observing
minds of the rising generation. Father Tyrrell's suggestions
and Peregrinus' work will be as the gleam of a beacon-light to
many souls kept in ignorance of the charm and spiritual power
* Praise and Adoration. Compiled by B. S. A. Warner, year of Jubilee, 1900. London :
R. and T. Washbourne ; New York : Benziger Brothers.
t Meditations on the Psalms of the Little Office. By Peregrinus. With an Introduction
by George Tyrrell, S.J. St. Louis : B. Herder.
126 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
of the church's, liturgy. May the latter redeem his half-pledge
to issue a companion volume covering the whole Psaltery, and
may Father Tyrrell long continue his noble work of training
our people in sensible, artistic, and devotional development of
the great truths supplied by Holy Church ! It is really diffi-
cult to exaggerate the impression made by the latter writer's
constant and successful attempts to arouse men to the cultiva-
tion of deep personal piety. From both Catholic and non-
Catholic readers we have already heard enough to convince us
that his work is to live long after the present generation shall
have given way to another yet more appreciative of his rare
combination of delicacy, learning, and fervent love of church
and God.
A sweetly-simple tale is that of the hero of Lady Kerr's
biography.* The subtile charm lingering about the very places
and houses inhabited by this humble saint seems to be trans-
ferred to these pages, penned in sympathetic appreciation of
his life. Touching, devout, and edifying, the new book is a
pleasing addition to the similar volumes that have preceded it.
Nor is it without receiving a great deal of needed instruction
that our fin de siecle enthusiasts will read the story of this
obscure and lowly- spirited peasant, who acquired so prominent
and effective an influence for good in the proud society of
sixteenth-century Rome. How little harm and how great a
good would have resulted from a " Reform " headed by men
as saintly, unselfish, and zealous as this humble lay-brother.
Queen Floradine of Flower Land, by Mrs. Cora Semmes Ives,
is a beautiful little play for " little tots," giving them a fund
of amusement and profitable instruction truly refining in its
influence upon their hearts and minds.
Meditations of the Heart \ is a collection of morning and
evening prayers done with exquisite literary taste. The author
is a Jewess, and the- book is introduced to the public by Rabbi
Gottheil. It is the breathings of a devout soul. The devo-
tional spirit disarms criticism. We might, however, were we so
inclined, take issue with the sentiment one meets in the open-
* A Son of St. Francis : St. Felix of Cantalice. By Lady Amabel Kerr. St. Louis : B.
Herder. i
^Meditations of the Heart. A Book of Private Devotions for Old and Young. By
Annie Josephine Levi. With an introduction by Rev. Dr. Gustav Gottheil. New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 127
ing chapters, which spurns dogmatic truths and lauds anything
that
" Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds."
Dogmatic truth is the soil in which the plant of morality and
the flowers of devotional life grow. It is curious to see how
people will appear to repudiate creeds, and in the next breath
affirm a most positive creed. The devotional effect would have
been intensified if the author could . have appealed to Jesus
the Saviour and Redeemer.
|
Now, if ever, is the time for titles suggestive of information
concerning the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire. The pres-
ent volume,* however, is concerned altogether with the Chinese
immigrants to this country, and in particular with their quarter
in the city of San Francisco.
Doubtless all the information given concerning many strange
customs of this curious race is thoroughly to be relied upon
as the outcome of long familiarity with the scenes described.
The volume is concerned with the doings of the thugs and
" highbinders," whose infamous practices now and again cause
a stir among the police officers and newspapers, but still re-
main to a great extent unchecked. From the story-reader's
point of view the book must be considered rather "scrappy,"
and, in not a few respects, rather improbable. One is con-
strained to hesitate before admitting that real records can
so nearly resemble loose pages from " The New Arabian
Nights."
The Knights of the Cross\ is an historical novel conversant
with the politics of the growing state of Poland when first
united with Lithuania. The theory which the romance is writ-
ten to illustrate is that of a Slavonic hegemony in Europe.
Air is given to the racial hostility towards Germany which
people generally thought was a new feeling, but which the
writer presents as one old at least as the fourteenth century.
The introduction of the translator, among other mistaken ideas,
gives currency to this one. The translator states impressions
from a survey as inferences from movements. This may be
interesting as the manifestation of his own mental operations,
but it is not a philosophy of history.
In the novel there is an appearance of falling off from the
power which asserted itself in The Deluge. It would be hardly
* The Shadow of Quong Lung. By Dr. Doyle. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company,
t The Knights of the Cioss. By J. Henry Sienkiewicz. Boston : Little, Brown & Co.
128 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
possible that a man of Mr. Sienkiewicz's ability would not at
times give proof of strength, but upon the whole the work is
labored and inferior. There is an absence of the spontaneity
which gave the charm to imaginative description and the con-
ception of character in his other works. The humor which
rose to the universal in Zagloba, and which flashed from and
around the other characters brought into contact with him, is
entirely absent. When he tries to be playful his gambols are
elephantine. The number of hard names which frightened a
critic in his earlier novels is here, but in the earlier novels no
one thought of the twelve consonants which spelled them.
The reader was borne onward by the current of the story and
animated by the energy of the action. It is different now.
He hardly keeps the interest alive by efforts made strenuous
by an apparent consciousness of failing power.
The hero Zbyshko is an exaggeration of the simplicity and
shrewdness which mark young Percival in Sir Walter Scott's
novel. We recognize, with Sir Walter, that in a candid and
straightforward nature there is often found a fine insight into
men and a remarkable ability to deal with complications. The
hero in the novel before us is a fool extricated by some hid-
den Deus ex machina from the difficulties in which he involves
himself. We are, therefore, unable to feel pity for his danger
or to be glad at his escape. We are only surprised that the
public at the scene of the execution could have been so deeply
affected ; we are more amazed still at the sobbing of men and
women when the nervous tension was relieved by the incident
which procured his release.
Yagenka is evidently drawn on the lines of Diana Vernon,
but not a particle of the wit, the grace, the nobleness of that
exquisite creation can be traced in her ; yet she is not with-
out a certain attractiveness indeed, but this proceeds from the
one reality which belongs to her her love for Zbyshko. As
we have said, the writer is too able a man to fail completely,
but he falls short in working out the conception. Nor is
this altogether due to his appropriation of the creation of an-
other man. Either in real life, or in works of imagination, how
many of the characters of Shakspere had already had existence!
Yet in his hands there was given to them an element by which
they became so transformed as to become beings of another
order.
However, when he comes to the battle of Tannenberg all
his old power returns to him ; all because his own noble ideals
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 129
are with him, the faith which burned like fire through the
entire frame-work of the earlier novels and imparted that life
to his creations which sprang from intensity of passion. The
account of the battle is as detailed as that from a modern re-
porter, but the most trivial incidents are arrayed in light. It
is a panorama the reader has before him ; the eddy and whirl
are as plain as though the bodily eye were watching the
fortune of the day, and the particular deeds of daring. He
hears the roar as the battle surges hither and thither, the
neighing of the horses, the shouting of the captains, the clang-
ing of the armor. Above all, rising like a conquering force,
the hymn to Our Lady swells over the field, or, when the
battle cries cease for a moment, its subduing majesty rolls
along like the great voice of falling waters in which nature
speaks for ever to the echoes, or like that voice when the sky
silences all the voices of the earth. We close this notice with
the reminder that the most dangerous rival to fame is the re-
putation a man has already acquired.
The Maid of Maiden Lane* is a novel, by Amelia E. Barr, of
that part of the eighteenth century beginning very shortly after
the acknowledgment of the United States by the powers of the
world and running into the throes of the French Revolution. In
New York in 1791 there were numbers of exiled royalists from
France, very hospitably received, although the sympathies of
Americans were with the French republicans. The writer has
the advantage of knowing what took place in France, so that
the interlocutors speaking in 1/91 are made to possess a marvel-
lous foresight. There is a scene in England and there is one
in France the latter reminiscent, the former actual in a noble
family. Whatever may be the reason for selecting the eigh-
teenth century as the period for novels, there is decidedly a
strong tendency in that direction at present. We think the
work before us lively and by no means a bad reflex of the life
and manners of the time.
I. A NEW PRIEST-POET, f
Julian E. Johnstone is a young priest of the Archdiocese of
Boston. In this volume he offers to the world the first flower-
ings of his gift of song. It is an offering to arrest the culti-
* The Maid of Maiden Lane. By Amelia E. Barr. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.
^ Songs of Sun and Shadow. By Julian E. Johnstone. Boston: W. B. Clark Company.
VOL. LXXII. 9
130 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
vated and hold their attention. It will whet their eagerness for
the author's future work, leaving in them expectations that will
not be taken aback if that work wins for itself an eminent place
in English verse. It is not at all too much to say that no poet
living has a wider word-resourcefulness than Father Johnstone.
Indeed, he comes very near to exhausting the poetical possibili-
ties of English vocabulary. This extraordinary praise we give
him, though we acknowledge in the same breath that his power
has led him now and then astray, both in the indulging overmuch
a fondness for unusual and awkward-looking words, and in the
displaying of a positively blinding lavishness of color-words in his
descriptive stanzas. True this is a fault that indicates strength,
not weakness the strength of great wealth in the raw material
of poetry and of irrepressible emotional vitality. Instances of
this blemish are not many ; examples of the opposite excellence,
of noble force and exquisite felicity, are too abundant to count.
Let a random specimen or two suffice :
" Cliffs over which the tempest never rings
Nor flies its flag of lightning."
From " Immortality"
" Shall soul like Shakespeare or like Dante die :
Fade like the flowers on a young girl's grave ;
Die like the belted bee, the butterfly,
Or the weak wind that swoons upon the wave ? "
Ibid.
"There on a snowy couch, the snowy maiden,
Her golden hair upon the pillow spread ;
With fairest flowers and whitest lilies laden,
In shimmering silk lies dead."
From " The Darkened Room.' 1
In poems of a free, wild spirit Father Johnstone takes keen-
est delight. The sweep of the sea, the crash of the cataract,
the rolling of thunder and tempest are, in his own words,
" deep in the blood and the heart of me." We readily credit
him when he sings :
" I long for the keen salt air of the sea
And the Titans' tumult and thunder,
And the solemn strength and sublimity
Of the songs of the sea-gods under!"
From "Sea-Longings."
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 131
Or again :
" Oh, give me the flush of the rosy morn
And the flash of the sun on the sea,
And the blush of the haws on the black of the thorn,
And a run in the sun o'er the countryside dun,
With a horse speeding on like a shot from a gun,
And a fence to leap over that others would shun
And I '11 laugh at the rich in my glee."
Ibid.
But when he handles a staid theme, as in his poem against
war, or would deliver " a sermon in verse," he is far less at
ease. His fancy needs a vigorous stimulus, a sweep and a dash,
"the keen salt air" of a big, outdoor, passion full inspiration,
to disclose its best ; though, like all such natures, he is ten-
derly susceptible to pathos and gives it voice in haunting
melody.
Has our young poet a message to men, a " burden " to his
time, or sings he only lyrics that please for the hour ? The
long poems, " Life and Death " and " Immortality," leave us
with reason for saying that he has an evangel to the world's
heart and soul. We would urge him to a profound study of
his age and of the times which have been its parents ; to a
root-deep grasp on the spiritual and philosophical attitude and
development of the poetry of this century. Impressed so
mightily are we with the sacredness of the poet's calling ; with
the conviction that a poet is only then worthy of immortality
when he is a seer, when he spells out the guesses of souls into
a sure symbol of saving faith ; and so sadly certain are we
that English poetry needs a savior of this insight and of this
power to teach and inspire, that we give to Father Johnstone the
encouragement that comes deepest from our heart, and hold
_up before him the most exalted inspiration we can conceive in
urging him thus to consecrate his exceptional abilities. Only
we must add a caution. Both these longer poems disclose to
a searching reading too bare a scholastic structure. They are
glorified syllogisms wherein the " Atqui " and the " Ergo" are
too prominent. Take Browning's glorious "Saul," or his " Abt
Vogler," or even "The Grammarian's Funeral," and see with
what matchless poet's art the reasoner's art is suppressed out
of notice. The argument, especially in " Saul," is profound ;
it leaves us with burning conviction, or at least with the sense
of having met a powerful appeal, yet not even in afterthought
132 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
do we awake to the fact that a man has been arguing at us.
Father Johnstone has raised the language of his lesson into a
region rarely transcended ; let him shake off the sticks of its
didactic method and then, once his soul has grown fast about
his mission and become aflame with it, he will throw a spiritual
splendor into the dark places of the poetry of this age which
will win him great gratitude, and, there is bright reason to
hope, enduring fame. For this let him be patient. Years con-
sumed in the desert of study, and, for he is a priest, and we
may and ought to say it, of prayer, since, once again, the
poet's is a sacred f office, and of what is his highest song save
of the things of God? years thus consumed will be rewarded
richly, if some day he be hailed as the precursor of a holy
era unto which the poetry of our English tongue is now groan-
ing for redemption. Our highest ideal of the poet's spiritual
splendor we lay before the young and gifted author whom we
have briefly reviewed. We could pay him no higher compli-
ment. We congratulate him and bid him God-speed !
2 THE PORTIUNCULA CRITICALLY EXAMINED.*
The second volume of Sabatier's work on the religious and
literary history of the middle ages is occupied with the con-
sideration of documents relative to the famous Indulgence of the
Portiuncula. It is a work of great erudition and research, and
it brings to the consideration of the question all the accuracy
and scientific precision which modern criticism demands. In
the first chapter the author treats of the official tradition of
the Franciscans concerning the Indulgence, giving original
documents and his explanations of them. This' carries the
matter to about the year 1330.
The second chapter is occupied by an account of popular
tradition extending to the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury, while in the third the two streams are shown to flow into
one.
Then follows a description of the manuscripts bearing upon
the Indulgence, and finally St. Francis' own account of the
vision wherein our Lord bade him ask for the Indulgence, and
the various events connected with his petition.
As this Indulgence of the Portiuncula is one of the most
extraordinary ever given, the history of it, as thus written by
Dr. Sabatier, cannot but be of interest. For himself, the learned
* Tractatus de Indulgentia Sanctce Maria de Portiuncula. Paris : Paul Sabatier.
i poo.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 13 j
author for a long time doubted the Pardon's authenticity, and
it was only upon examining original documents that he carne
to the conclusion that these were probably trustworthy, and
that the matter by no means admitted of absolute denial.
The tradition concerns itself with the little church at Assist
one of the three which St. Francis repaired. It was, or is, a
little bit of a chapel only a few feet in length, and originally
was the oratory of a certain family of the Portiunculi, whence
it received its popular name. The real name of the church was
St. Mary of the Angels. Here St. Francis, before he had wed-
ded the Lady Poverty, while he was still the heir of Ser Bartholi,
the wealthy merchant of Assisi, used to withdraw in prayer ; it
was the falling walls of this church which he beheld himself in
a vision bracing with his shoulders ; it was here he resolved on
founding his order. And so in every way the church was
connected with the great moments of St. Francis' life. It
was in his thoughts, and there was nothing strange in the
fact that this little chapel should be chosen as the place for
the great Pardon. The story says that in 1221, when Francis
was kneeling there in prayer, our Lord appeared to him and
told him to go to Pope Honorius III. and ask, in our Lord's
name, a plenary indulgence for all who should enter the
church.
St. Francis did as the vision bade. He visited Honorius at
Perugia, told his vision, and asked for the favor. Honorius
granted his petition by word of mouth, giving to all the faith-
ful an indulgence from the penalties due their sins as often as
they should enter the church on the second day of August.
Two years later the Indulgence was given in writing by Honor-
ius in the presence of the cardinals, although many of them,
even then, objected to the granting of it.
Such is the account as tradition gives it. Against this, how-
ever, three things may be alleged : First, the silence of early
biographies of St. Francis. Of these there are five, and not
one of them mentions either the vision or the concession of the
pope.
Second, the known dislike of St. Francis for asking any
privileges for his order. This feeling on his part was often
and freely expressed. Even when the brethren wished him to
obtain for them license to preach everywhere, St. Francis re-
buked them because they desired a privilege. " What, breth-
ren ! " he exclaimed, " do you not know the will of God ? It
is by humility we gain the good will of our superiors. When
134 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
the bishops see you living in holiness, then, of themselves, will
they ask you to preach for them. Let it be your singular
privilege to have no privileges which may puff up your hearts
with pride and breed discontent and strife." So said he at the
famous chapter of Mats, in 1219, in the presence of five
thousand friars, and certainly, it is argued, he would not be
found two years later asking from the pope a privilege, and
that of the most extraordinary kind.
In the third place, it is alleged against the authenticity of
the Indulgence, that while St. Francis' contemporaries are
quite silent, there is, after his death, an ever-growing embel-
lishment of the story of the vision and its attendant circum-
stances.
There can be answers made to these objections, which are
not so formidable as they appear at first sight. The last rea-
son given is, after all, more an explanation and excuse for
denying the reality of the Pardon than ground for refusing to
believe in the granting of it.
As to the second objection : however much St. Francis ob-
jected to privileges for his spiritual children, the Indulgence
certainly would not seem to come under that head, as St.
Francis understood the meaning of the word. To him the
Indulgence was not an exemption but an incentive to new
endeavor and new holiness; it was a grace given, not a dispen-
sation asked from the common order. And this would be all
the truer to him, because no sort of profit came to the friars
from the Indulgence nothing, indeed, but added toil and labor.
The silence of his contemporaries is the most weighty
argument that can be brought forward. Although there are
five lives of St. Francis they are reducible to two, so far as
originality goes the life of the Three Companions and that
of Thomas of Celano. Of the first we no longer possess the
work in its original form, and so this can hardly be counted
as of much value. Of the second it must be remembered how
totally different was the point of view of the mediaeval biog-
rapher from that of the modern. The latter tells of events,
he deals in details ; but the former sought, not to give the
exterior acts of life, but rather a picture of inward emotions.
And so it is that Thomas of Celano omits all accounts of St.
Francis' journey to Spain ; he says nothing about his mission
to Palestine in 1219, certainly to us one of the most charac-
teristic events in St. Francis' whole life.
St. Bonaventure's life of St. Francis is full of the same
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 135
omissions, and so it is not wonderful that there, too, nothing
is said of the Portiuncula. Besides, St. Bonaventure was emi-
nently a peaceful man, and his biography of St. Francis was
written confessedly from second hand sources and with the
sole end of healing the breaches which had already opened
among the friars.
These unfortunate differences, which had arisen even dur-
ing the life of St. Francis, is probably the real reason for
silence concerning the Indulgence. Already in 1228 the breth-
ren were divided into two parties those of wide observance
under Brother Elias, and those of strict observance. Brother
Elias and his followers desired to make the splendid church
he was building at Assisi building in opposition to all St.
Francis' wishes " the head and mother of the order." The
foundation of the church had been laid by Gregory IX., who
had succeeded Honorius. As cardinal, Gregory had been op-
posed to granting the Indulgence in the first instance, and
now it was doubtless his influence over Elias, aided by the
man's natural inclination, which caused the suppression 'of the
matter of the Indulgence in the account of the Three Com-
panions, whereof Elias was one.
And this is all the more likely since one great point made
by the strict observants was that the church of St. Mary
should be chosen as centre of the order. They were worsted
in the contest, and this would be an added reason for omit-
ting all account of an Indulgence which involved the glory of
the little church when the victors were the historians. Doubt-
less this would do much to account for contemporary silence.
But if there be silence, still certain facts concerning the early
Franciscans can only be explained by assuming the authen-
ticity of the Indulgence. Only thus is it possible to explain
the praises, the wondrous encomiums of the little chapel. Only
on this ground, too, can be adequately explained the devotion
to the place which St. Francis and all his most devoted fol-
lowers certainly possessed.
In view of all these facts it does not seem too much to
assert that not only did St. Francis really have the vision,
but the Indulgence was really and formally granted, although
no contemporaneous record of it now survives.
It may not be out of place to add a few words concerning
the extending of the Portiuncula Indulgence. In its original
form it was granted only to the Church of St. Mary of the
Angels, and for one day from sunrise to sunset.
136 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
Gregory XV., in 1622, extended it to all the Franciscan
churches, and lengthened the time from the first Vespers of
the feast that is, from noon of August I until sunset of the
following day.
Another extension was made in 1678. Hitherto the Indul-
gence had been applicable only to the living, but in that year
Innocent XI. proclaimed that by way of suffrage it might be
applied to the dead.
Finally, the Indulgence was extended to every church
throughout the world where the Third Order of St. Francis
was canonically established. This privilege is in force to-day.
3. A NEW CATECHISM BY A JESUIT.*
Although the Third ' Plenary Council of Baltimore enjoined
the preparation of a catechism, which catechism, when pre-
pared and published, was to be used throughout the whole of
the United States, the Archbishops of St. Louis and of Chi-
cago have given their imprimatur to the publication of the
catechism mentioned above. Presumably the authorization of
the publication is an authorization of its use in Sunday and
day schools. The clergy will, therefore, be interested in a
comparison of the two, and will, of course, make such com-
parison for themselves. The order in which the articles of
faith is presented differs from that of the authorized Cate-
chism, and approximates to that adopted by Rosmini in his
very valuable Catechismo disposto secondo I' or dine delle Idee.
The Jesuit Missionary places the instruction concerning the
Ten Commandments and Sin before that concerning the Sac-
raments. The language is less abstract and scientific than
that of the Baltimore Catechism, and he brings forward more
prominently and states more clearly the truths which affect
the practical life and draw the heart more readily to God. A
proof of this the reader will find by comparing the sixth
chapter with the second lesson of the Baltimore Catechism.
The questions and answers, as will be seen, are fundamentally,
the same, but the Jesuit Missionary has brought prominently
forward points the mercy of God, his being the source of all
happiness and of all beauty which, while not unnoticed in
the authorized Catechism, do not receive the prominence they
deserve.
* Catechism of the Christian Doctrine. Prepared by a Jesuit Missionary. St. Louis,
Mo.: B. Herder.
i poo.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 137
The Jesuit Missionary seems deliberately to have adopted
a method condemned by modern teachers. Not unfrequently
does he give as answers the monosyllables yes and no. In
fact, he has in this very respect changed the method adopted
by the authorized Catechism. Many experienced teachers will
find this a fatal defect.
The author of a catechism ought to be intimately acquainted
with dogmatic and moral theology, so as to be able to choose
out of the vast mass of scientific theology the truths which are
to be presented to beginners, and to present those truths in such
a way as to lead on, without correction or erroneous suggestion,
to those deeper and more profound truths which occupy the
mind of the theologian. The author of this catechism we are
sure has these qualifications ; and for this reason we think he
will admit that the answer at the bottom of page 19 to the
question, <- How could those be saved who lived before the com-
ing of the Saviour?" is not given so clearly as not to lead to-
misapprehension. It is, indeed, literally right ; but it does not
bring out what, in our judgment, ought to have been brought
out that the Gentiles as well as the Jews were in the super-
natural order, being obliged to worship God by faith, hope,
and charity, the articles of faith including belief in the coming
of a Saviour. Neither Jew nor Gentile has ever been saved by
keeping the natural law merely, as the term natural law is
commonly understood, unless he also fulfilled the obligations
of the supernatural state to which every human being was
raised in the beginning. The full reply to the question would
have made it clear that Jew and Gentile were alike in this re-
spect, but that the Jew differed from the Gentile in having this
obligation brought home more clearly to him by the positive
ceremonial law.
A somewhat similar criticism might be made of the answer
given to the question (p. 35) " Who gave the Ten Command-
ments ?" The ten commandments had, of course, been known
more or less clearly and fully to every man from the very
beginning, long before their solemn promulgation on Mount
Sinai.
Again, it is going too far to say that the observance of
Sunday requires reading good books and attendance at Vespers.
These practices are, of course, highly to be commended ; they
are not commanded.
Having said all that we can in criticism, we conclude by-
commending it to the attention of the clergy as having the-
138 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Oct.,
great advantage of simplicity, clearness, and the enforcement
of just those truths which are most essential and useful.
4. BISHOP OF PEKIN'S BOOK ON CHINA.*
Monseigneur Favier, missionary in China for thirty eight
years, and now Vicar-Apostolic of the Pekin district, has just
published a book of exceeding value. The war in the East
has directed the attention of all the world to the people of
the Orient, and there has been a great demand for accurate
knowledge concerning the customs and manners of the Chi-
nese. Little is known of their history, though the Chinese
claim for their civilization an antiquity greater than" any of x
the European nations. This demand for information concern-
ing the Chinese is illustrated by the efforts of the booksellers
to create any kind of a book about China and to put it on
the market. Monseigneur Favier's book comes at this juncture
to satisfy this eager demand.
No one is better qualified to write of the Chinese people
than the missionary who has spent his life among them.
Monseigneur Favier knows the language thoroughly, he has
been among the people in season and out of season, and he
has studied their history and racial traits, so that there is not
living a European who is better fitted to write of China and
the Chinese than the learned bishop.
The book contains a complete history of the various dynas-
ties, together with an accurate description of Pekin and the lega-
tions as well as of the quaint customs of the people. It has,
moreover, innumerable illustrations, and all done by Chinese
artists that is, the pictures that are at all artistic. The
bizarre posturing of the Chinese figures and the most extra-
ordinary style of .Chinese dress are evidences either of strange
customs or of a rude state of the pictorial art. However, the
book is of very great value just now. It is published by the
St. Augustine Society of Belgium, and may be ordered through
the Catholic Book Exchange.
* Piking : Histoire et Descr ption. Par Monseigneur Alph. Favier, vicaire apostolique
de Peking. 524 gravures anciennes et nouvelles reproduites ou executees par des artistes
chinois d'apres les plus precieux documents ; 79 gravures hors texte Bruges : Societe de
Saint-Augustm, Desclee, De Brouwer et Cie ; New York : Catholic Book Exchange.
1900.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 139
EDITORIAL NOTES.
N
WE cannot refrain from expressing our surprise and chagrin
that a certain reputable publishing house of this city, whose
name heretofore has been associated only with what is decent
and wholesome and of good repute, should have so far for-
gotten its standards of honor and decency as to father the
latest Corellian blasphemy on the American reading public.
The Galveston Horror is certainly beyond anything that
has ever occurred in the history of this country. In its sud-
denness, in the appalling loss of life, in the destruction of
property, it was equalled only by the Scriptural Deluge that
swept so many from the face of the earth. In the providence
of God these terrible calamities have their own place. It was
one of the consoling things about the catastrophe to see with
whit unanimous and spontaneous generosity the country poured
out its wealth and practical sympathy to alleviate the misery.
Another chapter in the history of Higher Criticism closes with
the sale and demolition of the great Bible House, the home of
the American Bible Society for fifty years. The American Bible
Society is the direct outcome of the Protestant Rule of Faith :
that the world is to be converted by the reading of the Scriptures.
It began its work with the beginning of the century. It has
had an immense income, amounting in 1875 to $577,569 a year.
It has done a tremendous work. Since its foundation it has
printed and disseminated 31,893,332 Bibles, enough probably
to sow the world knee deep with Bible leaves.
But the love for the Bible has been killed in the hearts of
the people, and the reverence for its sacred pages has withered
under the chilling blasts of Biblical Criticism. The fountains
of revenue have been dried up, and the American Bible
Society is obliged to seek more economical quarters.
Of course we know that there has been a ruinous competi-
tion in England between the Oxford and International socie-
ties, but when there is a big plant for the making of Bibles,
and when there is no demand for the output, so that the
society cannot actually give its Bibles away, there is only
one alternative to go out of business. There is no better evi-
dence of the decay of Protestantism than the demolition of
the old Bible House.
140 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct.,.
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
FOR the information of new readers the statement is here given that THE.
COLUMBIAN READING UNION is intended to be a useful auxiliary to the
Catholic reading public. It endeavors to counteract, wherever prevalent, the
indifference shown toward Catholic literature, and to suggest ways and means-
of acquiring a better knowledge of standard authors. The desired result can
be advanced by practical methods .of co-operation among those in charge of
libraries, managers of Reading Circles, and others. All societies of this kind
will derive mutual benefit by the interchange of opinion and suggestion which,
will be encouraged and made profitable through the influence of a central body.
In the vast domain of juvenile literature lists of books are needed to meet the
constant demands of educational institutions, and of parents who rightly exer-
cise a vigilant supervision over the reading matter supplied to their children.
By special arrangement with Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. 91-93;
Fifth Avenue, New York City the Columbian Reading Union has secured a
liberal discount for its patrons, as indicated in the following list of books:
Retail Net Post-
Price. Prite. age.
The Christ, the Son of God. Fouard & Griffith (2 vols.), $4.00 $3.00 $0.25
St. Peter and the First Years of Christianity. Fouard & Griffith, 2.00 1.50 .14.
St. Paul and his Missions. Fouard & Griffith, . . . 2.00 1.50 .13.
Devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Bossuet i.oo .75 .08
Stories on the Rosary. Louisa Emily Dobr^e (Part I.), . .50 .38 .06
Stories on the Rosary. Louisa Emily Dobre (Part II.), . .50 .38 .05.
A Child's History of Ireland. Dr. P. W. Joyce, . . . 1.25 .94 .11
When we were Boys. William O'Brien, M. P., . . . i.oo .75 .13.
Sacred Scenes and Mysteries. Rev. J. F. X. O Conor, S.J., i.oo .75 .08
The World's Unrest and its Remedy. Jas. Field Spalding, . 1.25 .94 .08
Nova et Vetera. Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J., . . . 2.00 1.50 .13
Hard Sayings. Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J., .... 2.00 1.50 .13-
One Poor Scruple. Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, .... 1.50 1.13 .10
Idea of a University. Cardinal Newman, .... 1.25 .94 .12
Verses on Various Occasions. Cardinal Newman, . . 1.25 .94 .10
Loss and Gain : The Story of a Convert. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 .94 .10
Callista : A Tale of the Third Century. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 .94 .11
The Dream of Gerontius. (Cloth.) Cardinal Newman, . .35 .27 .02
The Dream of Gerontius. (Full leather.) Cardinal Newman, i.oo .75 .03
Meditations and Devotions of the late Cardinal Newman, . 1.25 .94 .10
Present Position of Catholics in England. Cardinal Newman, 1.25 .94 .10
Historical Sketches. (3 vols.) Cardinal Newman. Each, . 1.25 .94 .10
Manual of English Literature. Thomas Arnold, . . 2.00 1.50 .15
Spiritual Letters to Men. Fenelon, c . , . .1.00 .75 .05
Spiritual Letters to Women. Fenelon, . . . . i.oo .75 .05
Journal of a Few Months' Residence in Portugal. Mrs. Quilli-
nan (Dora Wordsworth), . . . . ... 2.00 1.50 .12
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 141
The following highly approved works may also be obtained from Long-
mans, Green & Co., and a special discount will be allowed for patrons of The
Columbian Reading Union, in proportion to the number of volumes ordered.
The retail price only is here quoted :
History of St. Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission
(Vincentians) and of the Sisters of Charity. By Monseigneur Bougard,
Bishop of Laval. Translated from second French Edition by Rev. Joseph
Brady, C.M. 2 vols. $6.00.
History of St. Catherine of Siena and Her Companions. With a translation of
her Treatise on Consummate Perfection. By Augusta Theodosia Drane.
2 vols. 8vo. $5.00.
Memoir of Mother Francis Raphael, O.S.D. With some of her Spiritual Notes
and Letters Edited by Rev. Bertrand Wilberforce, O.P. 8vo. $2.50.
The Life and Works of Dante Alighieri. Being an Introduction to the Study
of the Divina Commedia, by Rev. J. F. Hogan, D\D. 8vo. $4.00.
The Monks of the West : from St. Benedict to St. Bernard. By the Count de
Montalembert. With an introduction on Monastic Constitutional History,
by the Rev. F. A. Gasquet, D.D. 6 vols. 8vo. $15.00.
The English Black Monks of St. Benedict. A Sketch of their History from
the Coming of St. Augustine to the Present Day. By Rev. Etheldred L.
Taunton. 2 vols. $7.50.
The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman. By Wilfrid Ward. 2 vols.
8vo. $6.00.
Many of the volumes mentioned in the foregoing list represent the highest
standard of Catholic literature, and have a claim on all lovers of good books.
It is to be hoped that the members of Reading Circles will form the resolution
of doing something on behalf of these prominent Catholic authors by having
their books made known to friends, and brought to the notice of those responsi-
ble for selecting the books to be placed in public libraries. The leaflet which
has been prepared under the direction of the Columbian Reading Union con-
tains brief notices and critical comments on the various authors whose works
are recommended. This leaflet and an order blank appended may be obtained
by sending ten cents in postage to the Columbian Reading Union, 415 West
Fifty-ninth Street, New York City.
Pope Leo XIII., when opening the Vatican archives to students of recog-
nized ability, stated that
The first law of History is not to dare tell a lie ; the second, not to fear to
tell the truth ; besides, let the historian be beyond all suspicion of favoring or
hating any one whomsoever.
The same idea seems to have been in the mind of the ancient writer who
penned these words :
Which if I have done well and as becometh the history, is what I have de-
sired ; but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me. Machabees XV.JQ.
In the records of the American Catholic Historical Society there is much to be
found in defence of the truth and in refutation of falsehood. Rev. Hugh T.
Henry, of St. Charles' Seminary, Overbrook, Pa., has given much attention to
the numerous falsifications concerning Catholics in an interesting article on The
By-Paths of History. After buying and paying for a book on the history of
142 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct.,
music, written by the well-known musical critic, Mr. W. J. Henderson, he found
that it contained historical blunders and a savage attack on the work of Pope
Gregory the Great. The authority quoted is the oft- refuted Dr. Draper, who
wrote a book on the intellectual development of Europe. This book is sup-
posed to have led the Hon. Andrew D. White, former college president, into
numerous false notions not yet retracted concerning historical events in rela-
tion to the Catholic Church. As a conclusion Father Henry decides that the
monuments of bigotry in general literature are generally perversions of history ;
and suggests that a suitable medium for calling attention to these perversions
would be the quarterly publication of the American Catholic Historical Society, 71 5
Spruce Street, Philadelphia : Catholic readers should send notice promptly
of every book containing erroneous and offensive statements regarding Catho-
lics in the past and present. In this way the old and new falsehoods of anti-
Catholic prejudice could be recorded, and the circulation of unreliable books
restricted. Father Henry also commends to Catholic readers the copious,
learned, and impartial treatment of Catholic subjects found in Chambers' En-
cyclopedia, and condemns the verbose and prejudiced statements given in the
Britannica, especially in reference to Gregory the Great, the Jesuits, and
Blessed Thomas More.
* * *
Dr. Spofford has collected into A Book for all Readers, published by G. P.
Putnam's Sons, much of the book-wisdom and some of the book-wit gathered
during his long experience as librarian-in-chief of the Congressional
Library, which he, after years of struggle, has lived to see worthily housed.
We have here information as to the acquisition and proper care of books, the
management of a library, and all things of special interest to book-lovers ; the
whole enlivened by many curious particulars and some facetious remarks.
In forming a library of general reading a question which is sure to arise is
that of novels. Here Dr. Spofford is wisely conservative. A subscription library
that must cater to the public taste in order to exist may be obliged to load its
shelves with worthless fiction; but for an endowed library it is sufficient to have
a fair . representation of each important class of contemporary novels. The
function of the library is to instruct and improve, not to furnish amusement.
And as the appetite for incessant and indiscriminate novel-reading seems to be
growing to a disease, the librarian who properly feels the importance of his
calling will at least avoid pandering to it.
An interesting chapter is given to the enemies of books, chief of which are
dust, damp, overheating, gas, insects, mice, and thieves. With brushes, ventila-
tion, electricity, poison, and traps the librarian can deal with the lower degrees
of the scale; but to escape the book-pilferer, short of the heroic remedy of
" keeping a man standing by each book with a club, "is a difficult problem where
the public has free access to the shelves.
Or. Spofford's suggestions for dealing with that torment of the librarian, pam-
phlets, are to bind the more important singly or collectively, or have them filed in
pamphlet-cases. Yet there will always remain a mass of miscellaneous pam-
phlets which seem to have no value, yet any one of which somebody, at some
time, may want to see. To tie these up in bundles, or heap them in piles in a
cellar or garret, is little better than sending them to the junk-shop. A better
plan is to have a room, if possible if not, a set of shelves devoted to miscella-
neous pamphlets. Give each pamphlet when received an accession-number
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 143
written in bold figures on the front cover, and place it on the shelf in the order
of its accession, irrespective of date or subject. Guide-numbers, at intervals of
20 or 25, can be placed on the edges of the shelves, or guide-cards between the
pamphlets. The accession-series should be distinct from that of the main
library, and there is no need of an accession-book. Catalogue briefly under the
subject (in either the general or a special catalogue) with a symbol to indicate
that the number refers to miscellaneous pamphlets. The reader who finds from
the catalogue that the library has a pamphlet on the subject he is studying gives
the number to the assistant, who by the guide-numbers on the shelves can lay
his hand on it in a few seconds.
One of the most interesting chapters in the book is devoted to binding, of
which the various processes, styles, and technicalities are clearly explained.
Hints to readers not accustomed to great libraries, and to librarians how to help
such readers, are also given, with some remarks on the art of finding references
and quotations.
Rare books are discussed, and due warning given to the inexpert buyer not
to be deceived by very rare or unique in catalogues. Putting incunabula aside,
no book is necessarily rare because it is old. But if he should be the lucky pos-
sessor of the Latin Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer, 1459, it may interest him to
know that a copy brought ,4,950 at the Syston sale in 1884, being the highest
recorded price for a single printed volume. Or if among old rubbish in his
garret he finds a copy of the Bay Psalm Book, 1640, let him not part with it
lightly, for it is worth over a thousand dollars.
* * *
The most expensive book that was ever published in the world is the official
history of the War of the Rebellion, which is now issued by the government of
the United States at a cost, up to date, of $2,334,328. Of this amount $1,184,391
has been paid for printing and binding. The remainder was expended for salar-
ies, rent, stationery, and other contingent and miscellaneous expenses, and for
the purchase of records from private individuals.
It will require at least three years longer, and an appropriation of perhaps
$600,000, to complete the work, so that the total cost will undoubtedly reach
nearly $3 000,000. It will consist of 112 volumes, including an index and an
atlas, which contains 178 plates and maps, illustrating the important battles of
the war, campaigns, routes of march, plans of forts, and photographs of inter-
esting scenes, places, or persons.
Most of these pictures are taken from photographs made by the late M. B.
Brady, of Washington. Several years ago the government purchased his stock
of negatives. Each volume will, therefore, cost on an average about $26,785,
which probably exceeds the cost of any book of the kind that was ever issued.
Copies are sent free to public libraries, and 1,347,999 have been so distributed.
The atlas cost $22.
The remainder of the edition is sold at prices ranging from 50 cents to 90
cents per volume. But there does not seem to be a large popular demand, for
only 71,194 copies have been sold, for a total of $60,154. The book can be ob-
tained by addressing the Secretary of War.
The material used in the preparation of these histories is taken from bolh
the Federal and Confederate archives. The reports of commanders of armies,
corps, brigades, regiments, etc., are carefully edited and arranged so as to give
a consecutive account of all engagements with as little duplication and unneces-
144 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Oct., 1900.]
sary material as possible, and as the writer represents both sides of the struggle,
it may be regarded as impartial.
* * *
The latest recipe for a successful literary hit is as follows : Get a fresh idea.
Don't improve on somebody else's. The public shuns a literary imitator. Get
a bright thought of your own, entirely original. Then write it out in article or
in story. Go over it and cut it down one-half. Why ? Because brevity is not
only the soul of wit, but the soul of success as well. Don't use long or obsolete
words. Every-day language skilfully handled is ample. Don't send people to
the encyclopaedia or dictionary to get your meaning. Some will do it, bat the
number is very, very small. Better be on the safe side and use simple words.
The most effective sentences ever written were made of words of not more than
two syllables. Try and tell the world something it doesn't know and wants to
know. Do that, and success is yours.
Fancy writing is a grave into which hundreds of young writers are being
buried. By fancy writing I mean soaring away over a moonlight, or badly de-
scribing a sunset, as so many are doing. You must leave fancy writing to some
other author ; you do the helpful and practical sort. You may not receive the
approval of the intense literary set. But that need not worry you. There is
another big portion of the public whose approval is worth having. Just try for
that first ; then, if you can get the other too, so much the better. The helpful
writers are the a\ithors of the future whose work is going to be in demand.
Literary sunsets and moonlights are all very pretty, but there is just about one
-author in every fifty who makes a reputation on them.
M. C. M.
INDIAN FAMINE SUFFERERS.
From Appeal in August issue, Cash, $133.00.
THE BLESSED VIRGIN IN THE PASSION PLAY AT OBERAMMERGAU.
Character taken by Anna Plunger, the Postman's Daughter.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LXXII. NOVEMBER, 1900. No. 428.
"A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES."
BY REV. JOHN A. RYAN, S.T.L. (Catholic University).
UT compulsory arbitration, you know,'"
said a young Englishman who was with
us, fresh from Oxford and post-graduate
courses of political economy from John
Stuart Mill to Boehm-Bawerk, "'is an
impossibility, a contradiction in terms.
You cannot make men work whether they
want to or not ; you cannot compel men
to arbitrate nor fix prices by law.'
"' That 's what all the authorities of
the business world and political economy
say,' our New-Zealander replied ; ' but what they say we can't
do, we are doing.' '
These two paragraphs appear in Henry D. Lloyd's last
book* as part of a conversation that took place in the capital
of New Zealand during a session of the Court of Arbitration.
Each of the speeches is in its own way characteristic. The
scholarly Englishman gives what he conceives to be the scien-
tific objection to the principle of compulsory arbitration, while
the practical New-Zealander opposes his argument with the
logic of facts. And the logic of facts, says Mr. Lloyd at
least, so far as New Zealand is concerned is all on the side
of compulsory arbitration. In six chapters he describes, re-
spectively : the provisions of the New Zealand law ; its success
in the boot and shoe industry; the superiority of the rule of
committees, as in compulsory arbitration, to the rule of mobs,
* A Country wit/tout Strikes. By Henry D. Lloyd. 1900.
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK. 1900.
VOL. LXXII. 10
146 "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES" [Nov.,
as in strikes ; how the new law has taken the women of New
Zealand out of the sweat-shops ; how this law of parliament
has become a law of trade, and finally what it costs and what
it pays.
THE NEW ZEALAND LAW.
The compulsory arbitration law of New Zealand was put on
the statute books in response to the desire of the people for
self-protection. The enormous losses caused by the great mari-
time strike, nine years ago, had taught the progressive New-
Zealanders a lesson. They became convinced that labor trou-
bles ought to be decided by arbitration rather than by war. The
Minister of Labor, Mr. Reeves, immediately set out to study
the arbitration laws of Europe, America, and Australia. After
going over the whole ground thoroughly, his conclusion was
that in all these countries "voluntary arbitration has failed for
generations." The reasons for this failure he summed up in
the words of a Manchester merchant: "Everyman who thinks
that he is going to lose a strike is ready to go to arbitration,
while the man who thinks he is going to win will not have it."
Hence he resolved to try the experiment of compulsory arbi-
tration, and brought a bill into parliament embodying that
principle. That it was " an absolute experiment," he frankly
admitted ; " but," said he, " if we are not to deal with this
question in an experimental manner, how are we to deal with
it at all?" To this view the New Zealand parliament assented
almost unanimously, and in 1894 passed the bill substantially
as it was introduced. Its main features have been thus sum-
marized by Mr. Lloyd :
1. "It applies only to industries in which there are trade-
unions."
This is because the great strikes invariably occur where
labor is organized, and because the Arbitration Court could
not afford to waste its ^ time over the petty disputes of indi-
viduals. But any seven men may form a trade-union, and come
under the provisions of the law. In fact, both laborers and
capitalists are encouraged to organize.
2. " It does not prevent private conciliation or arbitration."
The law encourages employers and employees to adjust
their differences by private arbitration, and to that end sup-
plies them with forms of procedure, and provides for the en-
forcement of their decisions. Indeed, the Arbitration Court
can act only when it is appealed to by either of the disputants.
1900.] "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." 147
3. " Conciliation is exhausted by the state before it resorts
to arbitration."
There is a Board of Conciliation, whose members are chosen
by both the association of employers and the association ol
employees, for each " industrial district." It can investigate,
visit, and intermediate, but it cannot compel obedience to its
decisions. Hence if the loser refuses to accept its award the
winner appeals to the Court of Arbitration.
4. " If conciliation is unsuccessful, the disputants must arbi-
trate."
The Court of Arbitration is composed of three members,
one of whom is chosen from a list submitted by the working-
men of the colony, one from men named by the capitalists,
and one from among the judges of the Supreme Court. In
disputes of more than ordinary complexity two experts chosen
by the contesting parties may be added to the board, thus in-
suring a thorough presentation of the points at issue. Pending
the court's examination, the employer is forbidden to shut
down, and the employees to stop work. Nor may employees
strike or employers shut down beforehand, to evade arbitra-
tion ; for the court, if appealed to within six weeks, has ample
power to put an end to such strikes or lockouts. The Court
of Arbitration has power to. visit any premises, compel the at-
tendance of any witnesses, and the production of any books or
papers, and can imprison those refusing to obey. Its decisions
cannot be set aside for any informality, nor can they be " chal-
lenged, appealed against, reviewed, quashed, or called into
question by any court of judicature on any account what-
soever."
5. " Disobedience of the award may be punished or not at
the discretion of the court."
The law is fully protected against all forms of evasion. If
employers or employees can show good reason for shutting
down or quitting work during or after arbitration of their diffi-
culties, they may do so ; but if they wish to resume work dur-
ing the life-time of the award they must comply with all its
provisions. As a rule, the court punishes disobedience of its
decisions by fines and imprisonment.
SUCCESS OF THE ARBITRATION LAW.
The new act was first brought into operation in the dispute
between the federated boot manufacturers and the associated
unions of their workmen. In 1891 the employees' union de-
148 "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." [Nov.,
manded that only union men be employed, and this demand
was made the subject of voluntary arbitration. Representa-
tives of both sides met, and arrived at a satisfactory agree-
ment, only to find that a few obstinate manufacturers of Auck-
land refused to accept its terms. The will of the many was
set aside by. the blind selfishness of the few. Then followed a
most disastrous strike ; then an agreement that lasted three
years, and after that a refusal by some of the manufacturers
to prolong that agreement. At this time (in 1895) the men
appealed to the Court of Arbitration.
The chief points in the court's decision were these : It re-
fused the request of the men that only unionists should be
employed, but enjoined that members of the union should be
given the preference, for this had been "the custom of the
trade." It limited the hours to not more than nine in a day,
nor more than forty-eight in a week. It also fixed the number
of apprentices in each department, and decided that the mini-
mum wage should be ten dollars a week. Both sides could be
assured that these rulings were fair because they were given
with great deliberation after all the conditions of the industry
had been made public and discussed by witnesses and experts.
However, the manufacturers who had been before the court
were hostile to the order giving union labor the preference,
and complained that they would be placed at a disadvantage,
since the manufacturers outside of the association could disre-
gard the award. The latter were not allowed to do anything
of the kind. They were summoned by their employees before
the court, and although they pleaded " conscientious scruples
against belonging to the masters' association," they were com-
pelled to carry on their business under the same conditions as
their competitors in that association.
The result of the application of compulsory arbitration in
the boot making industry of New Zealand is thus forcibly de-
scribed by Mr. Lloyd (p. 60): "Instead of strikes, riots, star-
vation, bankruptcy, passion, and all the other accompaniments
of the Homestead method, there has been debate ! The total
loss is a few weeks' time of only a dozen men. The manufac-
turers have not been ruined ; they have not had to shut down
their works ; they have not fled the country. The working-
men have gone on working, buying land, and building homes
and paying for them, rearing children, and building up indus-
try and the state as well as their homes."
1900.] "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." 149
THE WOMEN WORKERS BENEFITED.
The women workers of New Zealand have been especially
benefited by the new law. For a long time the shirt-makers
and other clothing operatives were compelled to work for less
than living wages. After several attempts to better their con-
dition by organization and voluntary agreements, they appealed
to the Court of Arbitration. The award of the court fixed the
minimum wage at a figure which was a compromise between
the contentions of the two sides, gave members of the union
the preference, and abolished the sweatshop. This was in the
city of Wellington. In Dunedin forty-two of the forty nine
firms in the tailoiing business arranged a schedule of wages
with their employees, which the other seven refused to sign.
These seven were summoned before the Court of Arbitration,
and during the proceedings the reason of their obstinacy be-
came manifest. They had been defrauding their customers by
charging custom prices for factory work, and were unwilling
to pay a scale of wages that would make this dishonesty im-
possible. The court promptly put a stop to this deception,
and compelled these seven manufacturers to accept the same
conditions as the other members of their trade. The arbitra-
tion law has thus proved a force for honesty in business, as
well as for fair dealing between masters and men. Through
the publicity of the court's proceedings, the manufacturer's power
to cheat his consumers is notably lessened ; for when the workers
are called in as witnesses they may let out some of his "trade
secrets."
Through the good work done by compulsory arbitration in
the tailoring and clothing business of New Zealand, the con-
sumer gets better goods for his money, the employer is pro-
tected against cut-throat competition, the women have higher
N wages, uniform terms, and better conditions in the factory, and,
most important of all, the sweater finds his occupation gone.
" He may yearn as he will for the return of the good old times,
and for the music, so sweet to his ears, of the ' Song of the
Shirt ' as it used to be sung, but he will yearn in vain. In
New Zealand the 'Song of the Shirt' is a lost chord " (p. in).
THE LAW FAIRLY APPLIED.
One of the most notable facts in the working of the new
law is the uniform fairness with which it has been adminis-
tered. The first judge of the Arbitration Court, the "Tory
150 "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES" [Nov.,
Judge," as he was sometimes called, was feared by the work-
ingmen because of his social affiliations, but he has surprised
them by deciding in nine cases out of ten in their favor. Yet
he has not acted the partisan. Thus, in cases where there were
special circumstances, he did not insist that union men should
be given the preference, but only that they should not be dis-
criminated against. In another case he refused the demands of
the unionists, because they represented but a small minority of
the workmen in that particular trade. That the decisions of
the court have always been substantially just is shown by the
fact that no employer has gone out of business, although the
awards have almost all been in favor of the men.
Those who wish to get a more detailed account of the work-
ing of the Compulsory Arbitration Law should seek it in the
pages of Mr. Lloyd's interesting, even fascinating, book. I
quote a brief resume^ of the success of the law as he sees it :
" There has not been a strike by organized labor, with one in-
significant exception, since its passage. It has harmonized all
the labor troubles brought under its cognizance. The courts
have been constantly strengthening themselves and the act by
their administration of it. Capital has not fled, but, on the
contrary, industries of all kinds have been flourishing as never
before. There have been a few attempts to evade or disregard
the decisions of the courts ; these the judges have proved
themselves fully able to control and punish. Although the de-
cisions have almost all been in favor of the men, because it is
a time of prosperity and their demands have been made on a
rising market, the employers have found no serious embarrass-
ment in complying with them, and some of the employers are
the strongest supporters of the new measure " (p. 13).
MORALITY OF COMPULSORY ARBITRATION.
The chief ethical objections to the principle of compulsory
arbitration are : first, that it violates individual liberty and free-
dom of contract ; and, secondly, that it attempts to fix wages
and prices by law, instead of leaving them to be determined
by the conditions of the market. A further objection may be
made to the New Zealand law because of its tendency to favor
trade-unions.
As to the first objection, we acknowledge that both em-
ployer and employee have the right of freedom of contract so
long as the contract is not harmful to good morals or the pub-
lic welfare. The right to contract freely is therefore, like every
1900.] "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES'* 151
other right, limited. Within the limits just noted the em-
ployer may pay what wages he chooses and to whom he
chooses, while the employee may exercise similar freedom of
choice. But suppose that the state finds that one of the
parties is insisting upon an unreasonable freedom of contract,
upon a conception of his individual liberty that encroaches
upon the individual liberty and rights of others, and suppose
that the party whose rights are being violated by such insist-
ence is the public, the state itself is the state powerless to
defend its own rights ? Certainly it is not. For instance, if
the community is put to great inconvenience by a strike, the
state has surely the right to interfere, and even compel the
disputants to accept the decision of a disinterested arbiter.
This interference will, indeed, be a limitation of the right of
free contract ; it will prevent both sides, perhaps, from enter-
ing the precise contract desired by each but the right of free
contract is, as a matter of fact, a limited right. Neither em-
ployer nor employees live unto themselves ; they have obliga-
tions to the community. And the community has a right to
insist on the fulfilment of these obligations. Of course, the
employer has the right to go out of business, and the em-
ployees the right to quit work ; but so long as neither wishes
to make a change, the community has the right in self-protec-
tion to insist on a speedy termination of the dispute.
PUBLIC CHARACTER OF DISPUTANTS WARRANTS STATE INTER-
FERENCE.
Nor can either of the parties object to the result of the
state's interference, to the fairness of the public arbiter's de-
cision. It will not be perfect, to be sure ; but, since the dis-
putants cannot agree between themselves, it will be the only
approach to a just decision that is within the range of possi-
bility.
" We say to the capitalists : ' You and the laborer and the
consumer and the public are all interested. We the state
are the only agency known to society which can protect and
harmonize all these interests provided always that you cannot
or will not harmonize yourselves. We cannot leave you to
settle with each other in the old way ; for that, we know, leads
to strikes, devastation, hate, and even bloodshed. In this
world of laborers, capitalists, consumers, and citizens you, the
employing capitalists, are a very small minority. We don't
propose to sacrifice you or to do you any injustice ; but, rest
iS2 "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES" [Nov.,
assured, neither do we intend to allow you to do us any wrong
or injustice. You can slay in this business or go out of it, as
you choose ; you can go into any other business you prefer \
but if you stay in business in New Zealand, you must settle
your irreconcilable differences between yourselves and your
men by reference to a disinterested arbiter, and not by strikes
or lockouts'" (p. 118).
Thus spoke a New Zealand defender of the compulsory
Arbitration Law. His is the logic of common sense, as well as
of right reason and sound morality. Had the State of Mis-
souri been in a position to address similar language to the dis-
putants in the recent street railway strike of St. Louis, how
much money, time, and comfort would not have been saved to
the citizens of that city ! But Americans, practical as they are
supposed to be, still cling to the old fetich of individual liberty,
which in this instance is but another name for industrial
anarchy.
IN PRIVATE DISPUTES THE COURT IS AN ADVANTAGE.
So much for the right of the state to compel arbitration in
self-protection. Let us now suppose a strike by which the
public suffers no inconvenience whatever, the only persons in-
terested being the employer and the workers. Of course, such
a supposition is never, or scarcely ever, realized in the modern
world ; but we shall assume it for the sake of justifying state
interference in every kind of strike.
The employees of a certain " private " industry formulate
demands which their employer refuses to grant. They then go
out on a strike, hoping that their powers of endurance will
prove greater than their employer's. Each side deliberately re-
solves to inflict great economic loss upon the other. Both
realize that the one who is better prepared to endure such loss
is the one that will win. It is an irrational proceeding, as
irrational as war. In fact, it is war; for it is a conflict in
which victory will rest with the more mighty, not with the
more righteous. The moral aspect of the dispute is deliber-
ately ignored. And yet there is a moral question involved ;
for both sides cannot be right in all their contentions. Hence
the party that is in the wrong may win, and by his victory in-
crease his power to work injustice upon his opponent.
But just as the combatants are marshalling their forces for
the economic struggle the arbitration court is called in. Each
side is allowed a representative on the board, and the third
1900.] "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." 153
member is a distinguished "outsider," a judge, "skilled in the
examination of facts, and in the disentanglement of controver-
sies." The court calmly inquires into all the conditions and
theories of the dispute, and gives full opportunity for publicity
and discussion. The "conditions of the market" thus become
better understood by both court and contestants than they ever
could be through the passion, bitterness, and hatreds of a strike.
Finally, when the evidence has been all heard and weighed, a
decision is rendered on the basis of justice. What reason, then,
can either side have for complaint?
THE MORE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS MUST PREVAIL.
"A very good reason," replies the individualist; "the state
should not have meddled at all in the matter of a private con-
tract." Let us see whether this position be sound. Undoubt-
edly both employer and employees have a right to contract
freely, but this right must yield to other rights that are more
urgent and more sacred. The right of the employer to fair
profits, and the right of the employees to a fair share of the
wealth that they have helped to create at least, to as much
of it as will afford them a decent living are more important
than the right of free contract. Now, it is the business of the
state to protect rights in the order of their importance. The
right of free contract ceases when it comes in conflict with the
right to a living wage. Hence when the employees contend
that the contract into which they have entered, or into which
their employer desires to force them, will not afford them a
living wage, it is the right and the duty of the state to step
in and examine into the merits of this claim. If the claim is
well founded, then it is the business of the state to compel
the employer to enter into such a contract as will safeguard
the supreme right of his men to a decent living. In acting
thus the state is merely defending its weaker citizens ; pro-
tecting them in their right to " life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." Nor can it be flippantly retorted that the dissatis-
fied employees are free to go elsewhere, and that this freedom
is a sufficient protection for their natural rights. Usually they
are not free to move about so readily. Their interests are too
closely associated with their present position, and this fixity of
interests gives them a certain " vested right " to remain where
they are.
The same reason for state interference and compulsory arbi-
tration holds when the employees are in the wrong. If an
154- "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES" [Nov.,
employer is in danger of being forced out of business by the
unjust demands of his men, the state is bound to protect his
natural right to fair profits, and to compel the men to work
under reasonable conditions, or else seek other employment.
The practical philosophy of state interference has been well
expressed by a New-Zealander in these words : " We cannot
understand why compulsion cannot be used to prevent econo-
mic as well as any other crime, or to repel economic invasion
of one class by another, which is just the same thing, for all
intents and purposes, as the invasion of one country by an-
other " (p. 125).
UNLIMITED RIGHT OF FREE CONTRACT IS BASED ON A FALSE
ASSUMPTION.
The whole argument for an unlimited right of free contract
is based on a false assumption, the assumption that in all agree-
ments between labor and capital the contract is really free.
As a matter of fact whenever an employer, relying on an over-
stocked labor market, forces his men to accede to his terms,
the name free contract is a misnomer. There can be no free-
dom of contract between laborers who must work to day or
starve and a capitalist who may pay the wages demanded or
wait until hunger compels the men to submit. And, as the
labor market is overstocked the greater part of the time, the
employer's plea for non-interference and freedom of contract
is in reality a demand that he be allowed to use his economic
advantage to force his men into a contract that on their side
is not free in any adequate sense of that word. I use the
words " economic advantage " advisedly, for most political
economists, I think, agree that the capitalist does possess an
advantage over the laborer in the economic struggle. The so-
called 'orthodox school of economists taught that industry woul'd
be best regulated by being not regulated at all. There was to
be no state interference. The laborer was to work for whom
he pleased and for what wage he pleased, and the capitalist
was to hire whom he pleased and pay what wage he pleased.
These theorizers fancied that the two sides were sufficiently
equal to insure the best results to the community and the most
just conditions for themselves by being " let alone." But the
newer school of political economists know that the real relation
between labor and capital, instead of one of equality, is more
truly described by Lassalle's Iron Law of Wages. Lassalle said,
in substance, that under the reign of capitalism the laborer's
1900.] "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES" 155
wages would be forced down to the point at which he could
just support life and reproduce his kind. This, of course, was
an exaggeration ; for the laborer chiefly by organization has
thus far been able to maintain a standard of living considera-
bly higher than that fixed by the " Iron Law." But there is
no doubt that Lassalle correctly described the tendency of the
modern industrial organization, and of unchecked capitalism.
The laborer, separated from the tools of production, is com-
paratively powerless ; the capitalist, in possession of the tools
of production, is practically all powerful. Hence the laborer is
seldom in a position to make a contract that is genuinely free ;
hence the justice of state interference in the matter of compul-
sory arbitration.
A common objection against compulsory arbitration is that
it attempts to set aside the law of the market, the law of
supply and demand, and to fix wages and prices by statute.
It is, therefore, an attempt to do what is at once unjust and
impossible. Let us listen again to the answer made by the
New Zealander : . .
COMPULSORY ARBITRATION DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE
LAW OF THE MARKET.
" Compulsory arbitration does not attempt to interfere with
the law of the market. On the contrary, it gives the law of
the market for the first time a full chance to work. It brings
the law of the market into full and free discussion. It
offers experts who know the law of the market best on both
sides to tell all they know about it. It gives it publicity and
debate. It is true the arbiter makes a decision, but a decision
must be made anyhow, and has been heretofore made in most
cases by the casting vote of suffering, selfishness, or passion.
The casting vote of Judge Edwards is better, we New-Zealand-
ers think " (p. 123).
Compulsory arbitration, then, does not ignore the law of
the market, and fix an artificial wage or an artificial price. If
it did its decisions would be nothing short of disastrous. It
merely ascertains as thoroughly as it can the possibilities of
profits and wages in any given case, and then, keeping within
the limits of these possibilities, makes the award that seems
most just to both sides. In this sense it does fix wages and
prices by law, instead of leaving them to be fixed by the
anarchy of competition.
156 "A COUNTRY WITHOUT STRIKES." [Nov.,
FIXING THE MINIMUM WAGE.
The fixing of wages by compulsory arbitration includes, as
a matter of course, the fixing of a minimum wage. Such has
been the invariable rule of the New Zealand Court of Arbitra-
tion. This recognition of the minimum wage by public law is
in itself a great advance toward the reign of justice in the
world of industry. It means that the state pronounces un-
limited competition immoral ; for it fixes a limit below which
the laborer's wage may not be forced. This policy is indeed
contrary to the principles of that antiquated political economy
of which I spoke above, but it is in agreement with the
principles of sound morality. For, "there is a dictate of
nature more imperious and more ancient than any bargain be-
tween man and man, that the remuneration must be enough to
support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If
through necessity, or fear of a worse evil, the workman accepts
harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give
him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice " (Leo
XIII., Encyclical "On the Condition of Labor").
The New Zealand law does more than recognize the right
of the laborer to a minimum wage. It authorizes the court to
award fair profits to the employer, thus assuming that there is
such a thing as excessive profits. Indeed, the whole difficulty
that is expressed in the phrases, " the labor question " and
" the social question," may be summed up in one sentence :
" Capital gets too large a share of the wealth that it helps to
create." The history of the New Zealand Court of Arbitration
shows that in most of the disputes it has acknowledged this
complaint to be true. Hence it has not hesitated to lower
profits and raise wages where the conditions seemed to justify
this course.
NEW ZEALAND LAW A PRACTICAL SUCCESS.
The charge that the New Zealand law is unjust because of
its friendliness for labor unions may have a certain academic
value, but it has no weight when tested by concrete conditions.
In the conflict, or rivalry, or competition call it by any name
that expresses struggle between capital and labor, the econo-
mic advantage is always on the side of capital. If labor is not
organized, the capitalist's advantage is still further increased.
Hence the state, whose business it is to help all classes to a
position of equality of opportunity, does wisely and justly when
1900.]
A COUNTRY WITHOUT STKIXES"
157
it encourages labor to organize, and thus to lessen the in-
equality of opportunity that exists between it and capital. It
is simply helping them to defend their natural rights against
their stronger competitors.
The Compulsory Arbitration Law has thus far proved a
splendid success in New Zealand. It marks a triumph of
justice and social order over injustice and economic anarchy.
It has its imperfections, to be sure, chief among which is the
danger that the arbiter may not always be wise enough or fair
enough to make such equitable awards as have thus far been
made. But the difficulties of compulsory arbitration are not
worthy of comparison with its advantages. Why should it not
be tried here in America ? The academic objections to it are
all founded on worn-out sophistries, while the practical objec-
tions can be tested at very little cost by putting the New
Zealand plan into actual operation. How long will the prac-
tical American people allow the warring factions of capital and
labor to afflict the community with senseless and costly strikes^?
Even if labor and capital should be left' to their own folly
and obstinacy to fight out their disputes in their own way, the
public should not be compelled to suffer with them. " Indus-
tries, it is a fundamental thought in this New Zealand legislation,
are not individual creations ; they are not made by the work-
ingmen alone, nor by capital alone, but are a social creation
and subject to social control " (p. 173).
.. .
CATHOLIC CAMEOS. , [Nov.,
CATHOLIC CAMEOS.
{Done with a pen.)
BY NORA RYLMAN.
' HIS GRACE THE ARCHBISHOP.
(A vignette, and a memory?)
N the heart of England's heart, by which, be it
understood, I mean Shakspere-land, is a city of
many gun-works and foundries ; and in a sombre
street of this same city is St. Chad's Cathedral,
and the Bishop's house.
I have called the street sombre, but I might with truth
have styled it gr.imy. It is in the Gunmakers' quarter, and the
smoke of many factories has turned Our Lady into a black
Madonna!
Pass through the great door, and all is changed. All is
peace, sweetness, light, in the great temple Pugin built.
On the left hand side, near the Lady Chapel, is the recum-
bent effigy of a marble prelate, mitred, with his crozier in his
hand.
It is the statue of the first bishop * of the city, of a priest
who did great and notable work for the church in his day
the day, be it said, of Newman, whose friend and diocesan he
was. An outsider once described him as "a little man with a
large heart." This was truth ; he was a humanitarian in the
truest and broadest sense of the word a Catholic Humanitar-
ian !
He gave strong evidence before the Royal Commission as
to the wrongs of the convict system. And he founded a
mission in a typical old (English) town, in which Black Friars
and White, Brown Friars and Gray, had worked and prayed,
and kept fast and vigil throughout life's little day. From thence
he was transferred to St. Chad's. The sunless slums knew
the Little Bishop, as well as the poor Irish children in his
schools, for whom he had a truly paternal care.
When Holy Church needed him in any and every place
* Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham.
1900.] CATHOLIC CAMEOS. 159
his motto was the motto of the Napiers : " Ready, aye
ready."
He it was who gave the celebrated lectures on " Our Con-
vents," in that town hall whose walls had re-echoed with- the
trumpet notes of the captains who fought for freedom. He it
was who told the celebrated anecdote about the broken bough,
as an illustration of old-time Protestant prejudice.
In case you do not know it, here it is :
" Once on a time there was a religious house, past whose
garden wall ran the stage coaches. Some of the boughs over-
hung the stone wall, and the coachmen were in the habit of
pointing to the broken branch of an apple-tree, from which
the village urchins stole apples, and saying : ' Lookee there
that bough was broken by a nun a-tryin' to escape over the
garden wall.' '
Query : Why did not the fugitive unlatch the garden gate ?
Great as his zeal was his charity.
A convert was much troubled by the unkindness and bigotry
of her Protestant husband. The one who had encouraged her
in her own home had simply been her little dying child, who
was truly one of the household of Faith.
" He whose feet are shod with silence " took the little fel-
low, as we will trust and think, to Mary's arms ; but still the
heart of the father was like unto the nether millstone. The
mother told the Bishop (then Doctor ), and he said : " Be
of good cheer, daughter. I am going to the Holy Land, and
will pray for him in all the hallowed places."
And he did. His prayers were heard. One day the dead
child's father said to his wife : " Why should not I have a talk
with Father Soand-So?"
" Why not, indeed," was the joyful reply. " Come with me
to the Priory now."
So they went together, and the Faithful Shepherd and
faithful wife had their exceeding great reward.
Some there are who think that an archbishop must neces-
sarily lead a stately and dignified life ; must live, as it were,
in the ecclesiastical purple have little or nothing to do with
holy simplicity. Such as these should have known Our Arch-
bishop ! His life was simplicity itself ; his fare was plain, his
habits ascetic and even penitential. His ear was open tO'alJ.
" Come to me early, come to me late. Never think it too
early, never think it too late," was his advice to one of his
spiritual children.
i6o CATHOLIC CAMEOS. [Nov.,
Like him who wrote " Lead, kindly Light," he was sim-
plicity itself. Apropos of the Cardinal I may just recount a
true little anecdote :
" The great Oratorian was one day going home to The Ora-
tory by rail from a distant part of the city. He looked worn,
thin, and pale, and his coat was, to say the least of it, shabby.
A poor Irishwoman was touched by compassion for the
' poor ould jintleman,' and she dived into her pocket and
brought out a penny, which she gave to the Cardinal, bidding
him get himself some little thing."
The author of "The Dream of Gerontius " valued and kept
that penny, which we, I think, may term an Angel's Penny,
remembering by whom and to whom it was given.
Both Archbishop and Cardinal are now sweet memories.
One has left the grand -cathedral and the sombre street, and
the other The Oratory and his lilac-trees.
One sleeps in the God's Acre of a Dominican convent,
whose foundress (Mother Margaret) was his spiritual daughter ;
the other sleeps in quiet Rednal, where the birds sing sweetly.
Peace to them both !
Of both can it be said, what doubtless they both often
thought :
O Domum, dulce Domum !
We can see your lights afar,
And we shall cross your threshold
When we Ve burst the prison bar.
O Domum, dulce Domum !
By the Saints of Jesus trod,
We will sing it with thanksgiving
In the City of our God.
CHAPEL OF ST. CECILIA.
THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN.
BY RIGHT REV. MONSIGNOR CAMPBELL, D.D.
HAT have now come to be called the Catacombs
of Rome, originally, and in the language of
those who constructed and used them, were
termed Coemeteria places of sleep, rest, repose.
The name expressed the feelings, the beliefs,
the hopes of Christians, who see in the separation of the body
from the soul by death only a term of repose from labor, to
endure till the material part is resumed at the resurrection. It
harmonized with the language of the Liturgy, which com-
memorates the departed " qui dormiunt in somno pacis " who
sleep in the sleep of peace and it agrees with the inscriptions
placed upon the graves, where the faithful are left as a de-
posit to be taken up " depositi in pace " while the interment
itself is called the deposition.
From the fourth to the ninth century the term Catacombs
VOL. LXXII. II
1 62 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
was applied exclusively to the subterranean galleries under and
immediately around the Church of St. Sebastian, on the Ap-
pian Way. The etymology of the word is one of those vexed
questions that admit of many solutions, the one usually ad-
mitted deriving it from the union of a Greek pronoun and a
Latin verb, kata and cubare, and signifying near the resting-
places. It seems to have been adopted as a local designation
to describe a district on the Appian Way, at a time when the
Christian necropolis attracted attention by its extent, and had
become a landmark. The circus of Romulus is mentioned as
"Circus ad catacumbas " the circus near the catacombs as
many other places on the outskirts of Rome are described in
the early topographies : Ad duos lauros, Ad nymphas, Ad
ursum pileatum, Ad clivum cucumeris, Ad centum aulas, etc. It
was only in the ninth century, when calamities had obliterated
the name and the memory of most of the other cemeteries,
that with their history their special designations were lost, and
the names of all the cemeteries merged in the name of the
one that continued to be visited.
The catacombs form a net-work of passages, or subterranean
galleries, excavated in the tufo that underlies so much of the
district round Rome. At first confined in extent, and with
boundaries more or less regularly defined, the passages became
interlaced as they continued to extend, till they formed the
apparently inextricable labyrinth they now present. In the
sides of these galleries are rows of horizontal niches, each the
length of a human body, some large, some smaller, according
to age, called, in the language of the epitaphs, locus or loculus.
These are mostly single, but when constructed for two bodies
they received the name bisomus ; if for three, trisomus ; for
four, quadrisomus. Rarely larger excavations are found, which
are called polyandra, where many bodies lie interred together.
The loculus was closed sometimes with a marble slab, more fre-
quently with tiles closely cemented. Often the name of the
deceased is carved on the marble, or painted with minium on
the tiles, with acclamations full of affection and hope, fre-
quently rudely executed, sometimes badly spelt, but always
touching in their simplicity. Symbols and figures expressing
the finest sentiments of the Christian faith, and prayer ; a
monogram, a dove, an olive-branch, are met with ; but by far
the greatest number of those graves are nameless, and a mark
made in the wet lime a gem, a coin, a shell, vessels of various
kinds, even a bit of brick embedded in the mortar was all
1900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 163
"SYMBOLS AND FIGURES REPRESENTING THE FINEST SENTIMENTS OF CHRISTIAN
FAITH AND PRAYER.
that was placed by the relatives to indicate the resting-place
of the deceased.
Along the sides of the galleries we meet with larger open-
ings, consisting of a retiring arch formed over a sarcophagus-
shaped tomb, excavated also in the tufo. To these the name
of "Arcosolium" is given. The urn or tomb had been closed
by a broad slab of marble laid table-fashion on its mouth, and
portions of this covering commonly remain, or its trace in the
lime. These arcosolia are sometimes left bare, but often are
plastered, and decorated with paintings or mosaics on the
lunette, on the surface of the vault, and on the walls of the
164 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
gallery on each side of the arch. They are the graves of dis-
tinguished or meritorious Christians ; often of martyrs or con-
fessors of the faith. Originally, indeed, graves of this form
seem to have been reserved exclusively for the martyrs, and
the poet Prudentius, describing one of them, says : " This is
the tomb under whose cover rests the body of the martyr
Hippolytus ; it is now become an altar consecrated to God.
The table from which the Sacrament is dispensed is the same
marble that guards in the urn the martyr's bones." In this
the church militant strove to resemble the church triumphant,
where the Seer of Patmos beheld under the altar "the souls
of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the
testimony which they held ; and they cried with a loud voice,
saying : How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not
judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth."
It is from this early usage that the rigorous prescription has
come down in the Catholic Church requiring for the celebration
of Mass at least a consecrated stone containing in its cavity
some small portion of martyrs' dust.
At intervals along the passages openings lead to small
chambers, cubicula, some square or rectangular, others circular
or octagonal, with flat, or vaulted, or dome- shaped roofs, termi-
nating sometimes in an apse, with columns carved out of the
tufo, cornices and arches, walls coated with plaster, or bare ;
and when plastered, covered, sides and roof, with historic and
allegoric paintings, and ornamental designs.
Entering one of these cubicula, we see a small chamber,
not more than twelve feet square. Its pavement is formed of
parallelograms of black and yellow marble. The walls and
ceiling are coated with fine stucco ; an arcosolium, flanked by
white marble pilasters, occupies the centre of the wall facing
the entrance. The roof is a flat vault. In the centre the
. Good Shepherd is depicted carrying one of his sheep on his
shoulders, bearing it to its rest. Curves and radiating lines,
flowers and tracery, divide the surface of the vault into com-
partments. In one we see Adam and Eve standing by the
tree of knowledge ; in another, Noe in his ark, in a third the
multiplication of the loaves, in a fourth the resurrection of
Lazarus. A dove, symbol of the soul liberated from the body,
bearing the olive-branch of peace occupies the angles. The
tivo side walls each contain two loculi ; the slabs of marble
that closed them are wanting, and no inscription is left to tell
whose were the bones that lie there, crumbled to small parti-
i goo.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 165
A TYPICAL CUBICULUM.
cles and dust. But every available space is covered with paint-
ings. Above, in a consecutive series, we have the story of
Jonas. A ship in a raging sea, and the sailors casting out
their wares, while Jonas is fast asleep. Then Jonas cast into
the sea, and the great fish ready to swallow him up. Next,
the monster is ejecting him upon the dry land, and lastly, the
prophet is seen reclining under the gourd. The allegory is
simple, and the allusion to the resurrection clear; in the
1 66 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
THE STORY OF JONAS. SYMBOLIC OF RESUR-
RECTION.
prophet's own words : " The
waters compassed me about
even to the soul ; the deep
hath closed me round about,
the sea hath covered my head.
I went down to the lowest
parts of the mountains ; the
bars of the earth have shut
me up for ever ; and thou wilt
bring up my life from corrup-
tion, O Lord my God."
Lower down is another
series. To the left we have
Moses striking the rock, from
which water is flowing. Then
a man, seated on the bank of
a stream, is holding a line to
which is attached a fish that he has caught. On the opposite
bank a man is standing and pouring water on the head of one
who is half immersed in the stream. No one can doubt that
Baptism is here meant to be represented. The rock, which is
Christ, dispenses water, which is his grace ; the apostolic fisher,
seeking for souls, has found one; for we, as Tertullian says, "like
little fish, are caught and regenerated in the water of Bap-
tism." To this succeeds a single figure, a man carrying a bed
on his shoulders, doubtless the paralytic cured at the pool, also
a type of the remission of sin
through the saving waters of
Baptism.
Over the arcosolium are
three subjects intimately con-
nected with each other, and
bearing on another doctrine.
In the centre seven persons
are seen seated at a table, on
which bread and fish are pre-
pared, and on the ground, in a
row in front of the table,
twelve baskets filled with loaves
are arranged. This is a sub
ject which is over and over again
represented in the cemeterial MoSFS STB1KIBG THE RO CK.-TYPICAL OF
paintings, as it is treated over BAPTISM. THE ROCK is CHRIST.
1 900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 167
and over again in the writings of the early Fathers, so that the
allusion to the mystic banquet of the Eucharist, and the multi-
plication of the loaves, a miracle itself typifying the sacrament,
is universally understood. To the left of this central group,
on a sacrificial table, or tripod, lie a loaf and a fish ; a man
is standing with his hands extended over the bread in the
attitude of consecration, and the figure of a woman with arms
extended in prayer is represented hard by. To the right of
AT THE SACRED TABLE, WITH THE ICHTHYS, OR FISH, REPRESENTING THE BODY OF
CHRIST AND THE WINE JAR, His BLOOD.
the central group Abraham, Isaac, a ram, and a bundle of
fagots are depicted. All three subjects, the mystic banquet,
the sacrifice of Abraham, type of the sacrifice of the cross, and
its actual representation in the sacrifice of the altar, recall to
the initiated the most solemn mystery of Christian worship.
We have said, to the initiated ; for there was a secret disci-
pline during the infant period of the church which forbade in-
discriminate manifestation of all her doctrines to the unbap-
tized. Discourses addressed to assemblies where catechumens
were among the audience are frequently interrupted by ex-
pressions as "norunt fideles": the faithful, that is, the bap-
tized, know what we mean. And there is a celebrated passage
i68 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
that has come down to us in a homily of St. Augustine spoken
to the select audience, where he alludes openly to this reserve :
" If you ask a catechumen, Do you believe in Jesus Christ ? he
will answer at once, Yes ; if you ask, Do you eat the flesh of
the Son of man ? he knows not what you say." In those paint-
ings we have a most striking example of this discipline. They
were before the eyes of all, catechumens as well as baptized,
and accident might have exposed them to pagans. ICHTHYS
noster, our Fish, is what Tertullian calls our Lord, and he
was a contemporary of these very paintings: "We as little
fish, according to our great Fish Jesus Christ, are born in
water, and cannot be saved except by remaining in it." But
from the ICHTHYS, the fish lying by the bread, what could the
uninstructed understand? The initiated well knew that the
five letters of the Greek word gave lESUS CHRISTOS THEOU
YlOS SOTER Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour.
On the wall of the chamber which we have been examining,
to the right of the entrance, our Lord is shown calling Lazarus
from the tomb ; a consoling suggestion to the mourners who
visited this family grave, and a fitting sequel to the subjects that
went before: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood
hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
From time to time truncated columns are found constructed
in the corners of the cubicula, or made of the tufo itself ; and
in the lime may be discovered fragments of glass basins or
vessels, which used to be kept filled with oil to feed the lights
that were burned in them. Near the tomb of a martyr, when
its construction did not permit its covering to become the
table of the altar, columns like these were used as substitutes..
Besides the cubicula formed in the tufo, in most of the ceme-
teries chambers are met with regularly constructed of brick,
embedded on all sides in the soil, cruciform sometimes in shape,
with every characteristic of a church in small proportions.
The passages and cham'bers of the catacombs are not all
on one level. Under or above the principal level or floor
others exist ; two, three, and sometimes four different ranges of
galleries, one under the other, communicating by stairs or by
gradual slopes that imperceptibly lead from a higher to a lower
floor, and again to the upper levels, are found in the more ex-
tensive catacombs. Air and light are admitted to the ceme-
teries by shafts that open to the surface, called luminaria, and
these often branch downwards in two, three, or more directions,
lighting up not only a gallery, but several cubicula.
1900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 169
Till about sixty years ago all the cemeteries forming this
city of the dead were supposed to be connected and united in
one net-work encircling the walls of Rome. It was even popu-
larly believed that the galleries passed under the city itself, and
communicated with the crypts and subterraneans of the basili-
cas, and that they extended to the base of the hills and the
shores of the Mediterranean.
In reality the catacombs are
forty six in number, historical-
ly distinct, and materially
separated. The cemeteries
on one road have no connec-
tion with those on another ;
even those on different sides
of the same road or on the
same side, and close together,
are totally unconnected. The
catacombs of St. Sebastian
have no connection with those
of St. Callixtus on the same
side of the Appian Way. The
Ostrian cemetery on the No-
mentan Way is not united to the cemetery of St. Agnes, which
is distant from it only a few hundred yards. Exceptions are to
be made in the case of some groups of cemeteries, such as the
cemetery of St. Callixtus, which in its later development stretched
its passages into the adjoining cemeteries of St. Soteris, Lucina,
Balbina, and Hippolytus. But this connection happened after
the peace given to the church. On the Salarian Way some
cemeteries became connected by each coming in contact, at
different ends, with the same arenarium. All these strictly
Roman catacombs are contained within a limit of three miles
from the walls of Servius, the walls which bounded the city at
the time of their excavation. The Aurelian walls which now
limit the city, on the Via Appia, are a mile farther out.
" Hominem mortuum in Urbe ne sepelito, neve urito " Neither
bury nor cremate a body within the city boundaries was a
law of the Twelve Tables, which the Christians had neither the
will nor the power to disobey. Beyond the three-mile limit
Christians existed in the pagi, or villages, scattered over the
campagna, where a bishop of their own presided, with churches
and clergy for themselves, and cemeteries for their special use.
Such were the cemeteries of St. Zoticus, ten miles from Rome
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. TYPE OF THE
REDEEMER.
170 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
on the Via Labicana, and the cemetery of St. Alexander,
seven miles -from Porta Pia on the Nomentan Way. To judge
accurately of the size and extent of the Roman catacombs, it
would be necessary to have complete plans of all, like those
of St. Callixtus and Domitilla, published by De Rossi. In the
absence of these ample scope is left for flights of fancy.
Generalizing from certain proportional data, the combined
length of all the subterranean passages of the catacombs has
been calculated at three hundred and sixty British miles. But
this is to be understood of the full development of the galleries,
intersecting and underlying each other in even four or five
ranges, beneath a surface area comparatively limited, de-
termined partly by nature in the lie of the ground, partly by
law and respect for private property.
This sketch of the general appearance of the catacombs
brings us to an examination of their origin, the conditions
under which they were held, and the purposes to which they
were devoted.
It was an idea, now exploded, that the catacombs were the
work in great part of pagans, that they were simply arenaria,
or sand-pits, that had been abandoned and were converted by
Christians into places of burial. It was P. Marchi who first
placed the facts in a clear light, by the help of geology,
architecture, and history. De
Rossi developed the arguments
more completely, aided by his
brother Michele, in an appendix
to the first volume of his Roma
Sotterranea. The catacombs
cannot be disused arenaria, be-
cause they are excavated pre-
cisely in the particular stratum
of tufo which was useless as
building material. Three states
of this volcanic formation are
met with in the campagna : first,
the lithoid tufo, a compact and
solid stone, extensively employ-
ed in building ; second, friable
tufo, or pozzolana, so valuable to mix with lime in the com-
position of mortar; and thirdly, granular tufo, not sufficiently
hard or compact to be used for building, and useless as sand
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS. A TYPE OF THE
RESURRECTION.
1900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 171
CHAPEL OF THE POPES RESTORED.
till broken up and pounded at great cost and trouble. Yet the
excavators of the catacombs sought constantly the stratum of
granular tufo, avoiding the lithoid as too hard for working in,
and the friable as deficient in cohesion and dangerous ; when
they met with a mass of this kind, they stopped short at once,
or turned aside, to prosecute the gallery in another direction,
in a stratum of granular tufo.
Another argument against the theory that the catacombs
172 THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
were disused sand-pits is the utter antagonism of the two
systems of excavation. Examples of both are abundant. The
passages of the catacombs are narrow, averaging little more
than two feet in breadth, where two men could not work
abreast ; the galleries of the sand-pits are wide enough for a
wagon to pass : the sides of the passages in the catacombs are
vertical, and at right angles with the floor and roof ; the galler-
ies of the sand-pits are elliptic vaults ; in the catacombs the
passages form sharp angles at the crossings ; in the sand-pits
the angles disappear, and the turnings are round ; in the cata-
combs the object was only to excavate passages wide enough
for communication, and leave solid thicknesses of tufo on each
side, where as many graves as possible could be opened ; in
the sand-pits the object was to extract the greatest possible
quantity of sand, and leave supports barely sufficient to sustain
the roof; the catacombs are excavated in different levels, floor
beneath floor ; the sand-pits never. It is true that many of the
principal cemeteries are connected with arenaria. But often
this meeting was quite fortuitous, and when there is a regular-
ly constructed communication, it can be seen that the fossors
used the sand-pit as a place for the deposit of their excava-
tions. The history of the persecutions in the second half of
the third century offers another explanation. The cemeteries,
as we shall see, were confiscated ; the Christians were forbidden
to enter them under pain of death, and they were consequently
obliged to multiply secret approaches, and use the sand-pits as
vestibules and masked entrances, or places of refuge and hiding
in case they were surprised in the cemeteries.
The catacombs were, therefore, not abandoned arenaria.
Neither were they excavated by the pagans for places of inter-
ment. The sepulchres of the Romans, putting aside the puticuli
(where slaves and people of the lowest orders were thrown to-
gether into pits), were either family burial places or sepulchres
for members of certain associations. Both invariably consisted
of three essential parts, besides accessories. First, there was
the monumentum, marking the place, which took a variety of
forms, mausoleum, temple, pyramid, tower, tumulus, etc., ac-
cording to the taste and means of the builders. Ruins of these
are seen along the ancient roads. Second, the cella, or sepul-
chral chamber proper, usually below the level of the monu-
ment. Third, the area, or precincts, a surrounding space sacred
and inviolable, which could not be bought or sold, after being
once dedicated to its purpose. The limits of this were marked
1900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 173
on the monument, so many feet of frontage, so many of depth
back from the highway. The accessories generally included a
house or shelter for a custodian. The ashes of the dead were
placed in ollcs, or urns of marble, terra cotta, or alabaster, and
deposited in semicircular niches, which gave the name of
columbaria to the chambers. In spaces between the niches
small, elegant tablets showed the name and condition of the
deceased.
There were in imperial times in Rome funeral associations,
chiefly composed of a foreign element, Eastern worshippers of
syncretic mysteries, who, in-
stead of burning their dead
sodales, interred them in
niches resembling the loculi
of the catacombs. Some of
their cemeteries have been
discovered, showing an ana-
logy to those of the Chris-
tians, but they are small, nar-
row, miserable constructions,
corresponding with the di-
minutive and obscure associa-
tions to which they belonged ;
and they completely want
those large subterranean
chambers, universal in the
catacombs, which were used as places of meeting ; for the
associations in question always held their assemblies in the
scholce, or rooms built above.
There is more analogy between the catacombs and the
Jewish cemeteries in Rome, which perhaps were the original
model. In them, however, the loculi were usually built up, in-
stead of being simply closed by a slab, as in the catacombs.
Among the thousands of epitaphs found in the catacombs,
among the signs and symbols employed in the decoration of
the tombs, there is nothing to show the presence of a single
pagan sepulture. Designs borrowed from contemporary art
are freely used, especially in the older cemeteries, before Chris-
tian art had formed for itself a cycle of ornaments and a sym-
bolism of its own ; but nothing incompatible with Christian
sentiment. Profane inscriptions are occasionally met with, but
it is evident that they were used as materials of construction,
and they are found inverted or defaced. No pagan could
OUR SAVIOUR, NINTH CENTURY.
i/4 THE CATACOMBS WERE OP CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. [Nov.,
possibly have been buried in the catacombs, for the Christian
held in equal horror promiscuous burial and communion with
false worship. It was regarded as a kind of apostasy to be
interred with pagans. St. Cyprian relates how a certain bishop
was deposed from his see because he permitted his children to
be buried "in collegio exterarum gentium" in a guild of non-
Christians. So jealous were they of the exclusive sacredness of
their cemeteries, that Christians who died out of the church's
peace were repelled in death from the gates of her cemeteries,
as in life they had been excluded from her basilicas.
The exclusively Christian origin of the catacombs seems to
be satisfactorily proved by what has been said, but additional
argument will be found as we proceed to examine the legal
conditions under which they were held. No people had greater
regard than the Romans for the religion of the dead and the
sacredness of a sepulture. It was to them a place of religious
veneration. Sumptuous and
magnificent monuments flank-
ed the great suburban roads.
Guardians constantly resided
near the tombs to care for
them becomingly, and any
violation of their sanctity was
severely punished by law.
This protection extended not
to the tombs of Roman citi-
zens only, but to the grave
of a stranger and barbarian :
" Religiosum locum unus-
quisque sua voluntate facit,
dum mortuum infert in locum
suum " Any one may make
a place religious by bur) ing
a body in it. Sepulchres could not be alienated, did not pass
like other property to the heirs. They were "religious " places,
which the added consecration of the pontiffs made " sacred."
The Christian catacombs were, in their first beginnings, burial
places excavated in the land of private citizens, converts to
Christianity, and were known by the name of their owners,
and shared with their brethren in the faith. Praetextatus,
Maximus, Lucina, Novella, Priscilla, Jordanus, just as they gave
their houses in Rome for the assemblies of the faithful and so
provided the first churches, or Titles, for the parishes, gave in
like manner to the members of their domestic churches a portion
ST. CECILIA.
LJCIN1AEAMIATIBE
VIXIT
A CHRISTIAN EPITAPH, WITH
1CHTHYS, THE FISH.
1900.] THE CATACOMBS WERE OF CHRISTIAN ORIGIN. 175
in their burying places. They needed no concealment, for law
and public sentiment protected them ; they raised their fronts
openly on the Appian Way, beside the monuments of the Cornelii
and Csecilii. On the Via Ar-
deatina we now enter the vast
cemetery of Domitilla through
the arches of a noble monument
of the Christian Flavii, built by
that imperial family on one of
the most frequented roads of
Rome.
It is a singular fact that the
Roman law, while it persecuted
Christians as followers of a pro-
scribed religion, and condemn-
ed the church itself as an illegal
society, continued to tolerate it
as a funeral association ; never
violated or profaned its sepul-
chres, only rarely forbidding their use or confiscating them. It
required a special edict in the reign of Valerian to first invade the
catacombs. In the third century collegia, or clubs, were numer-
ous : pagan priests, augurs, epulones, followers of Jupiter, Her-
cules, Apollo, and Diana, tradesmen and clubs for the poor,
who contributed a monthly sum for the right of burial in the
common ground of the association; these held periodical meet-
ings and funeral feasts. Trajan found it necessary to forbid all
associations of this class, but continued to permit the burial clubs.
The Christians took advantage of this exception, not only to
protect still more their cemeteries, but to erect upon them
schola, or chapels for their funeral and liturgical assemblies.
Legally, then, the cemeteries which had grown round family
tombs came to be held by the Christians, incorporated, as we
should say, into societies. The regulations for their manage-
ment were controlled by the ecclesiastical authorities. Rome,
from the second century, was divided into Tituli what we call
now parishes. Pope Dionysius in the third century, and Mar-
cellus in the beginning of the fourth, reorganized those titles
and the cemeteries, providing for the regular administration of
the sacraments, the superintendence of services for the dead,
and burials, especially of the martyrs. The priests incardinated
in the City Titles had jurisdiction over the corresponding ceme-
teries, celebrating by turn in them and presiding at the assemblies.
176 THE FUNERAL WREATH; [Nov.,
THE FUNERAL WREATH ; OR, THE GHOST'S
PHOTOGRAPH.
BY BESSIE O'BYRNE.
fUCH a desperately new house you never saw ; it
was papered and polished, varnished and painted,
from top to bottom. Then the furniture was all
staringly fresh and bright. They said it had
been occupied six months, but it looked as if no
one had ever sat down in it since the things were set in and
ranged in order in the rooms. We took it from an agent, and
he remarked at the time that it was an opportunity we would
not often meet with. " Circumstances," he added, " had rendered
it necessary for the owner to go abroad, and a completer or a
more modern dwelling it had never been his good fortune to
offer to housekeepers."
It was modern that was an undeniable fact and so full of
conveniences that it was enough to drive any one wilfl to see
the way it insisted on your washing your hands. Silver
spigots of all devices popped up at you out of closets and odd
corners, little marble basins were burrowing everywhere, and
bell-handles and speaking-tubes adorned the walls. There were
so many registers that the furnace seemed to be discouraged,
and declined heating any. There was a bay window at the
side and one at the back, and even the commonest rooms
were corniced. To be sure, there was not any yard to speak
of ; that had been swallowed up in the back-building improve-
ments ; and when you looked out at the sitting-room windows,
they introduced you face to face with the affairs of the people
next door, who wisely declined to be stared at, and so lived
behind drawn window-shades. Every house in the row was
like its neighbors, but ours and that next door were twin
creations of the same brain. There might possibly be a little
variety in the others, in the quantity of nails used or the
shade of paint put on ; but ours and our neighbor's did not
vary in the size of a tack or the dash of a brush.
Cousin Jane is naturally timid and easily impressed.
" Agnes, don't you think we had better keep our blinds down ? "
she asked ; " they keep theirs so next door, and they are ex-
actly alike, you know."
1900.] ox, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 177
"But we can't see if we do."
"Yes, I know that does make a difference; but then, again,
they seem to be such solemn people they may expect it."
" Expect us to be uncomfortable ? " I asked.
" Not quite that ; but they look out of the cracks of the
upper shutters, and peep over the kitchen blinds at us, always
in such a gloomy, depressed way, as if we worried them and
preyed on their minds, that I thought maybe it would be
better to make a little sacrifice, if you did n't find it too in-
convenient."
"Pshaw!" said her sister Nell; "that's just nonsense.
You were born to be somebody's slave, Jane, and are always
finding cords to bind yourself with. The truth is, I was going
to suggest taking down the staring white things altogether, to
break the monotony. The lace curtains are drapery enough,
and I cannot endure a whole row of vacant white eyes glow-
ering at me when I look up at a house."
Jane gasped for breath : " Oh ! pray don't think of such a
thing, Nell. Agnes knows how impressive the agent was on
the subject of no alterations being attempted. He said there
was a particular reason for it; didn't he, Agnes?"
" Well, well," said her sister, " then don't bother ; the people
next door are nothing to us. All we have got to do is to be
comfortable till we hear from John."
John was Cousin Jane's husband, and he had to start for
Liverpool on important business as soon as he got us the key
of the house ; Uncle William, the girls' father, was to remain
behind in charge ; but just as we were settling nicely into place
he was sent for to go to his cotton mills to superintend the
improvements they were making in consequence of the fire
that had burnt down the old building two months before.
Then Jack, my brother and uncle's ward, got an invitation from
a college friend to go somewhere in a birch canoe, and we
could n't have prevailed on him to give it up if we had been
a dozen lone women instead of three.
" Uncle will be back in a day or two, and there 's neighbors
enough to keep you from being lonely, I should hope," said
Jack. And he strapped his portmanteau and departed, leaving
us three desolate creatures. Three, did I say ? I mean five ;
for were not Ann Maria and Judy as susceptible to loneliness
and unprotected self-dependence as we were? I should say
even more so, since we tried to rise above it and put cheerful
faces on the matter, but they persisted in sighing heavily and
VOL. LXXII. 12
178 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
discovering food for gloomy reflection in everything that
happened. The oven in the range would not burn nicely.
"What would you expect?" said Judy. "A houseful of dis-
solute craytures of women, widout so much as a coat or a hat
hung up in the hall! It's a wondher we're not all murthered
in our beds, so it is."
"Lawsy me!" giggled Ann Maria. "I'd jest as lief be a
nun, and a litter liefser, for they don't have to work and slave
themselves, and they don't never need to be scared to death
for fear of seeing a feller's boots peeking out from under the
bed when they go upstairs at night."
" We must not be hard on the girls," said Cousin Jane
gently. " You know they are very considerate in some things,
and it is really quite dull and lonely for them."
Jane was not very strong. John's going was such a sudden
thing that she had no time to miss him till he was gone, and
then she gave her whole time to it, and did it thoroughly.
"Look at her eyes," Nell would cry, indignantly; "she's
been crying, actually crying! And just behold what she's been
up to, shut in here by herself reading his love letters ! Oh,
dear! it's enough to make a girl forswear such nonsense for
life, to see what a noodle it has made of her sister. Separated
for six weeks, and she wears the martyred air of a creature
that has buried every hope on earth ! "
Yes, that was the truth; Jane did allow herself to become
greatly depressed, and when Nell said that she enjoyed being
a slave, she might have added she was ready to become a
martyr too.
But even worrying about John Arden, who was a dear,
good young husband, and in no earthly danger, was better
than getting fussy over the family next door. Yet I must
confess they struck me as being very queer people. There
were several of them, I suppose, but I had seen only a pale,
sad-eyed girl and an elderly woman, both dressed in the heaviest
and most uncompromising mourning. Their conduct was more
remarkable than their appearance ; and while they evidently
seemed to have a really unwarrantable interest in us and our
affairs, they at the sarnie time endeavored to keep it a secret,
and themselves as much out of sight as possible. Looking up
suddenly from my work, I would see a sorrowful eye apparent-
ly fixed on me, and instantly retiring behind the corner of
the white shade when discovered ; and yet I felt I was not
the object of interest. Nell was watched the same way, so
OK. THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH.
was Jane; and we almost encouraged her to grieve about
John, so that she would not have time to find herself the
object of this odd scrutiny.
We were going to live in our new house for a year. At
the end of that time Uncle William's improvements and
machinery would be all perfected, Jack's studies completed,
and John and Jane in a position to go abroad for that Conti-
nental tour we had lived in expectation of so long.
Meantime we were going to be economical and study, so
as to know more and have more when we were all ready to
enjoy it properly.
" We might set to work and make up things," said Nell ;
" it will save a great deal, and I have been reading' all the
tourist's books I could find to discover what we will be likely
to need."
" There 's a closet with a glass door lined with red silk in
the third story entry ; it would be a good place to keep our
Continental stores in, would n't it ? "
"Yes; and do you know I have never looked into it?"
said Nell. " Let us go and investigate its capacity at once."
I pause here a moment and take breath before entering on
the serious part of this narrative, as Bluebeard's wife, holding
the key of the fatal chamber in her hand, lingered before
placing it in the lock, and felt the indefinable thrill of warn-
ing that runs electrically before evil comes.
Up to this moment we had been calmly happy, disturbed
only by the natural regret of a fond wife and the maidenly
pensiveness of our two domestics. Now our minds were to be-
come a prey to harrowing emotions, and the sensation of con-
tent and self-reliance was to be obscured by shadows of doubt
and lurking mystery.
Without alarm or trepidation we mounted the stairs those
modern stairs that creaked as if every fibre of their nerves re-
sented our tread and reached the landing where the dreadful
closet stood. We looked at it a moment in silence.
" Is n't it nice ? " said Nell. How well I remembered her
words !
" Umph ! " was my equally indelible reply. " I cannot see
why they put it here, it's such a queer place for a closet, and
there is no recess for it to fill up."
Nell had opened it, and a strange smell of decaying leaves
came out in quite a little gust. It was empty, except one
i8o THE FUNERAL WREATH / [Nov.,
of the shallow shelves, and that held a funeral wreath faded
and unsightly, but still a first-class funeral wreath. Both stood
still and stared at it blankly. There were nine camelias that
had once been snowy white, but were now an ugly brown ;
there were geranium leaves in plenty, all shrivelled and yellow,
and quantities of mignonette and sweet alyssum, with some
fossil orange flowers dropping to bits.
" Good gracious ! " cried Nell, the first to gain courage and
words. " Whose is it ? What can it mean ? "
" Let us shut it up again," murmured I faintly ; " it seems
like a grave."
" No ; I do not think it would do to leave this thing here,"
said Nell slowly. " Judy or Ann Maria would discover it, and
then we should have to give up living here at once. I believe
I will hide it or destroy it. Oh dear ! what a dreadful thing
to have to do. It 's almost like injuring some living creature."
She was a resolute girl, high-spirited and courageous. I
thought it better not to interfere or mar her heroic mood ; so
I stepped back a little as she pulled out the fearful ghost of
former bloom.
As Cousin Nell pulled this mass of remains towards her a
shower of dust and leaves came with it, and a small photo-
graph fluttered to the ground.
I picked it up. Oh such a sick, ghastly face, so sharp and
thin and long and sallow ! A man who had had consumption,
and fought against death until there was nothing left to carry
on the battle with. What a frightful memento of misery en-
dured and the triumph of hopeless, wasting disease ! Why do
people want to torture themselves by preserving such private
and individual racks whereon to stretch their own sensibilities?
" That is the legitimate proprietor of the wreath," whis-
pered Nell, shuddering as she looked over my shoulder at the
dreadful man. "Isn't it dreadful? It seems as if we had the
horrid things on our hands for life and should never get rid
of them."
"You shouldn't like to burn them in the range at night,
should you ? " I hinted. I knew nothing could tempt me to
do it, but I hoped she would discover more decision than I.
She shook her head.
"Then there's the loft," I said.
" Yes, that 's it," she answered with a sigh of relief ; " that
is the very place." And she gathered up the crumbling thing
and I took up the photograph, and together we mounted ther
1900.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 181
ladder in the upper back entry that communicated with the
dark, empty space between the ceiling of the upper story and
the roof. As Nell, reaching her arm over as far as she could,
dropped the wreath among the joists and rafters, I pushed the
photograph after it, and a little shower of dust and shreds of
leaves rose on the still air, as if in protest against the act.
" Let us go down as soon as we can, and promise never to
name the affair to each other ; it will only keep us thinking
of it," I said, and scrambled off the ladder, leaving Nell to
draw over the sliding door and follow, which she did immedi-
ately and with some trepidation.
As she commenced at once to talk about Paris and our
winter there, that was soon to be so delightful, Judy came in
on tiptoe and with elaborate caution.
" Do you know, Miss Agnes, what Ann Maria and me found
out about them quare people that do be watching us so next
door? They're all mad, miss. Yes, miss, jist what I am tell-
ing you they 're as mad as March hares ; and if they was to
take the notion to break in on us, what 's to hinder them from
murtherin' us in our beds? Sure there is no law in Ameriky
that would meddle wid them for it, they say."
Ann Maria, with a face no less portentous, came tiptoeing
in her wake. Evidently they considered that extreme caution
was their only safeguard in the peril that surrounded them.
" I see it myself," whispered Ann Maria. " I see it with
these here eyes. I was a-looking up at the windows, sort of
sly 't 'ain't no wrong, for they're for everlasting a looking and
a-spying at us and I see that daughter of theirn come to the
third story back and lift the shade for half a minute; and Miss
Nell, as sure as you sit there, it is all crossed with iron bars,
like a menagerie."
"The window covered with bars?" repeated Nell. "Oh! I
think you must be mistaken ; if there were bars we should see
them outside the blinds."
' That 's it ! that is just it ! You see, they 're all crazy, and
they have to be locked in that way ; but they don't want folks
to know it, so they put their curtains between the bars and
the windows, so as to hide it."
'There must be a child in the house," said I, endeavoring
to be perfectly calm, and even indifferent. " It was the nursery
you noticed, Ann Maria, and you know we often protect such
places in that way."
Ann Maria took the explanation ill. She sniffed derisively
1 82 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
and tossed her head. " I had a second cousin who was head
nuss in a luriaty asylum," she remarked, " and them bars ain't
to keep no baby in, as she would tell you if she see 'em.
Why, they looks more like things on a wild beast's cage than
anything I can think of else."
" Troth, I would not wondher if they had them there," said
Judy. " I heard something like a roar onct, and the whole
family have a quare look, as if they were scart out of their
wits at something."
We heard Jane's step in the hall outside.
" There, there ! " cried Nell, in a suppressed tone ; " do
not, for your life, let your mistress hear you talk in this fool-
ish way. She is delicate and nervous, you know, and what
only serves to amuse us would distress her."
So saying, she pretended to be telling them something
about the arrangements of the furniture when Cousin Jane just
came in, and, assuming a cheerful air, dismissed them all with
a warning look.
" Serves to amuse us ! " I repeated her words to myself,
but failed to find their applicability ; for I could not discover
such a sensation even distantly connected with our lonely
household and our queer neighbors; and to add to the dole-
fulness of our position, Jane had come to say that she really
believed she was sick.
She confessed to feeling rather miserable for a day or two
past, but a visitation in the form of chills had come upon her
that morning, followed by a low but decided fever ; so that
she could no longer conceal her sufferings, and meant to give
up and go to bed. Of course we had known it would come
to this. She had gone on moping and crying secretly ever
since John left, and this was the natural consequence, and
only what might have been expected.
" I should not mind it so much," faltered Jane, " but all my
sewing, that I meant to do so nicely, is cut out and basted ;
yet I do not feel as if I could hold a needle in my fingers if
a fortune was to be won by it."
Nell and I promised eagerly to do it all, and induced her
to lie down and let us call the doctor for advice.
That was an odd way of Jane's ; she never felt sick with-
out calling up a host of neglected duties to prey on her mind
and make her worse. We knew, even before the doctor told
us so, that she was extremely nervous, and needed entire rest
and cheerful surroundings more than medicine. Yet he gave
1 900.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 183
her some, and, whatever it was, the effect it produced was
sleep sleep of such a decided character that she seemed to
sink into it as if she never meant to rise and come to the
surface of the waking day world any more.
We sat in the sewing-room and did our best with the cut-
out and basted work. It was late ; Judy and Ann Maria had
retired, and we only waited to see if Jane would rouse in time
for a second dose before we followed their example. Nell
proposed lying on the soft sofa beside her bed, while I slept
in the back room. Jane lay in such a deep sleep that she did
not stir in the least, and you could not tell that she was
breathing until you stopped and listened. It grew oppressively
silent all over the house ; it was quiet enough at the best of
times, but to night it was positively awful. Nell made spas-
modic efforts to be conversational and agreeable, so I knew
she was feeling nervous and frightened. I tried hard to be
careless and merry, and signally failed. We had talked of the
hitherto unfailing theme, our trip abroad, and discovered it to
be without a charm. The truth is, we were both trying not
to think of those horrid discoveries of ours the funeral wreath
and the ghastly picture and I knew, and so did she, that
there was no other subject in our minds all the time.
" Dear me ! " said Nell, pretending to ruminate and look in-
terested in the recollection, " it is next month that Mollie Denis
meant to be married. I wonder if she will come to town and
do her shopping."
" It would be a relief to have such a gay creature here,
wouldn't it?" I hinted.
Nell drew a sigh of inexpressible longing. " Oh," she said,
" don't I wish I could hear her laugh ! It would startle the
shadows in this dreary new house."
Yes, that was the vexation ; had it been an old house one
would not have minded a shade of gloom more or less, for it
would have been in character; but in a fresh, strangely modern
dwelling, all shining red and white, there could be no pro-
priety in mysterious horrors and haunting terrors.
Just as I came to this conclusion and, feeling a little nerved
by it, determined to shake off the oppressive shadows that
weighed me down, I heard a faint sound like the turning of a
screw. Nell started and laid her hand on my arm with a quick,
tight grasp. The sound lasted quite a little while, and ended
with a dreadful click, like the final turn of a screw in a coffin lid !
Yes, that was what it reminded me of, and by a miserable
1 84 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
fatality I saw that Nell shared the thought. Her hold tight-
ened and she drew a gasping breath. Something like a foot-
fall, but very soft and almost noiseless, followed and grew more
distinct every moment, for it was coming towards us. The
door stood a little way open and a faint light glimmered in
the hall outside ; our terrified eyes turned in that direction
and beheld the outline of something white moving cautiously
along among the shadows. It was a man the man, the pro-
prietor of the funeral wreath and he seemed gliding through
the air directly towards us no doubt come to avenge its dese-
cration and demand it back.
Nell opened her lips as if to shriek, but no sound left
them ; and, stretching her hands out to ward off the terrible
presence that still kept advancing towards us, she fell down in
a heap on the carpet, leaving me to face the horror alone. It
entered the room and seemed to go toward a writing desk in
the corner a large affair, with a case of books above it, that
was kept locked and never used by any of us according to a
promise exacted by the agent.
I think I spoke to this fearful apparition, for I remember
the sound of my own voice as I faintly whispered, " She put it
in the loft," meanly desiring to save myself and implicate the
insensible Nell ; but I could not make a tone higher than a
shrill whisper, and my heart seemed to cease beating and to
swell with an awful throb that smothered my breath and turned
my body to ice.
And yet the apparition appeared totally indifferent to us
both I could not but be aware of that, even in the midst of
my fear and, having stood a silent moment or two beside the
secretary, it turned and seemed to disappear in the shadows of
Jane's bed-chamber.
As soon as it got out of sight I got back my breath and
scrambled onto my feet. I believe I had followed Nell on the
carpet, and found myself behind an easy-chair as a sort of bar-
ricade against the wandering spirit's nearer approach ; my cou-
sin becoming suddenly conscious at the same moment.
"Has it gone?" she asked; and I hope my eyes were
not quite so wild or my face so entirely white as hers.
" It went into Jane's room," I replied in a whisper. And
in a second Nell's courage came back, for she loves Jane with
her whole heart, and, though two years younger, always takes
a tender elder sister's care of her.
"In Jane's room!" she repeated. "Ah! what does the ter-
i goo.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 185
rible thing want with her? She did not touch it." And she
actually seized the sofa pillow as a weapon of defence and fol-
lowed the Ghost.
It was qot there. Jane was sleeping still so very heavily
that even our exclamations of wonder and the attempt we made
to search did not disturb her.
Yes, we did look for it ; but we first waited a little while
to be quite sure if it were gone. You cannot imagine how
our courage came back when we knew it was entirely out of
sight, and we even tried to persuade ourselves that we must
have been dreaming and no dead man had even thought
of paying us a visit on such a trifling pretext as a funeral
wreath.
But we could not quite accomplish that, nor could we feel
sleepy any more, nor desire to go to bed across the hall in the
room that belonged to us.
The first thing we had done on regaining our self-control
was to lock the door by which the spirit had entered, and our
search had all been made inside the two rooms. Neither of us
thought it best to go beyond them ; and Nell closed and fast-
ened the door in Jane's room, out of which it seemed probable
the spirit had departed. Then we made both of the apartments
pretty light that was because it seemed more cheerful and sat
down, our excitement being now subsided, to feel very doleful
and depressed.
However, the safest thing we could do was to get out of
temper, and we fretted and scolded and started at every sound
until daybreak, and then we fell fast asleep and dreamed most
uncomfortably.
I thought we had both found refuge down a trap door that
led away under the house to a wide open country, green and
beautiful, with great moss grown rocks and little glens full of
wild flowers. Somebody seemed waiting for us here, and led
us into a little grotto with a stationary washstand and silver
bell handle in it ; but just as we were admiring its completeness a
window was closed and we discovered it to be crossed with
iron bars that prevented our ever getting out again. Nell
sprang up in great excitement and beat and rattled at those
bars so as to shake the very ground beneath our feet.
Gradually a voice seemed to break through our dream. It
cried :
" Miss Agnes, are ye slapin', or is it dead ye are ? Miss
Agnes! oh, Miss Agnes! What's the matter wid ye all?"
1 86 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
They were Judy's tones, and they had evidently reached
their climax in a wild, shrill scream.
I sprang up and rubbed my eyes. Oh, what an aching,
weary creature I felt ! And the recollection of the ghostly fig-
ure made my head reel as I tried to remember just where I
was and all about it.
Nell lay across the foot of Jane's bed, and both still slum-
bered profoundly. I opened the door.
"It is just nine o'clock, miss," remarked Judy with a re-
signed air. " I 've been knocking at this door, when Ann Maria
gave out, ever since seven. The breakfast 's stone cold, there 's
two letters come, and a young lady 's in the parlor wid a thravel-
in* bag."
It was evident from Judy's manner that she had weighed
the amount and nature of her communications, and considered
a desperate calmness best calculated to show them off to their
fullest effect ; therefore she repeated all these items in a stud-
ied monotone that told well.
" Goodness gracious ! " I cried. " Nine o'clock letters a
young lady ! "
" Who is it ? " muttered Nell, gathering herself up.
"Yes, Miss Nell, she said she was an ould friend, and that
she would not disturb ye for the world, but could jist sit be
the parlor winda and read till ye got up." Judy drew a card
out of her pocket. " That 's her name," she continued ; " an'
as she has been waitin' so long for her breakfast, she may be
famished by this time."
"Why, Nell, it's Mollie Denis!" I exclaimed. "Oh, I am
so glad! " And turning into the next room, I washed my sleepy
face and brushed my tumbled hair with all the eager haste I
could.
Nell followed me in a few moments and shut the door care-
fully.
" I have been thinking we had better keep our secret, dear,"
she said with quite a pathetic pity expressed in her voice for
herself and me. " I know it is awful, but we can do nothing
till my father comes, and now we are four ; and Mollie is so
lively it will not be so bad, you know."
" That is true, and Jane would be so terribly alarmed."
" Yes. She is awake and reading her letters. John is safe
and well, and papa says the work goes on finely at Low-
ville. She will be soon well, of course, and to tell her about
that terrible thing last night would only set her off again."
1900.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 187
You could not possibly be dull where Mollie was; she
was not at all wild or loud or rollicking, like some lively
girls are ; she was only quietly and irresistibly droll, and saw
the funny side of everything at a first glance. It was no
effort with her it was simply her nature to amuse ; and so we
all sat down to breakfast together. It was almost noon ; a
stranger would have looked on us as a family of gay-spirited
people.
Of course Jane got well as soon as she read John's letter ;
and Mollie told her she would ask her matronly advice on
many housekeeping points, which made her feel important and
delighted, because, though Jane never did anything about the
domestic affairs, she was greatly flattered to be considered com-
petent in all such respects. We had never seen Mollie's lover ;
he lived in the city, and she had met him while visiting her
aunt. He was a dear, good fellow, she told me, but rather sor-
rowful just then, having lost a loved brother that the whole
family looked up to and reverenced. The reason she was to
be married on the sixteenth of the following month was that
her lover's family would see no one for the first year of their
mourning which would expire on the first and they needed
a fortnight to be able to bring themselves to bear the moder-
ate glimpse of gayety which a private wedding, with no stran-
gers present, made necessary.
"They came to see me when I was at Aunt Susan's," said
Mollie, "and they seemed nice, good, sepulchral sort of people,
with smiles like a bit of gilding on a tombstone and manners
as set as little flower-borders around graves. George is not so
melancholy as the rest, so you need not look so sympathizing.
He has rather caught their ways, and he sincerely mourns
his brother's loss, but he can laugh I heard him before we set
the day.
"Then you have never visited them?" said Jane with a
glance of surprise. She had gone to John's home with Nell
and stayed a month among his people before she was married,
so she considered it odd that any one else should venture on
matrimony without that initiatory step.
" Not yet," confessed Mollie. " I am afraid they would be
shocked by my good spirits if I did ; so George thought it
better to wait till that awful year of gloom was past, and then
his family could conscientiously welcome me."
" Do they live in this part of the town ? " asked Nell.
" I cannot tell, really. I never learned the streets, and al-
1 88 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
ways address George at his office. When we get the important
shopping over, I '11 tell him that I am here, and I shall be
glad to have you see and like him "
"Which we will be sure to do," said Nell confidently; and
having become quite enlivened by our increased number, we
began laying plans for home pleasures and quiet enjoyment
of Mollie's visit during the next few days, almost forgetful of
the terrible skeleton that wa's hid in our closet.
But twilight brought a reminder in the person of Ann Maria,
who came flying into the sitting-room with a white face and
round eyes, and no ceremony whatever.
" O Miss Agnes ! there 's an awful thing in the loft ! I
went up to put away Mr. Jack's fishing-net, and I saw two
eyes like living coals looking down at me ; so I dropped it
and ran for my life ! "
Nell turned pale, and I gasped for breath.
"Come for that fearful wreath again," I thought; but a
large, comfortable-looking cat wound slowly down the stairs,
and passing out of the back entry, went over the fence in a
dignified, leisurely way that established her respectability and
mortality.
" That 's a real cat, I think," said Jane timidly. She in-
clined to the spiritual view, and was already quite alarmed.
" Of course it is," said Mollie, and it was then she saw it.
" It looked a heap wilder than that," protested Ann Maria,
" and bigger, and more frightfuller every way."
" Still that was it," said Nell with decision, and so dismissed
the case.
" But how did it get into our loft ? " she said to me after-
ward. " O Agnes ! I cannot bear to think of that sight last
night, and I wish you would just write to father and tell him
all."
She had expressly forbidden me doing this while daylight
lasted, but now that night was coming on it seemed a differ-
ent thing.
" I think it would be nice to all sleep in these two con-
necting rooms," she said, later in the evening.
" It is so cheerful to talk till you fall asleep."
"What an idea, Nell!" said unconscious Jane. "You used
to say it bored you to hear people talking all the time you
were trying to doze off."
" Yes, that was when the conversation consisted of little
screams and inquiries, such as, ' What 's that ? ' Oh listen, Nell ! '
1900.] OK, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 189
or, ' Do you hear that queer sound ? ' That 's your style, you
know ; and you have another way of keeping alive the interest
by giving me little terrified pinches whenever you hear a
sound, that ruins my temper and makes my arms black and
blue."
Jane laughed ; she felt so happy about hearing from John
that she had forgotten all her fears, and positively denied ever
having felt them.
As we went up to bed she glanced up the third-story stairs.
"There's the closet door ajar," she said, in a dismayed
tone of voice ; " the agent said it was to be kept locked, and
that rummaging thing, Judy, has gone and found a key for it."
" Why, Jane, what new discoveries you are making about
that agent! Every day some fresh instruction, till it really
seems as if the house is not ours at all. I will go and fasten
the door." And Nell ran up to attend to it, calling out as
she went, "you stay there and wait for me, please."
But no key was to be found, and she had to leave it just
as it was.
She carried her point about the bed arrangements, and we
all four slept in the two communicating rooms. Jane claimed
Mollie, and we two frightened ones were left together.
" Why, what a blaze of gas you have in your room," com-
plained Jane ; " you '11 heat it up directly."
" One can't get undressed in the dark," said Nell.
" And only see : she 's locking her door ! " cried Mollie.
" Oh, what an old-maidish trick on a warm summer night ! "
Nell turned the key again and set it open.
" What could I have been thinking of ? " she said, laughing.
I could have told her easily, but I only watched the shadows
on the wall outside, and trembled secretly at every fancied
sound.
I resolved to remain awake and watch, and began a length-
ened conversation with a view to induce Mollie to a like course;
but I felt my words becoming too burdensome to lift into
utterance. Great gaps seemed to stretch between me and the
rest, and I kept sinking into wells, and bringing myself to the
top again with a painful jerk. Then I had a long, pleasant
blank that was empty of care and trouble, and fear of ghostly
things.
Suddenly it was filled with a ringing cry of alarm, and a
sharp consciousness, confused and painful, was thrust upon me.
I sat up and saw Jane and Mollie and Nell all on the floor
1 90 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
together ; Jane keeping up her cries of terror, and they two
looking about them in every direction, without seeming suffi-
ciently composed to see anything clearly.
"The robber!" cried Jane "the dreadful robber! I saw
him come in at the door and he tried to open the desk that
the agent was so particular about ; and now he is in the dining-
room collecting the silver."
Mollie ran quickly and closed and bolted the doors that led
into the hall.
" If it was a robber we are safe now," she said. " Tell us
what he looked like, Jane."
" He was fearful," said Jane to begin with, determined to
see everything in its worst light. " He had dreadfully fixed
eyes, and his face was pale chalked over to frighten us, I
suppose. He had left his shoes down-stairs, and had no coat on."
" Let us make an alarm from the front window," said
Mollie.
"It is no use," said Nell desperately; "it is not a robber;
it only wants its own, and Agnes knows it."
"What do you mean?" asked Jane, aghast. "Do you think
we have anything belonging to the wretch?"
"Oh, don't mention it!" said Nell, shuddering. She sat
down and hid her face in her hands, really overcome with our
miserable position.
" Let us call a policeman to search the house," insisted
Mollie. " Aunt Susan always said it was the safest way."
" There are things beyond the control of the force," mut-
tered Nell ; and so we all sat shivering with fear and bewil-
dered with conflicting thoughts till the summer dawn came to
relieve us of our horror. Then we four searched the house
and found there was not a pin missing.
" We are a set of fools," said Mollie, as we concluded our
investigation. " Jane dreamed it all, and we helped her to be
alarmed at the recollection."
" No, but I did see the man," persisted Jane. " I could n't
get asleep right I suspect it was because I took a powder
the night before and I was just as wide awake as I am now
when he came prowling in."
" Stalking, you mean."
"Yes, Nell, that is more like it; but I knew he had come
to prowl and steal, and so I could see through his tricks of
walking so straight and stiff and keeping his eyes fixed as if
he were dead."
1900.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 191
"What shall we do?" asked Nell, whose desperation grew
intense at every word her sister uttered.
"We can keep the girls up to-night for company," sug-
gested I.
" To help us to be more frightened," said Mollie. " What-
ever it is, it knows how to get in mysteriously, for there 's not
a bolt drawn nor key turned in the house. I believe it 's a
spirit, and I am going to watch for it myself to night."
"Alone?" we asked all together.
" Why no," confessed Mollie, laughing. " I intend to send
for George, with your permission. I meant to wait a week, and
let it get a little nearer the end of the season of mourning ;
but as your stock of male relatives are all gone, and men being
at a premium, I think it a good time to bring mine forward.
He is not afraid of ghosts I know, and he is one of those quiet,
sensible men who ought to have some courage."
We all began to be much interested in Mollie's lover, and
again Nell postponed writing for her father; for, as she said, it
would give him trouble and make him very captious if he could
discover no cause for her alarm.
" A man in the house is all we want, Agnes ; and we must
be as agreeable to Mollie's lover as possible, so as to betray
him into late hours, and to frighten that horrid thing off with
our merriment and good spirits, and the pretence of having a
protector with us."
Just as we sat down to tea that evening, rather flushed with
the expectation of a pleasant change, Jack and uncle dashed
in among us in high spirits, and it came out that the birch-
canoe party had found rowing and poling such hard work that
a little of it satisfied them, and they changed their plans into
a walking tour. Jack, being away far enough from home to be
sociable with those he met, discovered among the tourists just
the kind of man uncle needed in his factory-work a univer-
sal genius who held the key of mechanical invention between
his handy thumb and forefinger. He had secured this prize
and carried him down to the mills, where uncle received him
like a deliverer from a mass of confused responsibilities.
Both uncle and Jack were in excellent spirits, and we all
grew gay and hilarious, quite forgetting our late depression,
and meanly undervaluing the coming knight we had counted
on so largely an hour before.
It was rather late when he came, and Mollie had been
talking so amusingly with Jack that I am afraid the most of
192 THE FUNERAL WREATH ; [Nov.,
us had forgotten all about her lover. Ann Maria, much flushed
with the abundance of the article on hand, announced rather
lamely :
"A gentleman, miss"; and Jane stepped forward, so did
Nell, so did I.
With one accord we all three started back and uttered three
distinct sounds.
" The robber ! " screamed Jane, with quite a little yell.
" The dead man ! " murmured Nell.
" Come for his wreath ! " added I.
Yes, there he was, the haunting spirit, whose dreadful
presence had filled us with terror and nameless distress, actually
arrayed in evening dress and walking into our parlor.
Was that all? No; behind him came the sad-eyed lady
whom we had seen from our windows, and her equally mourn-
ful daughter, followed up by a comfortable-looking, plump,
rosy-faced old man, who seemed determined to be jolly, though
he evidently had a hard time carrying out the idea.
"The family from next door," murmured Jane faintly,
evidently giving way before such a combined pressure of cir-
cumstances.
" We had expected to do ourselves this honor somewhat
later," began the elder lady, in a voice as regular and mono-
tonous as a passing bell. " The deep shadow that has obscured
our lives is not yet shifted, but the approaching duty of a new
connection has led us to waive for awhile the luxury of seclu-
sion and anticipate time a little."
She then solemnly kissed Mollie and shook hands with
us all.
Her daughter followed in just the same manner, with a more
timid spirit ; but the old gentleman rubbed his hands briskly,
and made several bows in different directions.
"Glad to see you all," he said in a series of cheery jerks;
" happy to greet neighbors and family connections at the same
time. Pleasant, very pleasant ; sorry to say we 're all rather
down lost our eldest fine fellow the image of George here ;
great blow, but must be borne." Here he rubbed his hands
with increased energy, and seemed to feel that we now knew
his family history, and there was nothing left to do but be
comfortable.
But the dreadful young man ! Mollie had gone to his side
instantly, and looked sharply at us all as we uttered our im-
pressible exclamations. But he only gazed in astonishment
1 900.] OR, THE GHOST'S PHOTOGRAPH. 193
around him, and then seemed to seek his mother's eye for
counsel and direction.
"Oh! what is it?" she asked. She was so full of her owa
systematized sorrow that she had not noticed our dismay.
Nell tried hard to overcome her doubt, astonishment, and
shrinking repugnance, and speak reasonably; all I could do
was to hold my tongue, but Jane did not even do that.
" Papa, he frightened us all out of our wits indeed he did.
Of course I know now he is no robber, because Mollie Denis
could n't be engaged to such a character ; but I know John
would object to it, and it really was alarming "
"Object to what, Jane? Be intelligible." But uncle re-
quired too much of my poor confused little cousin.
Nell did better. "We have certainly seen Mr. Millard in
here," she said, trying to be very composed. " It was impos-
sible to hide our feelings on recognizing him, and it is due to
you all to make an explanation."
So she told about the figure we had seen, not particulariz-
ing the night-dress, but Mollie's lover grew white and red,
and stammered without uttering anything we could under-
stand.
His stern and solemn mother glowered at us, but his agreea-
ble father burst out laughing.
" Yes, follow my example," he entreated ; " it is the only way
we can come to a really clear conclusion. The poor lad walks
in his sleep, and somebody has opened that staircase door that
I wanted built up when Harold died ; but our people promised
his widow, who believed in making a treasure of her gloom,
to leave everything just as it was, to make her miserable again
when she comes back from abroad next year. And so it had
to remain. It was locked on your side, and I did not know
that there was a key to be found."
I looked at Nell, and she at me ; we both drew a long
breath.
" There was a funeral wreath," said I.
"There was! there was!" cried the bereaved mother in a
harmonious groan ; "we meant to have it preserved, but it was
mislaid. Our lost Harold was the last to use that door; it
was made for him and his brother to consult about their studies
and communicate, without the formality of leaving the house
on either side. They were deeply attached and singularly alike
in everything."
" It shall be closed up," cried Mr. Millard, senior, decidedly ;
VOL. LXXII. 13
194 THE FUNERAL WREATH. [Nov.
but his son only kept changing color like a chameleon, and
looking at his boots.
" I can give you the wreath ; I found it," said Nell. " So
we did your great cat, who came down from the loft to day
and startled us all."
" Oh, it will be an unspeakable pleasure ! " said the elder
woman with unction; and she added: "The lofts connect; in-
deed, the whole house was built so that our tender intercourse
could be kept up easily."
" I am sorry our poor George gave you any uneasiness,"
whispered his sister. " He always dreaded that he would go
out in his night dress ; but we feared he would walk from the
window, and so we had it barred."
Mollie laughed. She had been looking from one to the
other, and trying to stifle the inclination, but it would not be
repressed. Uncle's amazement, Jack's bewilderment, Jane's
propriety, and her future mother-in-law's solemn woe, all mixed
together and crowned with her lover's abashed dejection, and
his father's desire to make it all pleasant, were too much for
her ; she began a smothered titter, which swelled into a full-
grown laugh, in which most of us joined.
" Please don't speak of it again," she said when she got her
breath. " What overcomes me is, that I sent for him as a
valiant knight to protect and succor us lonely damsels, and
find that he has been the cause of all the mischief."
" Unintentionally, unintentionally ! " murmured her adorer
faintly, which was the first successful attempt he had made to
break the silence; and though Mollie called him a courageous
fellow, I never saw a more cowardly face than his whenever
he met our eyes.
" I thought he looked plumper than the photograph," whis-
pered Nell, " even when I believed him to be a spirit."
" Yes, so did I ; but they must improve in the other world,
you know," I replied ; " and the likeness is astonishing."
It was hard work to make the somnambulist at ease, but
we felt we should soon learn to like him as a legitimate ac-
quaintance, particularly as his father declared the door should
be built up at once to prevent any ghostly intimacy.
CO ROB6RC $OI$CI>W,
, 3$lilC,
POCC.
6reat soul crowned victor over ife and Deatb,
\VDo ran tDe measure of tDp titter race,
6irt in tDe invulnerable armor of 6ocT$ grace,
Bis ove, tDP sivord, tbat all tbings conaueretl),
CDp memory comes upon me like tDe breath
Of incense tDat dotD speedilp efface
Jill eartD=Dorn tDousDts, all vain famDitions Dase,
jlnd in mp Deart deeds valorous wDisperetD.
Poet and Priest and martpr, tDree in one
fl perfect one a poem in 6od'$ sigDt
JraugDt tvitD ineffable music, and a ligDt
Celestial, Depond HgDt of star or sun,
Be tDou mine unforgotten paragon,
Jlnd mp vain feet sDall ever step arigDt.
JOSEPH F. CASHMAN.
AMERICAN -EXPOSITION ;;
1900.] THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 197
THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE PAN-AMERICAN
EXPOSITION.
BY ANNA BLANCHE McGILL.
:U5T now in Buffalo Pan-American is the name to
conjure with. Despite illuminations, the burst-
ing of bombs, and other noisy pyrotechnics
making night hideous in honor of rival political
candidates, the fact stands that the presidential
election itself is of secondary moment in the minds of the
Buffalonians the Exposition is the prime interest.
Already in Delaware Park, one of the most beautiful
suburbs of the Queen City of the Lakes, things are beginning
to assume an aspect that transports the fancy to the land of
the Aztecs, and beyond the Isthmus of Panama to the southern
half of the Western hemisphere whose development, commer-
cial and otherwise, during the nineteenth century, the Exposi-
tion will express.
James G. Blaine is quoted as the originator of the plan to
bring American countries into closer associations ; his princi-
pal aim being to gain for the United States from the South
American and Mexican colonies more of those commercial ad-
vantages at present enjoyed chiefly by Europe. The imports
of the South American colonies are stupendous; many of
them, especially various kinds of machinery, are obtained from
Germany at a cost much greater than they could be supplied
by the United States. One omniscient observer, who recently
travelled through an extensive territory south of our bounda-
ries, tells that the only articles he saw which were made
in these United States were some Fairbanks scales and a soli-
tary soda water fountain the latter being the subject of much
curiosity and, indeed, suspicion in the town which claimed the
distinction of possessing it. There is no question that the
failure of the South American colonies to come up the Atlan-
tic for their commerce, instead of continually crossing it, has
been due to the limitations the protective tariff has put upon
our trade and to the shortness of our credit-term so much
briefer than that of European countries. Too, the recent war
has left among the Spanish sympathizers an antipathy to us,
198
THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
[Nov.,
1900.] THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 199
which the Pan-American promoters hope to remove, as they
are also trusting to demonstrate the mutual advantages that
may accrue to the sister hemispheres from a closer social and
commercial relation than now exists.
One of the most artful means to secure the confidence and
good will of the countries whose co-operation is desired (a
means which is also a graceful courtesy) has been the selection
of the Spanish Renaissance as the dominant architectural style.
From the present aspect of things, the result will be uniquely
beautiful and picturesque. Already graceful, stately buildings
are rising, adorned with entablatures and arabesques, topped
by domes, towers, and minarets upborne by arcades and colon-
nades, which with loggias, pavilions, and porticoes, suggest
Alhambra and the lands of old romance. In a busy corner of
Delaware Park workmen are transforming North American
clay and mortar into staff of Latin-American colors buff,
green, and red ; for the architectural plan is to be emphasized
by chromatic effects of these colors. The impression produced
is by no means garish, as only subdued tones are being em-
ployed ; dull red and green in the entablatures, bas-reliefs,
and on the roofs ; buff and old ivory tints in the body of the
buildings. The fervent jingoists or patriots who resent our
flying Spanish colors so prematurely after the late belligerent
relations may perhaps prefer finding the suggestion for the
tinting in the bow of beauty the sun throws over Buffalo's
mirvellous neighbor wonderfully-hued Niagara. For after all,
as the Columbian Exposition was the White City, the Pan-
American is to be the Rainbow City. In the day-time such a
color scheme will be achieved by floral decorations, landscape
gardening, the blue waters of lagoons and canals, the irides-
cence of cascades and fountains by the buildings themselves,
whose tints will increase in intensity from the Triumphal Arch
to the Forestry, Horticulture, and Machinery Halls, with their
warm buffs and terra cottas, till is reached the full resonant
chord of color struck by the Electric Tower with its white,
blue, green, and gold. Charles Y. Turner, N.A., has this in-
teresting color-work in his hands. At night the rainbow effects
will be continued by floating lights, by two hundred thousand
electric lamps and their reflections in fountain-jets and lagoons.
Karl Bitter, who supervised much of the sculpture for the
World's Fair, is the director of sculpture. The arrangement of
medallions, entablatures, and one hundred and twenty-five
groups of statuary is his inspiration and design.
2OO
THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
[Nov.,
THE BUILDINGS ARE GROUPED TO CREATE THE COURT EFFECTS.
In harmony with the general architectural plan, the build-
ings have been placed so that inviting vistas will continually
gratify the vision. All around the rainbow village will run
rows of trees, many of them poplars whose green spires seem
t3 bear out the Spanish Renaissance of the structures within;
while the buildings themselves will be artistically grouped in
court-settings likewise accentuating similar outlines. If these
court-settings realize all their names suggest, they will indeed
be scenes of beauty. The design for the Court of Lilies is a
colonnaded basin bDrdered by roses, dahlias, sweet peas, and
gladioli, and filled with rare aquatics, Nilumbiums and Victoria
Regias. This court, the Court of Cypresses and the Court of
Fountains, will lie beyond the Triumphal Arch spanning two
mirror-lakes, and past a spacious esplanade, which will lead on
either side to the Fair's architectural masterpieces the
Machinery and Transportation building and that of the Manu-
factures and Liberal Arts. The entrances to the former are
crowned with tall, intricately ornamented towers, having open
lanterns ; the red tile roof extends in broad overhanging eaves.
icpo.]
THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
201
The exhibits in this building will testify to the development
of machinery from the days of old-fashioned Dutch wind-mills
to the modern glories of American wind engines, and will il-
lustrate the history of transportation from the age of antique
coaches and calashes to the present reign of automobiles and
other horseless carriages.
The Government, Forestry, and Ethnology buildings, the
Stadium and Temple of Music, bid fair to be pleasing structures.
But perhaps the keenest interest will centre in the Electric
Tower and the Electricity Building, for there the most enor-
mous power-plant of the world, Niagara, will be fettered to
contribute five thousand horse-power for utility and decorative
illumination. The numerical details of the Tower are too im-
pressive to be tiresome ; the height of this lofty monument to
the genius of Franklin, Edison, and other modern electricians
is three hundred and twenty-five feet. Its base, sixty feet high,
will be a solid panel of illuminated vari-colored spray. Above
this will be several pavilions from which will rise the tower's
crown consisting of three stories ; the first of these, an arcaded
loggia, brilliantly colored and ornamented ; the second, a lofty,
circular colonnade
whose pillars,
gracefully far
apart, will stand
out artistically
against the sky,
letting in those
bits of blue that
send the imagina-
tion to Moorish
minarets or Span-
ish towers. From
the centre of this
colonnade winds a
spiral stairway
ending in a domed
cupola of jewel
glass on which will
b e poised the
Goddess of Light,
the dominant
genius of the ex-
position.
202
THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
[Nov.,
ijj^ ; %i^
. v/////// ///. ' ... / , '
THE ELECTRIC TOWER WILL BE MADE BEAUTIFUL BY A DISPLAY OF
IRIDESCENT COLORS.
i poo.] THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 203
The resources of architecture have been called on to deaden
the aggressive whistles and snorts of locomotives which usually
disturb the air, and one's equanimity, in the vicinity of fairs
and the like. No one will be aware of the disfiguring presences
of trains and trolley-cars at the Pan-American, for one of the
triumphs of the architectural arrangements will be the Propylaea,
the handsome screen of the railway stations. A massive arch
will be at each end, topped by two open towers. These en-
trances are to be connected by curving colonnades, wreathed
in arabesques of growing vines.
The Mecca of showmen, the Midway, will consist of "the
Streets of Mexico," "A Trip to the Moon," aerial navigation,
Japanese Tea-Gardens, Ostrich Farms, " Venice in America,"
and other attractions it is to be hoped of a higher tone than
those demoralizing exhibitions which have been hitherto dis-
graceful commentaries not only on the individual showmen,
who selected them to pander to depraved, positively immoral
taste, but also on the exposition-managements that permitted
them.
For the Venetian village a number of pigeons have been
brought from Venice. Half of the original flock died on the
voyage across the ocean ; some one, tired of the noise of many
hammers and the drudgery of tedious preparations, makes the
facetious comment: "And the others wish they too had died
on the way over."
The occasion has maved New York State to magnanimity.
It is pledged to erect a permanent building ultimately to pass
into the Buffalo Historical Society's possession. This marble
building will be one of the few classic specimens of architecture
on the grounds. It will stand in the park north of North
Bay; the design for it is after the Dane, following as far as
possible the Athenian Parthenon.
Buffalo may well be proud of the philanthropy of her citi-
zen, Mr. Albright, who has donated four hundred thousand
dollars for the Art Gallery. This will be virtually a Palace of
Art which might delight even a Phidias in fact, Phidia^ would
find himself much at home therein, as the structure's proto-
type is that stately Erectheum which stood on Athen's acropo-
lis. The Gallery will be placed on an eminence, approached by
ample flights of marble stairs and broad terraces adorned with
floral decoration, fountains, and Greek statuary. Across the
front of the building and around the sides will run nobly
columned porticoes, bearing the imagination back to classic days
1900.] THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. 205
of Zeno and the Academy. William A. Coffin, the American
painter and art critic, is making the collection of treasures for
the exhibit, which will consist of paintings and sculptures illus-
trative of American art. After the Exposition, the Buffalo Fine
Arts Society will take permanent possession of the beautiful
building, so appropriate a home for such a society.
So much for the Exposition, its material structures and the
reciprocal commercial advantages the
United States hope, and justly, from
their association with Mexico and
South America. But if the spirit of
this country is willing, there may be
another enrichment for us, to which
too little consideration is likely to be
given a social and aesthetic enrich-
ment. The Anglo-Saxon, in the self-righteousness of his heart
and the pride of his increasing power, has of late been wont to
regard the Latin civilizations with a superior condescension, that
sees opportunity for helpful propagandism only from his own mag-
nanimous, munificent side, not recognizing the possibility of re-
ceiving enlightenment from those civilizations. Now the feport
goes, though we wish to tell it not in Gath, that the Mexicans
and South Americans prefer commercial association with Ger-
mans and the French, because American brusquerie and lack
of courtesy are so obnoxious, even in these business connec-
tions, to the people who have such ancient and deep-rooted
legacies of urbanity and courtesy. So, it seems, we must learn
to mend our manners.
206 THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION. [Nov.,
It has been a custom to regard the people of Mexico as of
a civilization much inferior to ours, and, likewise, the other
Latin Americans as ignorant, decadent, and " priest ridden."
As to the first misapprehension, for such it is, the fact of the
matter is that socially the Mexicans are refined and hospitable ;
morally, brave, charitable, and peaceful ; while intellectually
they boast achievements of which we have a guilty ignorance.
Their universities are neither few nor insignificant ; their litera-
ture is rich in fiction, poetry, history, and archaeology, while
their art is so far advanced that their picture, " Las Casas," is
considered one of the great world-paintings. The oldest art
school in America is their National School of Fine Arts, which
is a survivor of the art academy of Fray Pedro, a Franciscan
monk of 1529.
As for the Latin-American countries south of the Isthmus,
neither are they, nationally and artistically, so insignificant as
might be supposed. It must be remembered they are the heirs
of two of the most interesting civilizations the world has
known that of the Incas and that which followed when Pizarro
and his companions (by the divine right of discovery) de-
throned and replaced Atualpha, the Inca monarch, taking
possession of his roomful of gold, and all Peru besides, in the
name of the Spanish government, whose sway then extended
from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, and
whose civilization, illustrated by luxurious living and splendor
of institutions, is yet the delight of romanticists and the won-
der of historians. Such a civilization the conquerors brought
with them, so the American Eldorado became a New Spain,
the remnants of whose glory still remain and in a very vital
condition. With the exception of a few individual cases, like
the unpardonable cruelty of Pizarro, no effort was made, as in
our own colonization, to crush, or rather crowd-out, the
aborigines and other inhabitants. And this, not for the sake
of drifting from the present theme to historical disquisition,
but for the sake of showing the state of affairs which now ex-
ists as a direct and logical result of the policy then employed.
The early Spanish missionaries insisted on kindness to the
peoples of the new land, who were educated, Christianized, and
who, in consequence, show an earlier and superior culture to
that of the tribes we have too long neglected. Many Indians
and other natives of the Latin Americas have so far advanced,
as to be, socially and intellectually, equals of the Spanish. As
a testimony to their early civilization, may be taken the fact
1900.]
THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
207
208 THE SOUL'S RELEASE. [Nov.,
that a South American bishop was at the Council of Trent
before Protestantism was released from its swaddling clothes.
The church has been one of the greatest factors in conserving
the vital interests of the subjugated races and in improving
their social condition.
Higher education in South America has been by no means
neglected. There are eighteen universities, many of them
boasting five hundred pupils, and a goodly number of colleges
and schools of law and medicine.
In order that the Exposition be, as its name indicates, a
common gathering ground for the peoples of this entire conti-
nent, there should be an appreciation of the merits of the
civilization of Latin America. The same graceful courtesy
that is extended to the Latins by adopting their styles of
architecture should be shown in a recognition of their services
to art, literature, and religion. This spirit may be made mani-
fest in the Congresses which are always an important accom-
paniment of expositions. The direction of these Congresses
should not be permitted to fall into unsympathetic hands. A
broad-minded liberality, conjoined with an appreciation of what
the Latin civilization has done for the major part of this con-
tinent, will make these Congresses great schools of liberal edu-
cation for us of the United States.
THE SOUL'S RELEASE.
BY ANNA COX STEPHENS.
t
Y walls are no more prison walls ;
I now can see 'tis sunlight on the casement
falls ;
And bars I thought were iron, cold and grim,
Were only transfixed shadows something dim
That caught their darkness from the soul within.
Enmesh'd am I in heaven's latticed gold,
(A sunbeam surely hath no power to hold?)
From out the glory comes a Voice afar ;
The veil uplifts the eternal gates unbar.
1900.]
OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS.
209
OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS.*
BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P.
iT is evident enough that reading exercises a most
momentous influence on the average modern life.
This being so, and the supply of matter being
nowadays practically inexhaustible, we find that
people are coming to pay very considerable at-
tention to the choice of profitable books. No one has failed
to notice the multiplication of select lists, classified catalogues,
essays, and indeed volumes bearing titles such as " The Best
Books," " What to Read," or " Writers That Have Helped Me."
And this sign of a general attempt toward discrimination is a
guarantee that much waste of time and much useless labor is
to be saved by those who will use the experience of their
predecessors.
Now, it seems not unworthy of comment that this concern
about choosing the best books is not manifested equally in all
provinces of literature. Discrimination is so evident a blessing
that one is anxious to see it widely extended. Neither is
there any reason to believe it less necessary or less profitable
in one department of reading than in another. Considering,
then, what part religion plays in a human life, and of what in-
tense importance to the soul is healthy spiritual growth, we
are tempted to regard as a crying evil any prevalence of care-
lessness in the choice of spiritual books. That readers espe-
cially the young reader ^-should be carefully warned against
the poisonous fiction circulating among us so freely is no doubt
most desirable ; but is there a lesser reason for wishing that
readers and again, especially the young reader were supplied
with the purest spiritual nutriment provided by the noblest
minds of all ages and countries ?
IN DEEPER VEINS OFTEN THE RICHEST ORE IS FOUND.
An early familiarity with writings of this sort will in many
instances be the introduction to a life of highest endeavor,
ami the suggestions found in these books will flash a welcome
light upon a pathway that countless souls have vainly longed
* A Biok of Spirituil Instruction. By Blosius. Translated from the Latin by Bertrand
A. Wilberforce, of the Order of St. Dominic. St. Louis : B. Herder.
VOL. LXXII. 14
210 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. [Nov.,
to tread. This holds good of every human being ready to pur-
sue intelligently the great end of human existence; it is more
emphatically true of those children of the Faith who are will-
ing to avail themselves of their right to use the precious
heirlooms, accumulated for them through long ages in most
abundant measure. For not simply the examples of the saints,
our ancestors, but their teachings as well, are bequeathed to
us. Not only the guiding hand and the cheering smile of
these conquerors of the world, but their thoughts and words
too, reach us across the lapse of centuries, and we find our-
selves thrilled by the inspiring whisper of some far-away voice
echoing out from the pages of a treatise penned, perhaps,
before America was discovered, or even before the Roman
Empire fell, and, despite queer phrase and unaccustomed
accent, impressing us with the burden of a message apt to
lead men onward now, as it did of old.
A LITERATURE OF THE LOVE OF GOD.
To those who appreciate the privileges of this larger Com-
munion of Saints it is needless to insist upon the precious
boon of well chosen spiritual writings. They realize at what
small cost they may enter into the fruits of others' labors, and
profit by kinship with a countless host of sainted men and
women. But to others the real fascination exercised by good
spiritual books remains unknown. There has not yet come to
them the deep joy of constant and intimate familiarity with
the souls of saints ; they still are strangers to the sweet de-
light of penetrating into the secrets of God's intercourse with
men and learning from the masters of this art the way to ad-
vance towards proficiency. We say the charm of spiritual
reading is unknown ; perhaps for some the very possibility of
its practice is a secret. They do not understand that there is
a literature of the love of God as well as of romance ; that
there are helps for the cultivation of progress in spiritual things
just as in the domain of letters, philosophy, and art ; that some
of the great masterpieces of the world's literature are at the
same time hand-books in the science of the saints, and that
whoso will may revel to his heart's content in an exhaustless
and infinitely varied store of productions bequeathed to us by
the consummate artists of the spiritual life. Similarly, not a
few remain oblivious of the fact that even their very neighbors
avail themselves of these privileges, that friends and acquaint-
ances, as well as strangers, are drinking deep at this sacred
1900.] OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. 211
fountain, and, wondering how anybody can find pious books of
absorbing interest, they go through life careless of their birth
right, blind to their choicest opportunities, never tasting the
delights that thousands and tens of thousands have found to
be so precious and yet so easy of attainment. It seems well-
nigh incredible, and yet it is an ascertained fact, that there
exist among us people of education, refinement, and noble in-
stincts for whom the Bible is a sealed book and A Kempis an
unfamiliar author ; though it is but fair to say that at least
some little cultivation of spiritual reading is a very common
practice among our people.
A PRUDENT SELECTION A NECESSITY.
Perhaps no one needs to be convinced that in the use of
spiritual books choice is everything. First of all, they are count-
less and a selection of some sort is an evident necessity.
Again, as most of us no doubt have experienced, disappoint-
ment, and even disgust, may come from the reading of a book
composed with the obvious intention of elevating the mind to
things high and holy. And this misfortune, in some instances,
may be quite unavoidable, even though we are doing our best
to follow the bidding of The Imitation and "read with humility,
simplicity, and faith."* Moreover, it is undoubtedly true that
some volumes are calculated to harm rather than help certain
souls. This may be the case for various reasons. It is al-
together possible, for instance, that the author's point of view
may be unknown or unrealized by the reader, and that advice
intended for the cloister may be put into practice within a
household circle, causing infinite discomfort and issuing in
general spiritual hurt. Or, it may happen, again, that the very
language of a lofty writer may be so grossly misunderstood as
to mystify and deceive, thus giving rise to habits of thought
neither healthy nor true. Another danger may come from the
use by certain authors of statements or methods so distasteful
to some readers as to cause their minds to react with consider-
able violence, and thus to distort their whole conception of
spiritual realities. Yet another consideration is that, lacking
guidance, many a reader may never happen to get hold of the
true masterpieces, either because these precious jewels lie con-
cealed in "the dark, unfathomed caves" of libraries, or else
because on account of some minor blemishes they are too
uninviting to be given careful scrutiny.
* Imitation, 1 5.
212 OLD SPIRITUAL WAITERS. [Nov.,
A GUIDE TO THE BEST IS A DESIDERATUM.
All these facts make it a matter of special regret that in
these days of time-saving and labor-minimizing inventions so
little has been done to enable the lover of spiritual books to
gain a good acquaintance with the literature at disposal, that
among the published " lists," " suggestions," " courses," " librar-
ies," and "catalogues" such small attention has been paid to
this very real need of a most numerous, intelligent, and deserv-
ing class of readers. For it oftentimes happens that even those
Catholics who should be well equipped with information on these
matters can offer but the scantiest help to the inquirer. The
time, then, has come when we should look around and discover
whose fault it is that our literary treasures of spiritual teach-
ing remain to so great an extent unloved, and even unknown.
This does not imply that at present spiritual books are hard
to obtain. Every Catholic library and every ecclesiastical book-
store contains more devotional works than could be read in an
ordinary life-time. But the question is, are the best books known
and used ? What information is obtainable as to the classifica-
tion and value of spiritual works ? Who has decided that those
most conspicuously present are preferable to the countless
thousands of unpublished, untranslated, or out of print volumes
that form an integral part of the Catholic's heritage ? Where
can the reader obtain advice and aid for choosing the very
finest spiritual books ever produced in any land or epoch ?
One may say these interrogations are without point, since the
present supply is so abundant. But " there be books and
books." The views now prevalent favor the presentation and
hearing of every claim to excellence, and " those who know "
owe it to the public to open up all impassable avenues. If
this clear duty be not performed, our people will remain de-
frauded of their own, or what is a less misfortune though a
greater shame Protestants will become the pioneers in voyages
of discovery into our " old possessions."
It would be interesting or rather, perhaps, discouraging
to ascertain how much people know about the History of
Spiritual Literature. Even those who represent our best in
the line of intelligence, taste, and general education, those
who manifest an undoubted love of things spiritual and who
cherish a good spiritual book as a priceless treasure even these,
we may say, know scarcely the alphabet of this language. Now,
it is not to be maintained for a moment that wide acquaintance
1900.] OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. 213
with spiritual authors is either a guarantee or a necessity of
spiritual excellence. But it does seem pitiable thit this " age of
the press" cannot be made familiar with God's gifts to his
church in the line of spiritual instruction ; it does strike one
as regrettable that the power which has been yoked to the
service of science, letters, and controversy should not be made
to do its utmost in the cause we are pleading for. That much
has been done already, we admit nay, we maintain ; that all
has not been done, few would be ready to deny. What we
should look forward to, then, is the earnest and steady attempt to
do for the spiritual literature of Catholicity what has been done
for even the dialects, fables, and folk-songs of nearly every
nation in Europe.
It is to be presumed that no one will imagine this hope is
cherished through any pretence of possessing a "scientific
spirit," or through a mere partisan zeal for the fame of our
progenitors in the Faith. Neither is it because of any lack of
activity among spiritual authors of the present day. But if St.
Bernard could say to his contemporaries, " We. are but
pygmies seated upon the shoulders of giants." what shall be
our own comment when we contrast the achievements of to day
with those of past epochs ? Let none of us be the puny-
spirited laudator temporis acti, for we cannot help seeing that
in many respects our century has improved upon the achieve-
ments of the past : but let us all realize likewise that in
the matter now under consideration we have much to learn
from voices that are still, an.d that the original work of ten
thousand latter-day scribes is but a poor substitute for the
neglected productions of immortal genius.
CONTRIBUTORS TO SPIRITUAL LORE.
It is good that we possess such writings as those of New-
man and Dalgairns, Manning and Faber, Grou, Caussade, and
Lallemant. It is a further good, however, that beside these we
have a great multitude of other writers that no man may num-
ber, out of every nation and tribe and people and tongue.
Almost since the beginning instructions on the spiritual life
have been passed on from master to disciple with astonishing
care and fulness. So for our enlightenment we have the
teaching given by the Fathers of the Desert to the young
monks gathered about to imbibe the wisdom of the ancients :
Ephrem, Macarius, Cassian, Nilus will speak to Christians of this
day as they did to their listeners in the Syrian desert or on
214 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. [Nov.,
the banks of the Nile so many centuries ago. All the
many Fathers of the Church, Eastern and Western, likewise
have carefully set aside for our good vast, inexhaustible
stores of spiritual nutriment that they perhaps the wisest and
holiest men of all time drew from the bosom of God and the
wounded side of Christ. And the doctors and the theologians
of the Middle Ages, these again have deposited with us an in-
finite treasure of spiritual teaching, full of a surprising sweet-
ness, for they were as tender and holy as they were wise and
learned. Great mystics, too, that have flourished in every age and
land in the sixteenth century, in the fourteenth, in the twelfth,
and in the sixth ; in England, Spain, Germany, and France, in
Europe, Asia, and Africa men and women, bishops, statesmen,
and missionaries, courtiers and peasants, nuns, theologians, and
recluses, such as these have added precious contributions to the
spiritual lore of the Christian Church. Using the others, let
us not neglect these. Spending a frequent hour in perusing
the manuals of the various sodalities and confraternities whose
spirit we would absorb, let us be sure we are also doing our
utmost to arrive at the essential, eternal, and changeless piety
that has been the common characteristic of all the saints that
have ever existed. We read with gratitude such charming and
helpful recent biographies as Fouard's Christ and St. Paul,
Lacordaire's Saint Mary Magdalene ahd St. Dominic, Drane's
Saint Catherine of Siena, Montalembert's Saint Elizabeth, Cape-
celatro's Saint Philip Neri, Bougaud's Saint John and Saint fane
Frances, Chocarne's Pcre Lacordaire, Monnin's Cure" d"Ars, and
Elliott's Father Hecker ; but let us look to it that we assimi-
late, likewise, those older lessons to be drawn from the stories
of Paul, Antony, Ammon, Pachomius, Moses, Thais, Stylites,
and the hosts of other sainted souls in whose quickening presence
the ancient deserts blossomed as the rose. If we have on hand
at present only such scant though delightful records of them
as are obtainable in Butler's Lives and Hahn-Hahn's Fathers
of the Desert, at least we can help to create a new demand for
fuller accounts ; and we can ask for the publication of such
teaching as has been bequeathed to us by the many masters
of spiritual doctrine in all ages, now given over to an unde-
served oblivion.
NO CAMPAIGN AGAINST RECENT SPIRITUAL WRITERS.
Be it well understood we are not agitating for a campaign
against recent spiritual authors, some of those mentioned above
1900.] OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. 215
having done more for the cause of high spiritual development
than can well be estimated. An attempt to discredit the
modern ascetical writers as such would be mere folly. But we
must declare with regard to them, in the first place, that good
ones are relatively few ; in the second place, that the mass of
them represent a comparatively new temper of mind, and, in
the third place, that in any event the older writers have an in-
alienable right to live. Most of us have heard St. Philip Neri's
answer to the question what sort of books he liked best. " I
prefer," said he, " those wherein the authors' names begin with
the letter S " meaning, of course, the writings of the Saints.
Do we realize how few of Saint Philip's favorite volumes are in
circulation among us now ? Not that to-day we read no books
whose authors are on the list of canonized saints, but that, ex-
cepting St. Augustine's Confessions, with perhaps a few volumes
from the works of St. Bernard or St. Bonaventure, the modern
reader can obtain scarcely one of the books which were in
existence at the time of the good St. Philip.
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLD AND THE NEW WRITERS CONTRASTED.
Now, there is a further evil in this deprivation than the
mere limiting of our choice to a less numerous catalogue. The
spirit animating a great many modern ascetical writings is quite
different from that dominating the works that have disappeared.
In the latter there was greater liberty and simplicity, more in
sistence on the end, and less specification of means, slighter em-
phasis of the need of external human direction, and more frequent
recommendations of attention to divine guidance in the internal
order. But now method is sometimes developed at the expense
of freedom, the warning to obey made more common than the
suggestion to love, and perfection of drill occasionally attained
by a thorough suppression of individual differences for the
original existence of which God's providence was responsible.
" A spirit of breadth, a spirit of liberty, that is the Catholic
spirit," writes Father Faber, " and it was eminently the badge
of the old Benedictine ascetics. Modern writers, for the most
part, have tightened things and have lost by it instead of gain-
ing." This, perhaps, may explain why some authors become
unpopular among a class of readers very reluctant to suppress
their own personality, and to resign their liberty of spirit. But
it is unjust to attribute to spiritual writers en masse a tendency
of this sort, and recourse to the older books will reveal a great
body of teaching stamped with the Church's broad seal of
216 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. [Nov.,
approval, and yet amply justifying the use of a sacred liberty
and the cultivation of the purest and simplest life of love.
But let us be fair. The abnormal condition existing among
Christians during the last few centuries both caused and justified
this rigid insistence on rule. In times of rebellion and treachery
authority can take no chances, and during the fatal dissensions
of the sixteenth and following centuries the church's far-seeing
wisdom dictated greater insistence upon strict discipline and
more caution in fostering or permitting a personal initiative which
might easily lead to license. Still, though most jealous of the
rights of legitimate authority, we must concede to the above-
mentioned writer that some have carried the reaction, or rather
permitted it to carry them, too far, suspecting every display of
initiative, discouraging all freedom, and relegating into oblivion
all spiritual doctrine which favored the development of per-
sonal piety in any but officially and explicitly authorized methods.
Father Faber has expressed himself on this point in words
that leave us clear as to his opinion. " Most certainly," he
writes, " our great defect is the want of liberty of spirit. This
is the chief reason why the service of love is so comparatively
rare among Christians. ... In nine cases out of ten, to
tell such people (persons living in the world) that they
must draw up a written rule and keep to it, and that the
captivity of set times for spiritual drill is their only hope, is
as good as telling them that persons living in modern society
must not attempt to lead what is called a devout life.
How many have given up devotion altogether, because they
have tried a rule and found they could not keep it ? ...
If spirituality is made dry, it will never wear. It will crack in
a dozen places in a week, like the skin poncho of a Patagonian.
. There are whole treatises on the spiritual life whicfc
people living in the world read through, and feel quite hon-
estly that the method proposed to them is a bondage which it
would be a simple indiscretion for them to attempt. Every
young gentleman must be a quasi seminarist, or give up devo-
tion. Every young lady must be a kind of half nun, without a
habit, or she may as well cease to attempt to be anything bet-
ter than all the other young ladies around her. Oh ! how all
this stands in the way of love, of wise love, of such love as
Jesus would have from every one of us. To turn the world
into a great lax convent is not the way to further the cause
of our dearest Lord. . . . The failure of this regimental
kind of holiness, as well as the idea that no other kinct is safe
OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. 217
or solid, comes entirely from the want of liberty of spirit. Now,
where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. No one can
b.e at all acquainted with the old-fashioned Benedictine schod
of spiritual writers without perceiving and admiring the beauti-
ful liberty of spirit which pervades and possesses their whole
mind. It is just what we should expect from an Order of such
matured traditions. It were well if we had more reprints and
translations of them." *
WHO ARE THE OLD BENEDICTINE WRITERS?
It is back to the old writers, then, that we must turn for the
strongest sanction of that type of spirituality which promises
the best results in this latter day world a goodly lesson on the
indestructible vitality of the principles of internal personal reli-
gion. But who are they ? and where are their books ? St.
Benedict we have heard of indeed, but what is the old-fashioned
Benedictine school ? We have never been told to read their
writings, we cannot even imagine how we are to go about
looking them up.
True, indeed ! So complete is their obscurity that a well-
educated Catholic might vainly devote much time to a search
after writers of the type alluded to by Father Faber. Alas !
how few of us ever learn even the names of the writers in
Migne's imposing array of volumes idealized by Matthew Ar-
nold's famous passage into a striking figure of the Church's
world-wide Catholicity ! And who realizes the nature of the
contents of these Latin and Greek treatises ? Indeed, a public
so greedy of translations would not rest satisfied with the pres-
ent state of things if it came to appreciate the peculiar value
of dissertations and discourses hidden within those solemn cov-
ers, 'or scattered through musty folios, or lying unedited in the
MSS. of the great libraries of Europe. For these are to the
books on which our money is frequently wasted as St. Peter's and
Milan, Cologne and Notre Dame, Westminster and Canterbury
are to the mean creations of modern builders. We cry out
loudly when we think of Lincoln and York in the hands of
heretics, but we are all the while unconsciously despising more
precious heirlooms of the Ages of Faith. The soul-stirring
chant, the upspringing arch, the majestic Summa of the Middle
Ages have their worthy companion in the spiritual treatise ;
for the Creed that was old when France was young worked out
its perfect expression almost at its birth, and won its right to
glory in souls and books that soon will be nearing their twen-
* All for fesus, c. viii.
2i 8 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. [Nov.,
tieth century of existence. And in every age since the first,
new masters of the science of love have arisen to enshrine their
sacred wisdom in immortal words ; but these Dantes, Shak-
speres, Goethes of our spiritual literature remain unknown or un-
attainable to the average latter-day reader, who often must con-
tent himself with books portraying what Father Faber calls
" the regimental kind of holiness."
SOME MOST VALUABLE TREATISES.
Who are the old writers, does any one ask ? Why their
name is Legion ! Not alone the Benedictines, but a multitude
of other writers as well, await the summons to come forth and
edify. Go into the sacred presence of Migne's three hundred
and eighty massive tomes and the mighty folios of the Bol-
landists, and there dream of the rich veins of unworked ore
within those silent mountains. Perhaps scarcely a single vol-
ume is without some precious legacy from a good old spirit-
ual writer now forgotten and unreverenced by a people which,
having inherited a priceless patrimony, is ignorant of its worth.
There, for instance, is Macarius of Egypt ; beside him Epipha-
nius, Chrysostom, Nilus, and Dionysius, in their Grecian strong-
hold facing the shelves that bear Ambrose and the zealous
Jerome and the matchless Augustine. Here is Sulpicius Seve-
rus, the Christian Sallust, biographer of St. Martin, and yonder
John Cassian, Abbot, with Prosper, the great layman of Aqui-
taine, and Prudentius, penitent and poet. Now we note the
anonymous work De Vita Contemplativa, and then the com-
mentators on St. Benedict's Rule, and further along a group
of mystics, Rupert of Deutz, Honorius, Bernard, the Victorines,
Hildegard, Gertrude, and Bonaventure.
We gasp in wonder. Why has no man told us ? Would
that a wise editor were to put these books within our reach !
BLOSIUS THE BENEDICTINE.
It is because Father Wilberforce has done just such a work
as this that he is heartily to be congratulated. The writer
he has so gracefully introduced to us is an old sixteenth cen-
tury Benedictine, mentioned by Dom Gue>anger as the last of
the school possessed of such wondrous freedom of spirit. Father
Faber has said : " St. Gertrude is a fair specimen of them,"
and Blosius was a most ardent disciple of hers. That sweet calm,
that gentle freedom for which she was noted, he absorbed by a
constant study of her writings, reading them with lively devo-
i poo.] OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. 219
tion at least once every month,* and like her, illustrating in life
how one may cultivate liberty of spirit " without seeming to
recommend negligence, or to countenance unpunctuality, sloven-
liness, or caprice."f Blosius, then, may be regarded as one whose
works should be circulated widely among our generation, and
Father Wilberforce's labor will undoubtedly serve to build up
many a spiritual edifice and store it with the choicest of
treasures. There had been something done already in the line
of translations from Blosius, but this recent publication is a
distinctly new and peculiar piece of work. It places us in the
possession of what is practically a primer of contemplative
prayer ; and many of us however mean our own personal
chances for progress in this direction dare not deny our high
appreciation and great love of everything pertaining to those
peaceful heights so far beyond our present hope. Nor may we
think it anything but good to lift up our eyes to the moun-
tain-top, nor may we blind ourselves to the fact that by means
of such books as this not a few chosen souls are likely to be
led quickly and easily along the path of contemplative love.
SANCTA SOPHIA AND THE SCALE OF PERFECTION.
Two most precious works of the old Benedictine school, re-
edited some years ago Father Baker's Holy Wisdom and Father
Hilton's Scale of Perfection \ have done such immeasurable good
that one may look confidently for great benefit from this new
publication, possessing as it does an advantage over them in
clearness of style and brevity, though for real worth the older
books are still unrivalled. Taken in connection with several
other signs, the appearance of this volume may be con-
sidered an omen of a Benedictine revival, of a new flowering
from that imperishable trunk, a new spreading abroad of the
spirit which, with its eternal whisper of Peace, makes earth
resemble Heaven. Using the words of a review notice upon
another recent book, we may say of Father Wilberforce's
translation that " it is an evidence of the growing desire of
those who foster the spiritual life to return to the old simpli-
city in ascetical methods and doctrine.' Who will declare it
is a needless task to translate the Instructions of Blosius, or
the Dialogues and Treatises of the Catherines of Genoa and
Siena, or the works of Tauler, St. Teresa, St. John of the
* Life of Blosius, a Benedictine of the Sixteenth Century. By Georges de Blois. Trans-
lated by Lady Lovat. London : Burns & Dates, 1878, p. 131. t All 'for Jesus, p. 355.
\ The Scale of Pe-fection has been out of print for quite a while, but Messrs. Benziger
Brothers state that a new edition is now in course of preparation.
The Amer-can Ecclesiastical Review, October, 1900, p. 431 ; notice of The Spiritual
Life and Prayer.
220 OLD SPIRITUAL WRITERS. [Nov.,
Cross, and the Blessed Angela. Who will assert that these are of
no practical benefit to our people ? Who will say they are too
" lofty " to be profitable ?
THE OLDER WORKS ARE SUITABLE TO MODERN MINDS.
Shall we decide that readers can bear many poor books, but
never a single " lofty " one ? Must we think the infinitesimal dan-
ger incident to the study of mystical authors is counterbalanced
by no splendid vision of holiness that blazes in upon dark lives
to illumine them with light divine ? Are there no calls to the
prayer of mystical .union among our contemporaries ? Must
the climate and temperament and habits of thought of our race
shut them out from all hope of progress in the path that leads
to the summit of the holy mountain of prayer? Why not a
twentieth century mystic as well as a fourteenth or twelfth ?
Why not an American as readily as a European ? Why not, if
God wills it, great gifts of divine union to some man or wo-
man in this great metropolis as well as to Angela of Foligno,
or Juliana of Norwich, Richard of Hampolle, the Englishman,
or Richard of St. Victor, the Scot ? What grace has been
given one nation or one epoch that God may not as easily
vouchsafe to ours?
Times and persons are chosen by an invisible election, and
no mind may reason upon the mystery of the distribution of
grace. But let us neither narrow the spheres of spiritual growth,
nor deaden any influence that God has set at work. Surely
the possibilities of progress include advance into contempla-
tion, and surely the writers that have nourished this spirit
among others may serve to foster it here among us. Shall we
sneer at the title Blosius places above his twelfth chapter ?
" What a spiritual man may hope for if he perseveres in the
practices laid down in this book." Shall we contradict Father
Wilberforce's comment ? that the exalted union with God
therein described is yet within " the ordinary laws of God's
providence in the supernatural order." Rather let us agree with
both author and translator, rather let us encourage knowledge
and love of these high things, rather let us pray and labor
that the old days may be renewed, and that now, as in St.
Teresa's time, men and women in the world, lay people, mar-
ried persons, the sons of toil and the children of wealth, all
may cherish ardent desires of progress towards those peace-
ful regions reserved for the souls chosen by God to enjoy the
sweet privileges of the mystic.
1900.]
IN- AR T. 221
SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART.
BY GABRIEL FRANCIS POWERS.
N these latter days of much-vaunted progress and
civilization we hear a good deal about the beau-
tifying of our American cities, and, truth to tell,
. they need every scrap of beauty they can acquire.
As a fault this is excusable. We do not deco-
rate the house until it is finished building ; and in spite of
some crudeness and ignorance in the would be art movement,
it is so sincere that it gives proof of more than incipient
vitality. Where there is effort there is awakened conscious
life. As a nation we have our deficiencies, but there is this
sturdy manliness in us that we will own to them and that,
once known, we endeavor to repair them. We are doing our
best now that the house is built to wipe out or disguise the
universal ugliness of our fabrication. And though the art-cry,
in certain circles, is enough to make the ordinary mortal wish
for any place where " beyond these voices there is peace,"
yet, since in the American community as in the Jewish syna-
gogue every man is at liberty to rise up and comment on his
reading, we are going for a few moments to increase the
clamor and interpret in our own small way the holy writ of
one phase of art.
It has been my privilege to attend the lecture of a reformer
who is honestly doing his utmost to improve (I had almost
said introduce, but refrain me lest I offend against the code)
to improve, then, municipal art. And as he took his illustra-
tions chiefly from Italian cities, showing with enthusiastic ap-
preciation what has been done there, and what, similarly,
might be done here also, I feel in a manner justified in
taking up his subject and adding to it some few remarks not
deliberately omitted certainly, but overlooked by him.
To begin with, concerning the American city, he would
have the streets " open to God's clear sunlight," and reverently
we answer "Amen." Some of us will be sadly embarrassed as
to how we shall reach our offices when the " L " railroad is
brought to earthly levels ; but let the companies devise some
other line of transit, and let us have God's sunlight on every
cabin, tenement, and smoke-soiled hovel, by all means. Sec-
222 SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. [Nov.,
ondly, the lecturer would have the bill-board removed or con-
tained within certain bounds ; and again we would say amen.
Advertising on the colossal scale has become more than a
nuisance the advertiser is a kind of public pestilence. Having
taken a trip twelve months since through two of the finest
States in the Union, I was so nauseated with the alternate
advertisements posted through miles of beautiful scenery that
I resolved irrevocably, were death itself the penalty, never to
take Fig Syrup or Chew Plug Tobacco. My friend the lec-
turer's third plea was for color, and, chiefly, that most beauti-
ful of colors, "the green of living foliage." In this, to my think-
ing, American cities are blessed even above their Continental
sisters ; how many there are where car-lines and residences
do not prevent the leafy bowers from springing away overhead
into the blue, and where birds, many and liquid-voiced, twitter
their sweet anthems all day long. Indeed, I believe we should
distinguish, when we speak of the ugliness of our cities, between
the hideous and polluted down-town sections and those happier
quarters where a rich new soil, patient endeavor, and the
peace of domestic life make homes as beautiful as any we could
wish to see. It is in the business district, the mart and work-
shop of the city, that all things become deformity and con-
fusion. And of this, for the philosophy of grave reasons,
it seems almost vain even to hope. Yet let us still hope
notwithstanding, and let our lecturer in the meanwhile show
us some of his views of Italy. He had seen there, in truth,
many a thing worth seeing. The glory of architectures raised
with more than human reverence for their beauty ; beautiful
distribution, beautiful picturesqueness, beautiful workmanship,
in each separate branch in which the brain and the hand must
needs work together, but the traveller was not a Catholic. I
know that I am hereby laying myself open to the charge one
of excessive meanness and smallness of picking another man's
good work to pieces : but, in reality, nothing could be further
from my mind. The lecture was an excellent one in every re-
spect, and I have myself defended it against the eternal
cavillers ; but there are things in a Catholic city the true
meaning and quality of which even a religious-minded non-
Catholic would fail to see. Thus, he showed us the interior
of St. Mark's in Venice, a sight that stirred the audience to
raptures of applause. The light from those high windows flooded
down upon porphyry column and golden cornice, illuminating
the baroque, thousand colored, gleaming picture, rich in con-
i goo.] SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. 223
trasts as some Eastern scene ; and he told us of its gorgeous-
ness, its incomparable splendor and magnificence, its wonder
as a work of art. Of the faith that raised it, the love that
crusted it with jasper and with jacinth, the hope that makes
of it a living sanctuary for hushed voices and the incense of
prayer not a word. Then on the lecturer's curtain shone that
delicate young St. George of Donatello's, a thing so exquisite
that the pure art of the fifteenth century seems embodied
in the brave, strong, boy-faced knight. And the lecturer spoke
of the loveliness of the statue, the splendid courage of its type
of championship, the heroism of this lithe figure for whom
" one dragon would scarce seem enough." But of the spiritual
development that formed the armorers into a guild religious
quite as much as commercial ; that made them place the
labors of their hands under a saint's patronage, and the image
of that saint in the aisle of the old Or San Michele, where
they might honor it with prayer again, and of course, not a
word. The statue was held up as the pattern of a beautiful
trade mark ; and though we are not in the habit of calling the
representations of our patron saints, even upon blazon and
seal, a trade-mark, possibly it may be regarded as one. Yet
between St. Mark and St. George, the winged lion of the
Evangelist and the dragon of the " white-horse knight," it
seemed to us that no real insight was given into the funda-
mental beauty of a Catholic city, or any convincing word said
as to what constitutes the real atmosphere of beauty in Italy.
The distinctive beauty of Italy, the true character of Italy, is
not in its limpid sky alone, not alone in the Virgilian loveliness
of wave and field and vintage, nor even, in its cities, in the
mere shaping of material objects to mechanical symmetry and
vapid grace of form, but how wastefully idle and elementary
it seems to say it ! the Catholic life, the inspiration of deep-
breathing truth, the belief in things above the corporeal ;
in a word, the growth and blossom of a spiritual element
flowering forth everywhere, by highway and by-way, in color
and in stone.
This is the art and beauty of Italy. This is Italy itself.
You cannot buy a fragment of cinquecento tapestry but the
figures upon it are saints' figures; a bit of terra cotta moulding
but it is a Madonna or angels ; a vessel of chased silver but it
was once a stoup for holy water ; and so on and so on, through
all the different branches of production, high and low, and
near and far. Looking up to the greater art of the painters,
224 SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. [Nov.,
we find it almost wholly religious. Some concession is made,
laterally as it were, to the classical atmosphere of the Renais-
sance, and some to the teachings of theological and philosophi-
cal poets: the literature and the art of each age truly, as it
has been said, reflecting the other ; but the main stream and
current strong, deep, and pure is always simply religious.
As a child, trudging with a child's eyes and a child's thoughts
through the Roman picture galleries, this annoyed me exceed-
ingly. "Another Holy Family ! Another Magdalene ! Another
Ecce Homo ! Those old painters had positively nothing but
one idea." But, as I grew older, two facts stood out clear to
me: first, that it was the Catholic Church, ever demanding noble
interpretations of the human forms of her divine life who, both
by giving the initial impulse and multiplying the possibilities,
created Italian art ; and secondly, that the painters themselves,
spiritually-minded usually, even where not absolutely blameless
in life, had found this the highest 'source of inspiration, and had-
clung to it, for the sake of art primarily, not for bread alone.
You have heard that the creed we hold crushes and sti-
fles art ; walk through the first great gallery named to you and
use your eyes. Every one of those glorious canvases has at-
tached to it some master's name. What constraint may ever
have been exercised was right and just, for in the harmony of
the basilica there is a moral as well as an art-law ; there are
columns as well as chapiters ; and vault-arches as well as
lunettes in the lower tiers ; and the younger sons, because they
are free to adorn and beautify, are not free to sully the walls
of the King their Father's house. The mothers of Italy, through
centuries of their children's falling into fire and water, have
learnt to put them in leading-strings until they can walk straight
alone. If you watch the process you will become convinced
that those much abused barbaric leading-strings not only hold
back the child from peril but uphold it and help it mightily
to progress. Besides which, restraint is a rule in art. That
type of the mother and child suggests the whole history of the
art of Italy. Ere the little one can speak its hand is trained
to make the Sign of the Cross, dumb profession of faith in
the Trinity and in the redemption through Christ our Lord.
It has no sooner begun to lisp than the scarce articulate
sounds are shaped to the blessed words of the Ave Maria.
Cimabue, scrawling his first figures in Florence, was as the child
spelling tentatively, with eyes lifted to the face of the mother,
her softly spoken and yet deep-souled prayer. His most per-
i poo.] SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. 225
feet work is a Madonna. Giotto the realist is as truly a reli-
gious painter as his master. Orcagna, Mermin, and Taddeo
likewise. Angelico has been called the last of the mystics,
but Botticelli and Filippino Lippi, those most exquisite transi-
tionists, have, in their most ideal pictures, kept inviolate the
old tradition ; the work of Raphael and Titian we all know.
And if I added three names more, Guido Reni, Carlo Dolci,
and Pompeo Batoni, this latter bringing us to the close of the
eighteenth century, we would have still, each one in his own
century, besides the thousands passed over in silence, the little
child, no longer a child now, crossing itself with the cradle-faith
of its childhood and saying, no longer weak lipped but with the
full, strong tones of manhood, its Hail Mary of the long ago.
These features should be noted, for they are salient ; they
have marked all great art with their stamp and signet, and
people may tell you anything they like about Rome and Flor-
ence and Venice they have not told you the A, B, C until
they tell you that. The springing dome, the carved bronze
portal, the holy statue in the niche, the open-air fresco ; and
those humbler wayside shrines everywhere multiplied believe
me, here are the chief factors in the beauty of our Italian
towns. When I reached the term of my first ocean voyage, a
son coming into his heritage full-grown, I was surprised that
the sky looked no less blue to me than in my own far southern
birthland. When I entered the streets they chilled me, for
some reason unknown. I set myself to solve the problem, and
failed. It was not their ugliness alone, which (with all due
respect and apologies) was appalling, but something less seen
than felt. Not until months later did the truth dawn upon
me there were no wayside shrines !
No meek, gentle-faced Madonnas at the corners, no wreaths
of living blossoms or stone lilies, no tremulous flame of faith
and love there burning, no golden-lettered scrolls hailing this
one Most Pure, the Help of Christians, Refuge of Sinners,
Comfort of Mourners, and so on through the soul's life-long
litany. Here was a hard country built up of steel and iron,
where men toiled for the love of gain more than for bread-
winning ; a land where they do not rest until they lie down
exhausted, having known fever and sweat of labor all their
days and but little of the truth of life ; a market and a fac-
tory where dull heads and dull hearts have not felt the need
or dreamed of the possibility of raising up any sign or symbol
to make present the things beyond. And I, who having re-
VOL. LXXII. 15
226 SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. [Nov.,
ceived a Christian education, yet at one time amused myself
with imagining that religion was a thing conditional not vital,
to be taken up or not at pleasure, as we take up or do not take
up music, science, or politics ; I then began to realize what
those wayside shrines are, and what they mean. How many
burdens they have helped to bear, from how much sin delivered ;
and how, in the dim twilights, when the world darkens around
us and the soul grows heavy with fear and the memory of all
the sorrows it has ever known, that flicker of a lamp has burned
like some beacon of a better hope and a better waiting, and,
through the lowering shadows and fast-closing night, one tender
Face, invisible almost and yet clearly felt, has looked down
with holy eyes of pity and has seemed almost to smile ! This,
above all else, is what we want when we come to beautify the
city ; for man is not made of clods of earth alone.
As you tread those beautiful old streets of elder Italy,
whether bent upon duty, business, or pleasure, you seem merely
to be walking from shrine to shrine. Householders, wishing to
place their homes under the patronage of Mary, caused her
image to be painted or carved above the door, upon the chief
space of wall or at the corner of the building. The religious
orders, with wider view, arched the street chapel or unfolded
the pious fresco on the outside of their cloisters ; chiefly in the
interest of the unknown thousands who would go back and
forth each day. It was a way for the men of prayer to speak
to the men of action, a way as humble and unobtrusive
as that standing of the monk in ragged brown upon the curb-
stone of the piazza to tell the idlers in the market-place about
God and about the soul. And if it be true that in the mere
lifting of reverent eyes to the Mother's face the soul that looks
to her is made more pure, who can weigh the incalculable in-
fluence of the wayside Madonna upon the generations of
passers-by? How many silent heart liftings, how many ^ holy
thoughts, how much of sorrow eased and hope restored ; and
how the trust and confidence in her must have been increased
by that even unconscious reading, at every step, of the angel's
greeting and the sinner's cry. There can be little doubt, I
think, but that the wonderful devotion to Our Lady in Italy,
an heirloom bequeathed us by our first fathers, has been kept
living and active always, in great measure, by those numberless
sanctuaries their piety lifted up.
I have one memory of youth that is sweet to me, and I will
place it here, though I may be digressing, as we insert a
igoo.] SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. 227
picture in a text. I was strolling home in the gloaming one
quiet evening and, just as I passed the SS. Apostoli, the
Angelas bell rang out suddenly on high. A young priest who
was walking in front of me uncovered his head and bowed it
as he walked in prayer. Simultaneously, in the little vicolo
beyond, an old woman knelt down before the image of Mary.
Not a word was spoken, not a sound broke the gray stillness,
but that passing scene has stayed with me as something un-
speakably beautiful and remote.
Longfellow, who was a Catholic at heart, as every true poet
is and must be, had seen this aspect of Italian life. It appears
to have filled him with grave and thoughtful reverence ;
" This is indeed the Blessed Mary's land. . . ."
Now, we do not want to Italianize America, we have our
own national character and genius, but in the old civilizations,
possibly, there may be something to learn. This land too, yea
even Longfellow's, is or properly should be, since it is con-
secrated to her the Blessed Mary's own. And if we are all
to have a part in the beautifying system, why cannot we
Catholics make it ours, a noble one surely, to introduce her
image wherever it is possible to introduce it. My lecturer
pleaded for the blazoning of city arms on public buildings to
relieve their monotony by one bit of bright color. Could not
we also relieve the monotony of private buildings by another
bit of bright color? "What!" you say, "a Madonna stuck
over the door or at the corner to make the old place look
like a church?" That precisely; and let it look like a church
if it must. I know an American house in an American city
where the free-born American residents have not been ashamed
to enthrone Buddha, goggle-eyed, cross-legged, and hideous,
above the threshold of their home.
Nor is this mode of decoration in Italy confined to one
class alone ; it is common to poor and rich alike. In painting,
the Madonnas range from the pure-toned, brilliant productions
of the Umbrian school to the crude handling of the same sub-
ject by the house painter. In sculpture, from the rare figure
of marble or alabaster to the costless piaster" cast. In majoli-
ca, from the exquisite- faced Virgins of Delia Robbia amazingly
variegated in color, or clean white on backgrounds of dazzling
blue to the ungainly, devout effigy of earthenware, moulded
and tinted by the potter's hand.
I have in my mind's eye as I write two Roman houses ; one
modern, spacious, and massive, the green shields of plantain-
228 SPIRITUAL ELEMENT IN ART. [Nov.,
leaves from the garden spreading wealthily to the street, and
everything about it giving evidence of solidity and prosperity.
In the angle of the wall a niche, ribbed and carved as a nautilus
shell, has been opened and there stands a veiled head of Our
Lady, meek and beautiful, of Carrara marble, in fineness of
quality sparkling as sunlit snow. You may have seen along
the Tuscan sea-coast, above the purple water and deep green
of the pine forests, those solemn mountains rise where the
noon light striking the open quarries makes them gleam even so.
Another house in a little street, a house so mean you and
I would not want to live in it ; old, too, as the very hills.
It has plain, white-washed walls, small windows, steps worn low
with age. Here, above the door, is another niche, scooped by
so poor an artist the base-line is awry. In it stands one of
those plaster Madonnas which, with us, cost about thirty cents.
Here, in the lowlier home, there is also a small lamp burning.
But for sheer picturesqueness, apart from higher merit, the
narrow arched door, the steps, the iron knocker, and that little
niche of pure azure with its pure white prayerful figure, are
as beautiful as any I know.
Of course in this country we have the climate against us ; but
there are ways and means of securing us from that.
When I build my own home, far-away resting-place in some
sunset Utopia, there will be a fair figure, a figure tall and
stately, above my cottage door. There will be a lamp burn-
ing, a beacon and a symbol. There will be carved over the
entrance " Heavenly Gate," over the big bay where the dawn
comes in " Hail, Morning Star," upon the study wall " Seat of
all Wisdom," " Mother of Christ " above my children's cribs,
and " Cause of our Perfect Joy "there where we meet for play.
But at the Lady's feet I carve, deeper than all, the prayer my
childhood and my youth first learned to love in the old home
far away. And oh ! rhapsodies of wild fugue and turn of rip-
pled measure ; passionate tziganes of crazy fiddlers mad with the
dreams of poets; deep and sweet symphonies, world-wide and ten-
der with mute words ; cradle songs of the sea and boat and voice
on the moonlit waters ; laughter in minor keys and sobbed-out
prayer ; clear notes from the earth's working life ; dim notes from
the earth's nature-life ; strong music of the human heart, and
softest bars from the mind's fleeting melodies where were you
ever bound to words so pure or trained to other song so sweet
as this, culled blossoming and fragrant from the lips of love ?
" AVE MARIA."
1900.] THE UPBUILDING OP ANIMAL LIPE. 229
THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
' On:nis cellula e cellula." Virchow.
the three great discoveries of our century from
which physiology may look for important results
namely, the law of the conservation of energy,
organic evolution, and the fact that organisms
are composed of cells it is, we believe, this last
named discovery to which the future opens the widest field of
labor.
It is now generally accepted by physiologists that the sub-
stratum of all vital phenomena is the cell ; in the cell the low-
est stage of individuality has been reached. The mammalian
egg or ovum is merely a cell composed of an inner part called
the nucleus, and around the nucleus is a slimy, colorless sub-
stance termed protoplasm ; and life depends on the growth
and development of this original animal cell after it has been
fertilized by a cell from the male element.
Some animals, the largest of them, Am<zba, barely visible
to the naked eye, and which are grouped together under the
general name of Protozoa, consist of a single cell, and these
lowly, unicellular organisms take nourishment, respire, and ex-
crete the same as do the higher forms of life. And as the
size of every cell has a limit, when it has attained a certain
growth the single-celled animal divides into two halves ; and
hence we may say that reproduction in its widest sense is
merely a special case of growth. And in each daughter- cell
there must be both nucleus and protoplasm, for vital phenomena
can come about only through the undisturbed correlation of the
two parts of the cell. But if the microscopic, unicellular or-
ganism, when it has reached a certain size, reproduces by the
division of its cell-body, and if each of the halves then con-
tinues to grow until it likewise divides into two halves, may
we not consider this animal immortal ? Weismann answers in
the affirmative ; for here the species is maintained by uninter-
rupted division, and a corpse is never found except through
some external cause. Death, according to Weismann, is not a
phenomenon inherent in the nature of life itself. He views
death rather as a phenomenon of adaptation, which has been
230 THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE. [Nov.,
evolved in the course of the life-history of the earth as advan-
tageous to the species. But the higher, multicellular organisms,
where a contrast has developed between the cells which serve
for reproduction and the cells of the rest of the body, Weis
mann does consider as mortal. For here if only one single egg
of the sexual cells reproduces, all the rest of the organism
may perish without the species becoming extinct.
Weismann's argument sounds very plausible. But there
are physiologists who do not agree with him in considering
single-celled animals immortal ; they deny that reproduction by
simple division can go on without end. And while some
maintain that when the single-celled organism divides into two
halves this ends its individual existence, even though no corpse
appears (for here reproduction and death coincide), Maupas
has shown by experiment that a single-celled animal after
dividing very many times, after hundreds of generations, does
indeed perish unless it be allowed to enter into a correlation
with another single-celled organism which corresponds to fertil-
ization in the higher animals. Only after this process (the two
cells are seemingly blended into one for a brief space) were the
individuals able to divide again as before.
But in answer to Maupas another physiologist, Professor
Gruber, takes Weismann's view and asserts that even although
the individual cells which do not conjugate may perish, the
material of the cells which do conjugate cannot be said to die,
since after separating they are able to continue to reproduce
by division, and hence he claims that for these single-celled
animals death is not a necessity. But in reply to this in-
genious argument Hertwig tells us that at least a portion of
each of the two conjugating cells must be said to die during
the process of being together, for tiny fragments of the two
cells are broken off, and these fragments by becoming dis-
solved and consumed as it were by the protoplasm, surely
afford reasonable evidence that a certain part of the individual
cell perishes. But without going further into the question
whether death be a necessity for the Protozoa, let us empha-
size the fact that it is only by the multiplication of cells that
the development of a higher animal from the egg takes place :
and cell-multiplication is always the result of cell-division ; no
cell comes into existence except as the product of an already
existing cell.
Nor does cell-division ever cease during the life of the
highest animal, although in old age it becomes slower and
1900.] THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE. 231
slower until it stops at death, which is the natural end of de-
velopment for multicellular organisms.
But now let us speak of a somewhat different form of life
from the single-celled animal. It is where several cells among
the Protozoa after reproduction by division, instead of living
apart come together to form a colony. And in these colonies
of the Protozoa the individual cells are, as a rule, all alike, and
these cell-republics may be viewed as the intermediate links
between the truly unicellular animals which do not come to-
gether, and the higher multicellular organisms where the cells
are specialized so as to form tissues and organs. But let us
add, for it is an interesting fact, that in these primitive cell-
republics of the Protozoa the members do occasionally break
away from their fellows to lead again an independent ex-
istence.
But now let us speak of animals whose cells are arranged
in layers and tissues to serve a special purpose, and which be-
long to the higher division of the animal kingdom called the
Metazoa. And we may remark that the cells which form this
higher division enjoy the advantage of greater protection by
having come to live permanently together. Indeed, the prin-
ciple which controls all development is the principle of utility ;
and the higher we rise in the series of organisms the closer
does this dependence, this clinging together of cell group to
cell-group become. And it is this co-operation of all the cells,
this surrender of their own individuality in the new indi-
viduality of the whole animal, which marks the great advance
of the Metazoa above the Protozoa. And Man himself belongs
to the Metazoa. We now find the individual cell no longer
able to exist apart from the others ; the cells have developed
into a compact mass ; although it is true that in the lower
forms of the Metazoa small groups of cells may become de-
tached from the main body and yet live. Thus, the fresh-
water polyp Hydra may be divided into many pieces and each
piece be capable of independent life ; each piece is able to
become again a complete Hydra. But, as we have said, the
higher we rise in the animal series, the closer does the de-
pendence of the different cells one upon the other become.
We now find a marked differentiation and a division of labor
among the cells ; and all the greater is the advantage to the
individual cell from this life in common ; until finally, when
we come to the very highest animals, we find the nerve-cells
ruling the cells of all the rest of the body.
232 THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE. [Nov.,
Now, what has brought about this cell-differentiation in the
cell-community? How have the cells assumed different charac-
ters? How has movement in the higher animals become the
specific function of the muscle-cells ? How have the nerve-
cells acquired to so high a degree the capacity of conducting
stimuli? How has the function of secretion got to be the
specialty of the gland-cells ? The answer given by physiolo-
gists is, that as the multicellular animal went on increasing by
cell-division, and as the cells became distributed in all directions
. and were formed into a compact mass, the more various be-
came the mutual relations and external conditions of the cells
and cell-groups ; and thus, by adaptation to changing external
conditions, the cells and cell-groups finally diverged and grew
to be unlike in all their characteristics ; they contributed in a
different manner to the whole labor of the cell-community ;
and this combined labor was made advantageous and harmoni-
ous through Natural Selection, for only those multiceliular
animals survived in which the cell-generations were in harmony
with surrounding conditions. In a word, adaptation to a chang-
ing environment (controlled in a natural manner through natural
selection) is the fundamental principle in the upbuilding of
animal life. And we find this principle most beautifully realized
in the cell community of the body of Man. In man the nerve-
cells of the central nervous system rule despotically over the
myriads of other cells, uniting with one another tissues and
organs and causing the whole complex organism to work to-
gether in harmony.
And now when we turn backward and take a bird's-eye
view of animal life through the ages, we perceive a constant
development from the simple to the complex form of organiza-
tion, in which special parts have become widely differentiated
for the exercise of special ends. The single-celled Amceba,
which reproduces by division of its cell into two halves, may
continue to exist in its primitive conditions and may be con-
sidered by Weismann as not subject to death ; but the gradual
changes which have taken place on the earth's surface have
allowed higher forms of life to appear. These forms, through
the God-given power of selection and adaptation, were able to
keep pace, as it were, with the changes in the environment and
to rise in the scale of being, until organic life has come to be
what it is to-day, where the cells, tissues, and organs of the
very highest multicellular animals are under the potent sway
of the central nervous system.
igoo.]
THE UPBUILDING OF ANIMAL LIFE.
233
We conclude by saying that we have found no study so in-
teresting as the study of Physiology, and in physiology there
is no problem more surrounded with mystery than the cause
of the attraction of certain cells for each other, an attraction
which is exerted only between the cells of the same species.
Nagali suggests that electrical forces in the two elements
may be the cause of the sexual affinity, while Hertwig holds
it to be a phenomenon of very great complication. Be this as
it may, we may safely say that there is no better way for Man
to study himself than through the study of the cells : all our
medical ideas to-day rest upon the cell as a basis. If we are ever
to explain the relations existing between intellect and abnormal
physical conditions, if we can ever ascertain how much truth
there is in Lombroso's seemingly exaggerated notions, it will
be through the study of cell physiology.
COMPENSATION.
AFTER the dry-eyed years of calm content
There came a dream of homing as I slept
That left me, when its sweetness was forspent,
Weary and sore at heart but then, / wept !
ARTHUR UPSON.
A PARAPHRASE OF ST. PAUL
"for the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have errea
from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows." I. Tim. vi. 10.
'S the source of joy in life
In money ?
What can cause such sinful strife
As money ?
Let no man dare to say me nay :
Where gold is God, sin holds its sway
With money.
Let withered age, though steeped in vice,
Take money
To Beauty's shrine, and ask her price
In money :
'Gainst youth and hope oft vice will win :
Lo ! beauty yields nor thinks it sin
For money.
Oft friends you think most truly tried
Love money :
When trouble comes they leave your side
For money :
The faith they pledged in life's young day-
Should fortune frown, it flies -away
For money.
If they sell wares and you sell brain
For money
They wear broadcloth, you a chain.
O money !
Your chain bears hunger in each link ;
Your friend grows fat, you starve and think
For money.
The king of beauty, truth, and worth
Seems money ;
For man's debasement it had birth,
Vile money !
Yet, demon, ah ! how brief your power ;
The slaves you make last but an hour
Ha ! money.
Oh ! here's to him, along life's path
Of money,
Who never dares his Maker's wrath
For money :
His name shall shine on judgment day,
When this earth's pomp has passed away
And money.
1900.] THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. 235
THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
BY A. A. McGINLEY.
HERE is a certain phase in the prevailing spirit
of the conversion movement to the true Faith
which might be regarded scientifically as a strik-
ing phenomenon. This is the ever-increasing
body of scientific testimony to the merely in-
tellectual soundness of Catholic teaching and practice. New
developments in the world of purely scientific thought, as their
analysis penetrates deeper into the realm of the metaphysical,
are every day making demonstrations of the same spiritual
truths that are embodied in their purest essence in Catholic
doctrine as it has been believed and taught throughout the cen-
turies, ages before the inception of modern scientific research.
This often comes home to the observing and thinking Catho-
lic mind to day with sudden surprise. One comes upon some
new scientific truth that has been lately announced from the
rostrum of the university with almost a blare of trumpets,
and is being published and quoted broadcast with credit only
to the keen intellect of the man who has thought it all out
by the slow, laborious processes of psychological research. A
second examination of this new truth reveals to the intelli-
gent Catholic mind a singular resemblance to some teaching
of his faith that is so familiar to him he has hardly been
aware of its existence in his mind. He turns to this new dis-
covery of scientific thought again and strips it of its rhetoric
and of the phraseology of the laboratory, leaving but the bald
and simple statement of the principle of truth underlying it
all, and finds then revealed nothing more, or rather nothing
less, than some fundamental teaching of his faith which he
learned at his mother's knee.
These are some of the glorious though hidden triumphs of
our religion which are being won in these later days, and they
are what are leading inevitably, though it may be secretly, up
to the final world-conquest of Catholic religious truth before
another century passes. They are, or they will prove to be in
the end, the real results of the movement towards conversion
to the true Faith which our time will be noted for in the com-
236 THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. [Nov.,
ing centuries, rather than the statistical testimony of numbers
which we receive from time to time of the steady growth of
this movement. The value of one such demonstration of the
sound and invincible truth of a single Catholic doctrine brought
home to the minds of the thinking world outside is greater than
the demonstration of multiplied columns of statistics, either
for or against the numerical increase of church-membership.
No one can estimate the far-reachingness of such a testimony,
or to how many minds and hearts it has brought conviction
and peace, and, sooner or later, real conversion.
The world to-day as never before is influenced by the thinkers;
the dictums of science, modified, simplified, and popularized, find
their way down to the lower strata of life, and influence even the
commonest intellects. Here, indeed, when they are false, do
they work their greatest havoc. The low criminal in the Tombs
will talk as glibly of "hereditary influence" in justifying his
crime as will the professor of sociology in the university. The
theory of evolution, reduced to its simplest and lowest terms,
has met the intellects of the ignorant and unstable enough to
make them spell out of it a refutation of the doctrine of free
will, of original sin, of the belief in hell, of the efficacy of
baptism, or indeed of any truth of revelation which their ignor-
ant, unspiritual minds cannot grasp. The glamour of the
pseudo-revelations of science has cast a spell over many minds
of the highest order of intellect in our day. What can be ex-
pected of the effect of this false science, when brought within the
limits of their comprehension, upon minds of the lower order?
Here, then, is where the Spirit of God seems to be at
work in our time, working out the testimony of religious truth
through the very processes designed to refute it. The results
of psychological investigation if it is pursued to its final results
honestly must end inevitably in the clear demonstration of such
truth as the Church has taught under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit since her teaching office began.
Singularly enough, too, not only do we meet outside the
Church with this testimony of the truth of the doctrine, but
often the very customs and traditions of the Church are taken
up and "rediscovered," as it were, by non-Catholics for their
ethical or educational value in the common relations of life.
A merely psychological appreciation of the common devotion of
the Rosary would admit that method of prayer to be perfect
in its design of fixing even the crudest and most undeveloped
mind in contemplation upon a series of mental images so
i goo.] THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. 237
sublime and uplifting as to have the power, even ethically
considered, of influencing the human life towards the best and
noblest ideals. This is the process of reasoning by which the
scientific thinker estimates the value of the different elements
that go towards the building up of our common life. He is
beginning to reckon with this wonderful element of religion
that has steadily held its sway over the hearts and minds of
men during the centuries, and to explain the causes and effects
of its influence in his own terms. Let him use his own terms
for awhile longer ; it is but a short step from them to the full
and true Catholic interpretation of the fundamental truths which
lie at their base.
Not only in the intellectual but in the moral world is there
a growing conviction of the value of Catholic ideals in the up-
lifting of the race ; and here the question is a far more imme-
diate and vital one ; it strikes at the root of things, at the
springs of life : the family relation and the outrage done upon
it in modern times by the evil of divorce. From a painful
consideration of the effects of this evil upon society in our day
the moralists have been led to consider some of its causes.
One of the most singular instances of the results of such re-
search by the Protestant mind was recently shown in an article
published in the Revue des Deux Mondes by Mme. Laura
Marholm, a wonderfully gifted Norwegian woman, who has
drawn much attention to herself in Europe of late by her
high mental attainments.
The movement of " Feminism," or the study of the modern
development of woman, has in France been agitating the
minds of the leaders of thought almost to the extent of a
political movement. It is on this subject that this writer ex-
presses some striking opinions as to the causes of that falling
off in the moral standards of the race which to-day leads
so inevitably to the evils of divorce and infanticide. She
traces this directly to the rejection by Protestantism of the
veneration of the Mother of God which has throughout the
ages exalted the divine ideal of the Mother and Child as the
highest conception of human life. Her reasons for thinking
this are, it is true, mainly ethical or natural ones, and she
argues principally from this point of view. There is, however,
a strong demonstration of Catholic truth at the bottom of them.
"The worship of Mary," she says, " was the great poetic achieve-
ment of the masculine soul, sending up to heaven, as to a
natural fount, that longing for something detached from the
238 THE TESTIMONY OF SCIEACE TO RELIGION. [Nov.,
senses and higher than they by which man has always been
tormented. It represented the sweetest note of his inner music.
He showed his most complete understanding of the high des-
tiny of woman, and the mystery of human life, when he raised
the Mother and Child to a place over the altar. When he trans-
figured the companion of his existence into a sacred being,
and showed the baby stretching out its little arms toward the
heart of every man, he sanctified woman in her function as a
mother, and made it sacrilege to ill-treat a child. Infinite was
the softening of hearts, incalculable the amelioration of manners
which beamed from every one of those images of God's mother."
" The glorification of the mother," she insists, " was calcu-
lated to deliver man from the baleful fascination of the mere
woman." She argues that one blessed result of the " worship "
of Mary was that it helped to clear up man's understanding
of woman ; it made him patient with his companion in life
by lifting his thoughts to a superhuman ideal. " Protestant-
ism," she says, " by suppressing the worship of the Virgin and
the devotion to images, has committed the huge mistake of
transferring the adoration of man from womankind in the ab-
stract to some particular woman. The next step was to re-
quire of all mortal women the virtues of the celestial woman,
and to scan with a distrustful eye their persons, their bearing,
their actions, and their sentiments. Protestantism asked more
of woman than had ever been asked before, and got less."
There is a subtle, if rather novel, argument in all this as
to the false basis upon which Protestantism builds its moral
standards. A consideration of these standards brings one ever
back to the same conclusions as to its instability as a religious
system. It demonstrates always in the end its worship of mere
human nature, uncrowned by those sublime and uplifting ideals
towards which the Catholic mind is ever taught to look by its
veneration of the saints and of the Mother of God.
Huxley made this same argument very emphatically when he
wrote : " No human being, and no society composed of human
beings, ever did or ever will come to much unless their conduct
is guided and governed by the love of some ethical ideal."
One of the cleverest literary men of the day, Professor Peck
of Columbia University, a leading man of science and a non-
Catholic, has said some remarkable things on this subject of
faith and reason in his essay on the life of the late Friedrich
Wilhelm Nietzsche, a philosopher of the modern German school
who became insane from the effects of too much thinking in the
1900.] THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. 239
realm of speculative thought. Nietzsche, like many another of
these philosophers of pure reason, " thought and reasoned and
exhausted ingenuity for some original explanation of the moral
problem ; he racked his brain and tortured his imagination and
scourged his fevered faculties to mad exertion in the quest. Yet
did he add one atom to the discoveries of those who went be-
fore? The contrary is true; for after he had reasoned and
argued and thought and written until he had reached at last
a definite result, he had not gone one single step beyond his
predecessors. . . .
" There is something in all this that is most terribly pathetic
this wrecking of a splendid intellect for the sake of painfully
establishing as something new a thesis that was first laid down
two thousand years ago. Yet this is just as true of all those
modern thinkers who are treading in the path that was worn
smooth by other feet before our civilization had been born.
For there is really nothing new in modern thought. It has
only sublimated and refined and enlarged and expanded what
was handed down to it from a remote antiquity, while its essen-
tial teachings are older than the hills.
" The mind of man exhausted all the possibilities of philoso-
phic thought some twenty centuries ago, and since then human
ingenuity has formulated nothing new. Everything has been
thought, everything has been written ; and it is all Maya be-
ginning nowhere and ending in a fog.
" Unthinking persons sometimes speak of mere ' blind faith.'
But in the sphere of things like these, it is rather Reason, un-
guided and uncontrolled, that is really smitten with eternal
blindness, that gropes and stumbles, and, after toiling painfully
over many a weary path, finds itself fainting and exhausted at
the very place at which it started ; while Faith alone, whose
undimmed eyes have been divinely opened, sees clearly down
the endless vista of eternity. Reason falters, but Faith is sure.
Reason becomes at last impoverished, but Faith grows richer
with the lapse of time. Reason sickens and falls fainting by
the way, but Faith goes on serenely to the end.
"There is need of Faith to-day in philosophy and in religion,
two spheres which in the highest sense are one ; for in the end
it is Faith alone that satisfies the needs of every human soul.
It is here that we find the secret of the wonderful power of
Catholicism that it has learned and thoroughly assimilated this
great fundamental truth which Protestantism seems unable to
acquire, so that there comes to us the warring of unnumbered
240 THE TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE TO RELIGION. [Nov.,
sects and controversial clamor without end between those, on
the one hand, who would make religious truth turn on the
pointing of a Hebrew text in some ink-smeared palimpsest, and
those who, on the other hand, imagine that salvation is to be
secured by setting up sporadic soup kitchens and by stocking
missionary homes with particolored pen-wipers.
"But he who wanders in the darkness of uncertainty and
who has found in Reason but a treacherous guide, needs some-
thing higher, deeper, richer, and more spiritual far than this.
Struggling onward through the storm and night, repelled and
driven further by the cold, chill formalism that looks out on him
superciliously from its grated windows, he plunges with a grow-
ing terror into a still deeper darkness, following perhaps the
fitful lead of Atheism that with ghastly grin beckons him on-
ward when he shrinks back shuddering at the chasm's brink
where yawn abysmal deeps of infinite despair ; until at last, be-
yond the beating of the storm and the gloom of an unfathom-
able darkness, he sees the House of Faith, serenely radiant
with light, filled with the sound of melodious music, and open-
ing wide its gates to shelter and defend, and to diffuse through
all the depths of his poor shaken soul the peace, the comfort,
and the divinely perfect beauty of an endless benediction."*
* Harry Thurston Peck in A Mad Philosopher.
REV. ALOIS DAISENBERGER, THE OLD PARISH PRIEST. THE
FATHER OF THE MODERN PLAY.
THE PASSION PLAY.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D.
UNICH is very pleasantly situated, and its art
treasures and art atmosphere, to say nothing of
more material attractions, draw many visitors at
all times. In the early autumn hotels are apt to
be crowded, but the summer generally finds the
South German metropolis empty of visitors. This year the
crowd came and went all the summer, timing arrivals so that
of a Friday night most of the hotels were filled. Many a
traveller, confident in his knowledge of Munich during the
VOL. LXXII. 1 6
242
THE PASSION PLA Y.
[Nov.,
summer season, drove to his favorite hotel late on Friday only
to find that " there was no room at the inn." This year's
crowd, too, was much more cosmopolitan than usual. The at-
tractions of the Bavarian capital talk a language that is under-
stood by people of taste the world over. But the end-of the-
century visitors were not only gathered from the remotest and
most unexpected regions of the earth, but also from all classes,
conditions, and creeds. To most of them Munich was but a
station by the way, for in every European language could be
heard discussions on the incoming trains of the possibilities of
finding accommodations at Oberammergau. The name of the
little village in the Bavarian mountains was twisted into more
curious forms on foreign tongues than it would be possible to in-
vent if the invention of newfangled pronunciations were intend-
ed. Some fifteen thousand people a week, of the most diverse
nationalities, were making their way to the little village to see
and hear the Passion Play. To the ordinary traveller, by the
way, it must have seemed almost inexplicable that so many
people of such varied characteristics should find a common
centre of attraction in the decennial fulfilment by their descend-
ants of the vow of mediaeval villagers. To those untouched by
the enthusiasm of the moment the crowds on their way to
Oberammergau seemed rather to be following the fad of the
year than going as " Passion pilgrims " from lofty religious, or
even artistic, motives. Most of those who have written about
the play have acknowledged that some such thought was in
their minds on their own
journey to Oberammergau.
Personally the writer felt
this poignantly,for it seemed
too bad that the empty fad-
ism of modern life should
invade the simple Bavarian
village and take from the
villagers the earnest religi-
ous purpose that has kept
the Passion Play for our
generation as one of the
beautiful remains of the ill-
understood days of mediae-
val Catholicity. Like many
another, I came away with a
NICODEMUS, THE DISCIPLE IN SECRET. very different feeling. The
1900.]
THE PASSION PLAY.
243
impression produced can
only be compared with that
made upon the traveller
who, rebellious to the yoke
of the guide-books for the
moment, comes unexpect-
edly on some magnificent
old cathedral. It seems
scarcely possible that the
commonplace realities round
about could ever have given
birth to such an incarnation
of the artistic spirit.
The realization comes
that men of other times and
other moulds than those to
whom we are accustomed JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.
may also be kindled by that divine spark we are so apt to look
upon as reserved solely for the cultured after our own fashion.
It has been said that the vast influx of visitors into Oberam-
mergau would inevitably do away with the old simplicity of
spirit of the villagers, that was not alone so admirable in itself
but was the real root of the religious-artistic purpose that in-
spires the Passion Play and makes it the worthy shrine of
world pilgrims. The danger undoubtedly exists. So far, how-
ever, the veritable charm of the Passion Play itself remains
absolutely unspoiled. Great business interests have grown up
in connection with the presence of visiting multitudes. A
large tourist agency negotiated last year to take the problem
of accommodating all these visitors off the hands of the com-
munity for the privilege of distributing lodgings by tickets
sold beforehand. The offer was promptly rejected, though it
represented a larger assurance of profit than was anticipated
in the ordinary routine of letting lodgings to the pilgrims as
they came. It was felt that the offer would mean exorbitant
prices. Passion pilgrims who dealt directly with the villagers
themselves this year were not impressed by any special evidence
of a grasping spirit. The people realized their opportunity, but
took no undue advantage of it. The visitors who are heard to
complain, and with reason, are those who trusted the tourist
agents to provide for them, and found that these were intent
simply on exploitation, not business. The blame for this must
rest where it belongs. This year's experience has done not a
244
THE PASSION PLAY.
[Nov.,
little to shake public confidence in tourist agencies for such
occasions. Oberammergau and its population must not suffer
from the contre coup of the unpleasantness.
THE PLAY.
The ordinary visitor to Oberammergau who came rather
with the idea of witnessing an impressive religious spectacle,
but with scarcely a thought that the artistic side of the Passion
Play might prove of intense interest, received his preliminary
surprise when the chorus made its appearance just after the
second signal gun. The color scheme of the beautifully draped
* robes that set off the stal-
wart villagers so well was
calculated to inspire com-
plete confidence in the taste
that had selected the rich
colors and arranged their ef-
fective contrasts. We have
heard much of Mayr as the
Christus of three decennia.
Pilgrims of former years, be-
fore seeing this year's per-
formance, lamented that he
was no more to be seen in
the principal part. Surely
he could not have added
more to the success of this
year's spectacle than he has
done by his impressive ren-
dition of the part of the leader of the chorus. Tall and straight,
but with the perfectly white hair and beard that many cares have
brought to him before their time, with a dignity of carriage and
motion that bespoke one of nature's noblemen, this humble peas-
ant drew to him all eyes and fixed all attention at once. In his
striking white robes, with his white hair, gold-crowned, he was
a figure to fill the vision. The members of the chorus on
either hand in bright red cloaks served to concentrate still
more all the attention on this magnificent choragus who was
to prove so interesting an exponent of the unusual feature of
the play the long recitative interludes. Mayr, the village
wood-carver, is the best type of the Oberammergau villager.
His Christus drew the attention of at least the German world
for three decennia, and his work this year, in a very different
JOHN, THE BKLOVED APOSTLE.
1900.]
THE PASSION PLA Y.
245
character, demonstrates that his success was not due merely to
accident and favoring circumstances. The man has, as so many
of his village compatriots, something of the artistic over-soul
that finds a fitting expression in whatever he does.
The chorus had its faults, and its singing was not always
as impressive as might have been wished. It contained 35
voices. Singing to 6,000 people practically in the open air it
can be easily understood that it lacked the requisite volume.
But the voices were all well trained and pleasing. What vil-
lage of 1,400 inhabitants anywhere else in the world will be
able to supply as many trained voices? especially as some of
the best singers were neces-
sarily taken from the possi-
bility of service in the chorus
by their selection for acting
parts in the play proper.
The fact that the chorus was
spread out in one thin line,
the different singing parts
widely separated from each
other, militated against the
effective rendition of many
of the choruses. As it was,
the gentler and appealing
parts were thoroughly effec-
tive, the deprecatory and
triumphant phases failed of
their due impressiveness for PETER, THE PRINCE OF THE APOSTLES.
lack of numbers and volume of tone.
After the first entry of the chorus, if anything were needed
to convince the first-time spectator of the thoroughly artistic
spirit in which the great theme was to be handled, it came in
the first tableaux : " The Expulsion from Paradise " and " The
Adoration of the Cross." All through the play the tableaux
gave proof of excellent taste in plastic art and of a most dis-
criminating color sense. Those who took part in them, even
the small children, had evidently been trained with painstaking
thoroughness. At times even most strained positions were re-
tained for considerable intervals without a quiver to spoil the
effect of the picture. To those accustomed to the blaze of light
on all tableau effects on the modern stage there seemed a
lack of light, perhaps, and the subdued illumination of the in-
terior of the central portion of the stage failed to bring out
24.6 THE PASSION PLAY. [Nov.,
the details of the picture. Even this had been foreseen, how-
ever, and the attention of the director of the tableaux had
been very happily concentrated on his central figures.
After these two tableaux of the prelude came the beginning
of the play proper, the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sun-
day. The procession was managed most effectively. Alto-
gether some 400 people came on the stage for the spectacle,
and it needs but little experience of things theatrical to realize
how difficult a matter is the handling and grouping of such a
crowd. The costumes were well designed to bring out the idea
of the heterogeneous crowds that had flocked to Jerusalem for
the Passover. The combinations of colors were once more
pleasingly tasteful. Some idea of the careful attention to de-
tails, not alone for this scene but for all others, may be gathered
from the accompanying photograph of one of the Jewish boys
who took part in it.* The movement of the crowd and the
ebb and flow of interest in various groups were well brought
out. Perhaps there was not enough of that half-unconscious
mjrmur that always emanates from large crowds, and that in
the theatre, where numbers are supposed to be represented by
individuals, requires very special conscious effort to produce.
There was on the whole a satisfying naturalness about the
mob that is most difficult of reproduction.
And then the play was on. For 3^ hours in the morning,
and, after a little over an hour's intermission, for 4^ hours in the
afternoon 6,000 people looked and listened with rapt attention.
To hear that the Greeks at their Dyonisiac festivals sat out a
dramatic trilogy, three full tragedies of ^schylus or Sophocles,
and then a farce, meant to most of us the inevitable conclu-
sion that the Greeks were very different in their mental and
* Another evidence of the care exercised in selecting accessories for the play was brought
to us rather unexpectedly while wandering through the fields on the outskirts of the village
the evening before the performance. Some children were solicitously guarding a donkey.
The intelligent little animals had attracted our attention in many parts of Europe, for it
often seemed that they were more alive to the responsibilities of life than their masters.
This one, in the words of one of our party, bore a knowing look and carried itself with a dig-
nified air, and somehow seemed conscious of its own importance. The children told us that
this was the Passion-ass that is, the one which Christus rides in the Palm Sunday procession
in the play and that it had been selected especially for its good looks and good temper, two
rare good things in other creatures than asses. They also pointed out that this particular
member of the donkey family carried in the dark lines along its backbone and over its shoul-
ders a very distinct figure of the cross that, according to the tradition, all asses have borne
ever since the original Palm Sunday procession. The animal seems to have been selected
partly at least for this reason. The solicitous care of the children for this humble member of
the Passion troupe was an index of the attitude of mind of the villagers generally towards
those who took part in ihe .jlay and so brought their village to the knowledge of the great
world.
1900.]
THE PA SSION PLA y.
24?
physical makeup to the moderns. During
this summer, however, over 300,000 people
have come to the Passion Play, and found
the long day, as a rule, only too short.
There were many things be-
sides the length of the per-
formance to recall the Greek
dramas. The stage with its
two entrances in the pros-
cenium wall, and the central
recess as the representative
of the antique middle door,
at once recalled the old Athe-
nian stage. At Athens, be-
yond the proscenium could
be seen the blue ^Egean Sea,
with the scattered isles of
Greece a fitting background
for the scenes from Grecian
fable and history. At Ober-
ammergau, the rugged moun-
tains, oft with cloud-capped
tops, recalled the Judean hills
and seemed to fittingly shut
out the every day practical
world from disturbing the real
or the mimic in the simple life
of the village. The festivals
of Dionysius were religious
as well as artistic, and the subject matter of the Greek dramas
was bound up with the religious feelings and traditions of the
nation ; so too at Oberammergau, religion had art in its most
unconscious simplicity and gracious sincerity as a handmaiden
for the production of lasting effects. Only a people whose
lives were thoroughly in touch with the religious scenes and
feelings they portrayed could have commanded the unwearying
attention of the multitudes of visitors.
It seems invidious to single out characters for special men-
tion. Somehow, after seeing the transformation that comes
over these humble villagers in their various parts, one is
tempted to believe that almost any of them could take any
character satisfactorily, and that it is only the accident of cer-
tain physical traits that allots them to special parts. Naturally,
A JEWISH BOY IN THE TABLEAUX.
248
THE PA SSION PL A Y.
[Nov.,
the mind recurs oftenest to the Christus of the play. Anton
Lang, who took the character for the first time this year, is
physically a most satisfying figure. His handsome, manly face,
surrounded by its long, blond hair, recalls the faces the Italian
and German painters love to give the Christ. His expression
is extremely attractive. There beams from his modest coun-
tenance the earnest of a gentle, pure-hearted nature. Just
after the conclusion of the performance we saw him come out
of the dressing-rooms, only to be immediately surrounded by
the "village children, for each of whom he had an affectionate
greeting. Though it was September, and the novelty of the
Passion performance must have long worn off, the children ac-
companied him in a sort of triumphal procession to his home.
Of his acting not much remains, then, to be said. The Chris-
tus of the play must look the part. In certain situations, as-
the parting at Bethany, the washing of the feet of the disciples,
especially when it came to Judas' turn, and the Ecce Homo, it
is hard to imagine a more perfect Christus.
The striking acting of the play was by the Judas. Johann
Zwink, who takes the part now for the second time, was the
much admired John of the plays of 1870 and 1880. Zwink
makes a very modest living as a decorative painter in the in-
THE OPEN STAGE WITH THE BACKGROUND OF MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE.
THE PA SSION PL A Y.
249
ANTON LANG, THE CHRISTUS.
tervals between the plays. It can be well imagined, however,
that he really only lives during Passion Play years, for he is a
born actor. He brings out all the intense tragedy of Judas'
character, and somehow leaves the impression that the ill-fated
disciple was not so bad as he is traditionally painted. The re-
morse of the traitor Apostle was so well done that it could
scarcely fail to arouse human sympathy. The villain of the
play would seem to be much more Caiaphas whose part was
also very well done than Judas. This year's John, who had
the part also ten years ago, is physically very well adapted to
represent the ideal John. In the scene at the foot of the
cross, where his new relationship to Mary was proclaimed, he
was most satisfying. At other times he failed somehow to ful-
fil expectations, though of course it must be borne in mind
that, after the Christ himself, it is of the Apostle whom he
250 THE PASSION PLAY. [Nov.,
loved that we are apt to have the most exacting ideal. Of the
other male characters, the Pilate and the Peter were particu-
larly good. Old Thomas Rendl, as the old Galilean fisherman
in gradual course of transformation into the Father of the
Church to be, was a taking figure of great human interest.
Of the women characters not so much can be said in
praise as of the men. Anna Flunger, while not strikingly
beautiful, has a very sweet, pure face, and but for her evident
youthfulness looked the part of Mary very well. In the part-
ing scene at Bethany, however, and in the meeting on the
road to Calvary, she failed to fulfil expectations. At the
foot of the cross during the crucifixion, and at the taking
down from the cross, she seemed to be uplifted by true feel-
ing, and looked the stricken mother in a way that touched the
audience very deeply. Bertha Wolf * as the Magdalene was
more uniformly satisfying. The women did not, however, at
all rise to the occasion as did the men. This is all the more
striking from the fact that the women of any social stratum in
Europe always impress the traveller as being a little above the
level of their husbands and brothers in cultivation of feeling.
THE TEXT OF THE PLAY.
As it is at present presented, the text of the play is the
result of a process of evolution. The old mediaeval mystery
play, with its many resorts to the supernatural and the comic
elements in connection with the parts of Judas and the devils,
was modified to suit his own taste by each new director of the
Passion Play for several centuries. Finally, Father Rosner, a
Jesuit at the time when theatricals flourished in Jesuit colleges,
elaborated this old play into a classical form. He introduced
the tableaux from the Old Testament, and the chorus was his
invention His text was, however, too classically elaborate for
the simple villagers, and the present text is due to a simplifi-
cation of Father Rosner's work. This was entrusted by the
Oberammergauers to Father Ottmar Weiss, who about the be-
ginning of the present century wrote the wording of the play
as it exists at present. About the same time the present
*Our party stopped with the parents of Fraulein Wolf at the Gasthaus zum Thurm,
under the shadow of the steeple of the village church. They were simple country people,
contact with whom only emphasized the surprise that the villagers should be able to produce
the Passion Play with such impressive art. Fraulein Wolf herself was the simple village
girl one meets in any of the out-of-the-way villages of South Germany. When she gave us
her autograph we asked to have, not her present name but the name she would bear next
year. She confessed and did not deny, though with many a blush, that she might have
another name next year ; but we did not get that as an autograph.
1900.]
THE PA SSION PL A r.
251
music of the play was written by Rochus Dedler, the school-
master of the village. Some find fault with the simple, straight-
forward character of Dedler's music. There are undoubtedly
times when it seems utterly inadequate to the situations. But
then any music would surely fail in sublimity under the cir-
cumstances. For the purposes of the villagers' performance it
is hard to see how more
elaborate music could be
made more effective. Text
and music are together a
triumph of artistic adapta-
tion of simple means to
magnificent ends.
After Weiss and Dedler
the Passion Play, as at pres-
ent given, owes most to
Rev. Alois Daisenberger,
who for nearly a half cen-
tury before his death, in
1883, was the pastor of the
village. This highly edu-
cated clergyman devoted
himself to the intellectual JOHANN ZWINK AS JUDAS.
as well as spiritual uplifting of his people. With a wide
knowledge of world literature he read, seven languages he
was particularly interested in the classic Greek drama, and
made some translations from Sophocles. He encouraged the
" practice plays," as they are called, which in the intervals be-
tween the Passion Plays are meant to bring out new dramatic
talent and improve the old. Some of the interval dramas are
from his pen. The present acting traditions of the Passion Play
are largely the result of his training. His was the guiding spirit
behind the simple village enthusiasm which has led to the pro-
duction of an artistic masterpiece of religious feeling that
brings to the Bavarian mountains every ten years hundreds of
thousands of visitors. It is easy to understand how readily
he might have considered this dramatic work beyond his pro-
vince, but had he done so he would have missed his greatest
opportunity in life, for good Daisenberger's work is appreciated
very much at Oberammergau, and the acting traditions estab-
lished under his guidance will endure.
252
THE PA SSION PL A v.
[Nov.,
SIDELIGHTS ON THE TEXT.
The weaving of Old Testament tableaux into the action of
the text as interludes to the scenes of the play brings out
very strikingly the figure of the Christ in type and in reality
as the central point of both dispensations. To many of the
audience this came almost as a revelation, so that a certain
novelty attached even to the development of the play itself.*
From conversations during the intermission and on the train to-
Munich after the performance some interesting points in com-
parative religious psychology could have been gathered. To-
Protestants generally, and there were very many of them, it
seemed to come as a distinct surprise that so much of the
Scriptures should have been embodied in the play. They had the
old idea that lay Catholics were not allowed to read the Bible.
To most of these it was a source of still greater surprise to-
find from the history of the play that during the Catholic
middle ages such Passion Plays were given not in one or two,
but in most of the towns and
villages of Catholic countries.
Perhaps the deepest impres-
sion produced was on those
who had never realized be-
fore the reasons for Mary's
prominence in the Catholic
mind beside her Son. To
some of these the human
element of the Christ's char-
acter in relation to his Mother
came almost as a revelation.
More prejudices as to Mari-
olatry were brushed away by
such scenes as the parting at
Bethany, the meeting on Cal-
vary, and the foot of the
cross, than could have been
effected by volumes of controversy. Great positive good is ac-
complished in this way.
* The character of the audience was most heterogeneous. There were many Hebrew
faces. Not a few of those present might be judged from appearances an4 casual acquaintance
to know but little of Christian origins. One of the German comic papers pictured two of
these talking during the intermission. One is supposed to say : " Do you know, the piece
is not half bad " ; to which the other rejoins : " True, and I am interested in knowing how
it turns out."
BERTHA WOLF AS MAGDALENE.
1900.] THE PASSION PLAY. 253
THE OBERAMMERGAUERS.
The inhabitants of the little village whose work has attracted
the attention of the civilized world do not seem, on casual ac-
quaintance, any different from other Bavarian peasants. That
they are the Passion Play itself is the best proof. Long years
of artistic tradition and of conscious effort to reach ideals have
had their effect, and a spirit of true culture, in no superficial
sense of the term, now seems inbred in the families whose
heritage it has been to take in turn the principal characters of
the play. The Langs, Zwinks, Plungers, Rendls remain the
simple villagers they were and continue their humble avoca-
tions, but a spiritual uplifting has come into their lives that
makes them capable of dramatic work that fixes the attention
of the great world. Much of this is due to the force of tradi-
tion itself, of which enough account seems never to be taken
in human history. What men are expected to do they usually
rise to, though it may seem to those who see only the surface
that they are incapable of it. There is besides in the villages
of Ober and Unterammergau a mixture of national elements
that might be expected to make itself felt in the world. Long
ago there was a thriving Roman colony, ad Kofeliacas, near
the present site of Oberammergau ; one of the main thorough-
fares over the Bavarian mountains passed through the village ;
Charlemagne, according to an old tradition, was born not many
miles away, at the foot of these mountains ; the Pepins cer-
tainly had a castle in this region ; so that it is probable that the
intellectual awakening in Europe after the night of Gothic in-
vasion was felt here very early. In a word, there are phases
of the history of this neighborhood that helped to account,
perhaps, for the people's power. What is in the blood will
come out if opportunity presents itself, and if a worthy tradi-
tion encourages its expression. The Oberammergauers stand
as a happy example of Christian culture apart from ordinary
worldly influences. It is to be hoped that they shall long re-
main unspoiled by too close contact with what is worst in the
civilization outside their village.
254
A FOR r NIGHT A T CLIFF HA VEN.
[Nov.,
A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN.
BY MARION J. BRUNOWE.
T isn't very nice to acknowledge, of course, but
it did that Cliff Haven experience almost did
begin by a row. Not a rough-and-tumble fight
exactly, but a very decided difference of opinion :
the Observing One wanted to travel by water,
the Gentle One preferred rail. As they had planned to travel
together the outlook was ominous.
44 1 want one more real long journey in a steam-car, I I
do ! " cried the Gentle One, who retained many of the expres-
sions of her childhood.
"H'm! journey in a stuffy old steam car in the middle
of summer, and such a summer! I must say I admire your
taste." The Observing One was cool so far, though the mer-
cury stood in the nineties.
" I want to go in a steam-car," persisted the Gentle One.
" Oh ! but, dear, think of the beautiful journey by water;
think of moonlight on the Hudson, and sunlight and shadow
on Lake George, and the blue, blue waves of Lake Cham-
plain ! and and "
" I want to go in a steam-car," said the Gentle One. The
Gentle One was also an admirer of Nature, but she wanted to
go in a "steam car" that was all. So they went in a "steam-
car," the Gentle One and the One who didn't feel very gentle
just then, and they had steam within and without and on all
sides for ten long and weary hours ; for even the most enthu-
siastic lover of scenery from a car window finds his enthusiasm
oozing and dribbling away when the thermometer stands
nearly 100 in the shade.
"Isn't it lovely travelling in a 'steam-car'?" observed the
Observing One. It was 12 M., and the Hudson, sparkling and
glancing in the morning sunlight, had dwindled into a narrow
stream, its western banks disfigured by hideous and constantly
recurring ice-houses. To be sure out of the misty heat rose
memories of the romantic, shadow-haunted Highlands, the soft
blue haze of the distant Catskills, the calm, broad bosom of
the most beautiful of rivers. But now all that was past, as
1900.] A FORTNIGHT AT CLIPF HAVEN. 255
on they swept through pastoral scenes of no peculiar signifi-
cance, except for the cows and the heat -always the heat.
There was a flying glimpse of Albany, a vision of her glorious
Capitol, and then Troy, and shirt factories, and cows, cows,
cows ! The inhabitants of these regions should be of very
placid temperaments if they imbibe the milk of all the bovines
that decorate the fields about. . . . Saratoga! and ten
minutes respite from the awful heat, for there was a breeze
there.
And then the Gentle One said : " I wish we had gone in a
boat."
Whereupon her companion, being feminine and human, did
not refrain from saying, " I told you so ! "
But the temperature was now almost forgotten in the gran-
deur of the mountainous region through which they were fly-
ing. It was like getting into the Michael Angelo corner of
the Metropolitan Museum only more so, much more so.
There was the same feeling of exaltation and overpowering
awe ; the same in kind, only greater in degree, for between the
mighty Adirondacks on the one side, the ever-broadening ex-
panse of Lake upon the other, and beyond that again the
delicate outlines of the Green Mountains, all petty annoyances
were buried and forgotten.
The last beams of the setting sun were gilding the pretty
little Bluff Point (Cliff Haven) station as the train drew in. In
its wondrous gold and crimson rays were outlined two familiar
figures, M and N , who had come to meet the tra-
vellers.
A short drive through the beautiful Assembly grounds, and
travellers and friends and travelling bags, all found them-
selves deposited, one promiscuous and laughing heap, upon the
wide veranda of the B Cottage. Heat and dust and weari-
ness were speedily forgotten, and a most welcome supper
thoroughly enjoyed. Already the Adirondack air, charged
with all the buoyancy and lightness of a mental elixir, was
asserting its magical charm.
The Auditorium at the evening lecture is usually the ren-
dezvous for the entire School. The lecture itself this evening
being on French Art, illustrated by stereopticon views, proved
not beyond the mental capacities of two people who had
travelled ten hours in a " steam-car " during one of the hottest
days on record. It was the last of the course, and most en-
256 A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. [Nov.,
joyable. Many old friends unexpectedly encountered added to
the pleasures of the evening. A little while at the Boston
musicale, and then welcome bed ; sleep rendered possible, for
the first night in weeks, by delicious whiffs of cool air from
the Lake, as it lay placid and gracious beneath the soft light
of a full moon.
The Gentle One said she was glad she had come even in
a " steam car "; every bDdy seemed to know her and like her;
it was so "homey."
Sunshine glorious and golden lay like a benediction upon
Cliff Haven, its magic Lake and its mountainous environs,
next morning. Yet the air was not overwarm, being tempered
by the cool breezes sweeping down from the mountains and
across the broad bosom of the waters. It being Saturday,
there were no lectures scheduled, but it soon became very ob-
servant to the Observing One, or any one else who cared to
observe, that there was a favorite lecturer to be " seen off."
"Oh, he is just 'gorgeous'!" enthused the gushing girl
from the Curtis-Pine.
" He has a wonderful mind," remarked Miss Philadelphia,
with calm and reproving dignity. Both and all agreed that his
lectures had been among the most attractive of the season. It
fell to the fortune of the Observing One to catch a glimpse
of his tall figure as he presently scurried past on the " dead
(American) run " for his train. She could n't help wondering
(rather disrespectfully, but he 's big enough to forgive it) if
he ever ran faster on a certain base ball team, in college days
of yore. She was glad she had seen him, for he is the author
of some fine books in the domain of theology. It was easy to
account for the dictum of Miss Philadelphia.
The air was full of echoes of what had been, as well as an-
ticipation of what was to come. Strange to say, considering
the abstruseness of the subject, certain Biological expositions
(or their expositor) seemed to have captured at one fell swoop
all hearts as well as all heads, while " Constantine the Great "
had been treated in a manner unique as well as scholarly.
Two or three learned doctors of philosophy from the Catho
lie University seemed likewise to have left especially pleasant
and profitable memories behind, while the conductors of the
Shakspere and Dante courses, still fortunately going on, had
so far won golden opinions. A cursory glance over the Sylla-
bus showed, in glaring black and white, all that had been
missed by people who waited for the height of the season be-
1 900.] A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. 257
fore hieing hither. " Early Writers of English Comedy,"
" Music : Its Nature and Influence," "Ireland's Poetry," "Catho
lie Education in New York," "Care of the Indians," "Growth
of the Navy," "Biology," " Constantine the Great," "The
Study of Language," " The Field of Economic Study,"
"Philosophy of Theism," " Italian and French Art" all, all
had been and now were no more. However, there was much
yet to be ; the coming fortnight promised its own attractions,
both along intellectual and social lines.
A saunter to the combination P. O. and country store
brought back vividly some memories of days that had gone ;
for among the little heaps of attractive-looking books for sale
upon the counters, books by such Catholic writers as the late
and always to be lamented Brother Azarias, Orestes Brownson,
Christian Reid, Rev. John Talbot Smith, Maurice Francis Egan,
Miss Tincker, Walter Lecky, the author of My New Curate',
Father Mullany and others, were encountered a few volumes
by that gifted soul, that large-hearted, courtly gentleman,
Richard Malcolm Johnson. Gently handling the volumes, it
was easy to hear again in memory that voice now stilled in
death, to see again that tall figure, bent somewhat by age, to
recall every detail of his personality, dignified, courteous, and
kindly, a gentleman of the old school in every sense of the
word, whose silvery hairs were well-nigh belied by eyes and
voice of joyous youthfulness. That, however, and other fasci-
nating memories, belonged to the days of the Summer-School's
infancy. The child had indeed grown since then in wit and
wisdom, in grace and beauty too perhaps, but hardly beyond
the charm of those early days, when everybody knew every-
body else in a sense not quite possible now.
" One of the natural conditions of growth," said N , to
whom some of these thoughts were expressed. " We are all
of one family still, but there are at least five hundred of us on
the grounds now."
" But you indeed seem to be acquainted with the entire five
hundred," observed the Observing One ; " you bowed to and
greeted everybody we met this morning, and we must have al-
ready encountered at least a couple of hundred."
" One of the unwritten laws of Cliff Haven," was N 's
pleasant explanation ; " every one is supposed to recognize
every one else without the formality of an introduction ; that
they are here is hall-mark enough."
This was delightful, Arcadian, Utopian, and quite indigen-
vou LXXII. 17
258 A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. [Nov.,
ous to the soil. Put in practice upon Broadway, Manhattan, it
might indeed eventually lead one to the police station or the
mad-house. Alas! life cannot all the year be an idyl. . . .
" Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
! Old time is still a-flying ;
The flower that bloomed but yesterday
To-morrow may be dying!"
So sang A , merrily dancing up, a vivid figure in her
crimson gown and wealth of chestnut hair. A comes from
Boston, but she quite upsets the Bostonese preconceived idea
of gravity of demeanor. She is all enthusiasm and joyousness,
with a deep, a very deep, substratum of earnestness beneath.
The particular roses which A wished to gather that morn-
ing grew in the pine grove down by the Lake, a delicious re-
treat, cool and leafy, pungent with the balsamy odor of the
pine, glorified by its outlook over beautiful Champlain, and far
to the mountains beyond.
" You must not, you verily must not miss the pine grove on
such a morning," cried A - with decision; "it is a place to
see visions and dream dreams."
"And to meet one's friends of both 'persuasions,'" put in
M - slyly. M - is " just horrid " sometimes. But A 's
Bostonese sense of decorum saved her from comprehending so
entirely frivolous a remark.
As it turned out, the grove was a place to meet one's
friends of all and every " persuasion " : old friends as well as
new ones ; learned and reverend lecturers as light-hearted and
gay, when off duty, as school-boys on a holiday ; men and
maidens, young, old, and of age uncertain ; here and there a
matron of gracious and dignified presence ; a sprinkling of
children noticeable among them " Little Fanny, the Sunshine
of the Brooklyn," and one brown dog. Canines seemed to be
at a premium; not so felines; they attend lectures on oc-
casions, as Mr. Henry Austin Adams can testify.
A concert of unusual excellence all home talent was
given in the Auditorium that evening in aid of the chapel fund,
and netted a goodly sum for this object so dear to the heart
of the President of the School. Is it not that poetic soul
Sidney Lanier who has defined music as " love in search of a
word"? As the dulcet waves of melody swept through the
house that evening it really seemed that Catholic loyalty and
love could have chosen no more fitting means of expressing
A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. 259
the sentiment which filled all hearts present : the desire to aid in
enlarging and beautifying that dear little chapel, so appropriate-
ly dedicated to " Our Lady of the Lake." Here morning after
morning, in the height of the season, as many as five-and-
twenty Masses are celebrated at the five altars, betokening the
very evident and active interest taken by the clergy in one
of the most important Catholic intellectual and social move-
ments of modern times. Daily attendance at Mass on the
part of the laity is also as edifying as it is general. Who in-
deed but a heathen could absent himself in such an atmosphere
of Catholicity ? It is this atmosphere Catholic to the core
which constitutes perhaps one of the chief charms of the
Champlain Assembly. Here indeed is met and fulfilled that
long-standing social need of the Catholic laity in a non-Catho-
lic country. Nowhere else have the members of a common
faith such an opportunity to meet on a basis of intellectual
equality. No aristocracy is recognized ; all are " in the
swim."
Visitors from such Catholic centres as New York, Philadel-
phia, or Boston do not, perhaps, realize what a "rest-cure" in
this respect Cliff Haven offers to those from Western or
Southern cities, or even the more narrowly provincial of the
Eastern towns. The tension is removed ; one does not, as it
were, unconsciously arm one's self at every turn; one is not
tempted to minimize, even though it be ever so little, one's
glorious heritage of Catholicity. Here, in a word, may be en-
joyed " that bright life of the spirit which belongs to those
who dwell in the ages and regions of faith." Vive! Catholic
Summer-Schools, if but for this, and this alone. . . .
An unexpected cold wave made the air clear and brilliant,
though nipping, next morning. In the course of breakfast at
the restaurant a characteristic incident excited the broadest of
smiles to put it mildly. The new-comers found themselves at
table in the vicinity of three long tables decorated exclusively
with boys, " college youths " of varying ages. These animated
decorations were enjoying themselves, oh ! immensely, "guying "
(to use boy phraseology) the pretty waitresses who were
good-naturedly endeavoring to supply their numerous wants
the latter, for the most part, bewilderingly expressed in the
vernacular of the day. Of a sudden
" Cheese it, fellows ! the boss ! "
Silence utter and profound had descended like a flash, as
" dignifiedly " threading his way through a maze of tables, the
260 A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. [Nov.,
while taking in, and then throwing off as it were at a glance,
all mere mundane things, " the boss " advanced. Seated at the
head of one of the long tables, the dignified countenance ex-
panded into a genial morning smile, whereupon fifty other
countenances relievedly beamed in sympathy. But such demure
beams! in comparison the lady of "prunes prism" fame
" was n't in it " for one moment.
" I 've been watching this performance every morning," said
M ; " it 's great fun. They 're the boys from the Camp,
you know ; and although they ' swear by ' Father S , they
live in wholesome awe of his decorous sense of table eti-
quette."
It was during High Mass that Sunday morning that, in the
sermon of the day, the first intellectual treat of the week was
enjoyed. Literary beauty of language and charm of delivery,
both most evidently inspired by genuine feeling, brought home
the lesson of a beautiful text. A quartet choir of quite un-
usual excellence furnished the music of the Mass.
A long afternoon was pleasantly spent in wandering through
the woods, sauntering along the " singing sands," idling upon
the rocks gently lapped by the blue waves of the Lake, dream-
ing dreams and feeling one's spirit sensibly expand beneath an
expanse of turquoise sky which the valley of Champlain, and
only the valley of Champlain, can boast. Except upon the
trackless prairie there is, perhaps, in the country no greater
sweep of sky than that which, from mountain range to moun-
tain range, circles o'er these flashing waters. It is as if mere
time and earthly space were set aside and infinity before one.
An entertainment, musical and literary, at the " New York "
that evening was honored by the presence of two Right Rev-
erend Bishops. These very genial gentlemen not only at-
tended, but under the influence of a wager unaffectedly con-
tributed each his share to the pleasures of the occasion.
" I dare you to sing a song," said the fun-loving Bishop
from the wilds of Virginia to his colleague from little Dela-
ware.
" I will if you ' speak a piece,' " was the quick and laugh-
ing retort.
" Done ! it 's a bargain."
To the confusion of Monseigneur Delaware, who forgot he
was daring some one as good as an Irishman, he unexpectedly
found himself in the predicament of the bird who if he can't
sing must be made to sing. It was " do or die," and Mon-
1900.] A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. 261
seigneur bravely " did," leading off in a sweet tenor with a
semi-comic, semi-serious college song, in the chorus of which
the whole company spontaneously joined.
Then did Monseigneur of Virginia honorably fulfil his part
of the bargain, " bringing down the house " with witty and
humorous descriptions of the wild and mountainous region over
which he " had the honor to administer." There was a bit of
pathos, too, here and there under that laughter-moving tale,
for the Bishop of a Southern or far Western diocese exempli-
fies in his life more than a taste of the genuine missionary's
experience.
Next morning, alas ! opened with a downright pour a cold,
miserable, midsummer Adirondack storm. To be quite honest,
the Observing One didn't enjoy herself at all that morning,
or even the next. She found the " main lecture " of the day
on both these occasions very tiresome. It was pleasant, how-
ever, to observe that the warm and ready sympathy of a Cliff
Haven audience is not dampened by rain ; it is an audience
keenly, intellectually critical, yet responsive and kindly withal.
That evening, during a reproduction of the Passion Play in
motion pictures, a magnificent tenor, interspersing the pictured
scenes with arias appropriate to the theme, was received with
enthusiasm overpowering enough to literally almost take the
roof off the Auditorium.
It was during the course of that rainy day, just indeed
when the down-pour was at its height, that Miss D , from
Washington, arrived : Miss D , vivid and joyous as a day in
spring, and with no patience at all for anybody confessing to
the " blues." In Miss D 's eyes everything was couleur de
rose.
" My dear, I am ashamed of you ! You you of all people
down in the dumps ! I can't understand it. And don't apolo-
gize for anything; this kitchen is just the dearest thing on
earth ! "
It was certainly the warmest (on Cliff Haven earth) at that
moment, and gathered round a roaring fire sat a shivering cir-
cle, who did n't care if it was the kitchen so long as they were
warm.
" We we only came in here for a few moments," explained
somebody apologetically. " We don't always sit in the kitchen,
you know ; we forgot our rubbers."
"And so did I," announced the distinguished new-comer;
" therefore am I one of you." And down she sat, toasting her
262 A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAYEK. [Nov.,
toes with most genuine delight. In the animation of that
voice and manner cold and wet were soon forgotten.
"Trinity College" was talked by Miss D on Wednesday
morning to a large and attentive audience, who had assembled
to receive and do honor to this favorite author. This meet-
ing with our authors and litterateurs in the flesh has always
been a more or less pleasant feature of the Summer-School
since the session of 1892, when, at New London, under the
auspices of Rev. Thomas McMillan, and at the home of George
Parsons, and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, the first reception to
Catholic authors was held. Many have attended the various
sessions, among whom we might recall Brother Azarias, Richard
Malcolm Johnson, Sara Trainer Smith all three since deceased
Maurice Francis Egan, Rev. H. J. Heuser, Rev. Hugh T.
Henry, Katherine E. Conway, Mrs. Blake, Rev. Talbot Smith,
Margaret M. Halvey, Rev. J. F. X. O'Conor, S.J., the emi-
nent astronomer Father Searle, C.S.P., Rev. William Living-
ston, Henry Austin Adams, Rev. J. T. Driscoll, Rev. Morgan
M. Sheedy, Rev. F. P. Siegfried, Mr. Horgan, art editor of the
New York Tribune, and several others. And it has even been
known oh ! wonderful fact that authors and publishers, else-
where not always on the best of terms, here meet and indulge
in little love-feasts. O gracious Summer-School ! to so shed
abroad thy benign influence.
Wide and varied indeed are the subjects touched upon at
Cliff Haven. Within one short week that burning question,
" Higher Education for Women," along Catholic lines, so ably
pleaded for by Miss D ; the Catholic Social Settlement
work, explained by the Rev. Director of St. Rose's Settle-
ment, New York, and a Conference on Sunday-school work,
ably presided over by Mrs. Burke, found place upon the pro-
gramme. The Sunday-School Conference was of most vivid
and vital interest, being contributed to by men and women
who were making this spiritual work of mercy an important
part of their life-work. Clergy and laity, young and old,
brought to the meetings rich experiences garnered through
many an hour of self-sacrifice, and recorded with simple unos-
tentation. Edifying and most moving was the account given
of the work being done by the "Camillus Society" at Dun-
woodie, an association of young seminarians who voluntarily
pledge themselves to devote their holidays to the comfort and
instruction of the inmates of prisons, asylums, and hospitals.
God bless such a work ! Could it be generally known it would
IQOO.] A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. 263
be an inspiration to thousands. This zeal, brilliancy, and
earnestness of our Catholic clergy, young and old, is a feature
which cannot fail to strike even the most casual observer, and
augurs brightest prospects for the future of the Church in
America.
And not far behind the clergy would seem to be those
prime workers in every uplifting movement the women: "the
ladies, God bless them ! " It was, in fact, wholly through the
efforts of the Alumnae Auxiliary, an association comprising
among its officers and members many of the most gifted and
intellectual women of the East, that the magnificently con-
ducted Shakspere and Dante courses were inaugurated. Dur-
ing this fortnight the scholarly and poetic insight of Dr. D
illumined the heights of the " Paradiso," while to the accom-
plished Dean from Long Island fell the task of elucidating the
wondrous lights and shades of the master mind of all the ages.
A cross between lecture and entertainment were Mr.
K 5 s wonderful experiments with compressed air, while
Father G and Mr. A , old favorites drew crowded
audiences morning and evening, respectively. Under the
learned Jesuit's inimitable method of treatment, " Mental and
Moral Pathology " proved a subject fascinating beyond words,
while " The Novel " in the hands and manner of Mr. A re-
flected more of brilliancy and wit than invariably graces the
writers of the same.
On the score of entertainments, New York, Brooklyn, Bos-
ton (dignifiedly), Philadelphia (calmly and perhaps a bit exclu-
sively), Rochester, The Healy, The Curtis-Pine (an authority
on style), and The Club vie with one another in attractive-
ness, though it has been whispered that when Father S
honors the School with an invitation to a Camp Fire Club
and Cottages one and all hide their diminished heads. Whether
'tis so or not, there is a wonderful fascination about a Camp-
Fire gathering in the heart of the Adirondack region. Familiar
faces and figures are thrown into strong relief by the dancing
flames. Here the shifting light plays upon the benevolent
countenance and silvery head of the Rev. Treasurer ; there it
outlines clearly the personality of the mild-mannered Secretary
(at heart a very Ozanam of loyalty and zeal) ; now it circles
about a figure known and loved of all the School one of the
prime movers in all its most important affairs the Rev. Chair-
man of the Board of Studies. Songs are sung, stories are told,
and the evening has gone all too soon.
264 A FORTNIGHT AT CLIFF HAVEN. [Nov.
What with boating and bathing, golfing and running field
sports of every kind ; with trips to Ausable, Burlington, Cum-
berland Head, Montreal, or Saranac, the days as well as the
nights fly upon the wings of Mercury. So indeed it seemed
to the two who all too regretfully saw their fortnight drawing
to an end. Already the air was full of rumors of what another
seasonwoiald bring forth. Six new lots had found purchasers
in as mSn-y days ; Buffalo in the van, with plans for a magnifi-
cent cottage. A cottage to be exclusively reserved for priests
promises to be another and unique feature. Four more build-
ings by private individuals complete the list, while the " Cliff
Haven Yacht Club," long a dream, will shortly become a reality.
That the Catholic Summer-School has evidently come to
stay, all the world can now see ; that it is as yet perfect, even
its most ardent admirers do not quite claim ; that it has im-
mense possibilities of growth, only the wilfully, woefully blind
can fail to perceive. In years it is as yet but a child though
a wonderful child and has no doubt some of the faults inci-
dental to every young thing. This is its morning of life.
With added years will surely come " higher joys, deeper in-
sights and relationships " ; but in the eyes of those who have
tenderly fostered the child and watched it grow from its birth,
but nine short years ago, these are the days around which a
magical charm lingers the " charm which touches all things
and turns them to gold." Truly " the morning of life comes
but once, and when it fades something goes which never re-
turns." It is perhaps this joyous, indefinable "something"
which adds so much to the present charm of Cliff Haven.
The child has such sweet and winsome ways, it is impossible
to resist her; for once beguiled by her mischievous smile, one
is her slave or gallant knight for ever !
A DEPARTED FRIEND.*
OD be with you, my beloved,
Wheresoe'er you go !
Through the Valley of the Shadow
You have gone, I know.
By death waters, dark and deep,
Ah ! how tranquilly you sleep.
God be with you, my beloved !
Was it like a star
That your soul flashed from your body
Unto realms afar,
Beyond night and time and space,
To the Vision of God's Face ?
God be with you, my beloved !
Was it o'er your bed
You saw Jesus one swift minute ;
Then He vanished,
And in patient pain you wait
For the opening of Heav'n's gate?
Paradise or Purgatory,
Which is yours to-day ?
Ah ! one bliss your sweet soul knoweth,
None can take away.
You are calm, and glad, and still,
In the doing of God's will.
* To the dear memory of Fanny Gushing Parker, sister of the late General Charles P.
Stone, U. S. A., both converts to the Faith.
266
Cambridge,
To A DEPARTED FRIEND. [Nov.
Paradise or Purgatory,
Perfect peace is yours.
Neither sin nor fear of sinning
Darkeneth your doors,
Where, within a quiet room,
You have welcome found, and home.
Paradise or Purgatory ?
Wheresoe'er you be,
Never more you know that anguish
Life's deep mystery,
Never more you feel that cross,
Fear of sin and fear of loss.
God be with you, my beloved !
Though my tears fall fast
While I say my rosary for you,
Peace is mine, at last.
He keeps watch twixt you and me,
Howe'er long our parting be.
Paradise or Purgatory ?
God knows where you are ;
And your soul is in His keeping,
Whether near or far.
Unto truer Love than mine
My beloved I resign.
SUSAN L. EMERY.
THE author of Arden Massiter* who is a priest,
could have permitted his rank to appear on the
title-page of Arden Massiter without fear of ad-
verse criticism. It used to be regarded as infra
dig. for priests to write novels ; and those clergy-
men of the Established Church in England who tried this kind
of literature were looked upon as free lances are in the warfare
of political parties. There is a change and, perhaps, for the
better of opinion in this respect since Fabiola and Callista,
exceptional in subject and treatment, set an example which
was sure not to be followed slavishly.
Arden Massiter, if examined as a novel, will hardly be
found to conform to the rules of that species of composition,
as we gather them from the practice of the most successful
writers ; yet we regard it as a distinguished success. There is
nothing of a story ; events of an interesting, adventurous, and
startling character, arising out of the social and political con-
ditions of Italian life, involve Arden Massiter, the hero, in diffi-
culties. The other characters are more directly concerned in
the action of lawless elements plotting against and plotting
with the new order than he is, and some one or two, moved
by passionate feelings of shame and indignation at the ruin of
their country, are disposed to head a reactionary movement.
Politically Massiter's sympathies are with the latter, and he
would be prepared to throw himself ardently into their cause ;
but Dr. Barry binds him in the net of Italian conspiracy and
paralyzes him. Instead of being a great influence in a reac-
tionary movement, he is engaged all the time in extricating
his friends of the reactionary party from the meshes of an
able conspirator, who is at the head of more than one revolu-
tionary society, while pretending to be ready to throw his
talents and power in with the restorers of the old order, and
* Arden Massiter. By Dr. William Barry. New York : The Century Co.
268 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
while preparing to reap a rich harvest by selling all parties to
the government.
The style is admirable. The description of Roccaforte
seems to be drawn from direct personal inspection, or at least
the account of one who had examined the awful old castle with
minute and intelligent care and repeated the result. The walls
live in their suggestiveness. The galleries, chambers, stairs, the
winding and difficult road up to the outer gate, over which the
motto Sangue lave Sangue warns from the high arch all of
them more than hint dark tales of the past when we learn what
a fierce race ruled there. We have not enjoyed for many a
day a higher pleasure of the taste and memory than that roused
by Dr. Barry's book.
America's Economic Supremacy is a collection of essays by
Mr. Brook Adams. They are on different subjects, and it is
only when one looks through them that he discovers a connec-
tion of aim in the series. For instance, it would be hard to
suspect the existence of any relation between the article on
the Spanish-American War and the one entitled " Natural Se-
lection in Literature," but they approach each other through
"The New Struggle for Life among the Nations," "England's
Decadence in the West Indies," "The Decay of England";
for in fact the article on selection in literature is avowedly
presented as an illustration of recent changes in the charac-
ter of the English people. However, there is a good deal
that is suggestive in the inferences, even though many of
these are too wide, and we may add that the statistics are
valuable.
The Beauty of Christian Dogma* is a suggestive book, dealing
with a subject surprisingly unusual, the " application of the rules
of aesthetics to Christian Dogma, and the demonstration of how
and in what sense the truths the church teaches are beautiful."
The declaration of such a purpose immediately opens up a line
of thought that might run on indefinitely, and arouses a ques-
tion in the mind as to how the author can have treated a
truth that all Christians have felt, and many have incidentally
expressed, though few have ever made the professed subject
of a treatise viz., the association of sentiment with doctrine in
religion.
* The Beauty of Christian Do%ma. By the Rev. Jules Souben. New York ; Benziger
Brothers.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 269
Such an essay as this, then, cannot but be fruitful of good.
Nowadays especially we are accustomed to hear the author's
thesis denied. Dogma is in disrepute among a multitude of
shallow thinkers, and one of the chief objections they make is
that positive dogmatic definition is narrowing in its effect on
the soul, unfavorable to the growth of religious sentiment in
the heart. " Wide views " of Christianity are in vogue, and
that sect and teaching are most lauded which are most "liberal"
and "tolerant." Yet here is a little volume, well conceived and
executed, showing that all that is beautiful and spiritually en-
couraging in Christianity comes naturally from precision and
accuracy in dogmatic teaching. By way of preface, the author
rests his reflections on the basis of the necessary connection
between truth and beauty as laid down first by Plato, and then
acknowledged and enlarged upon by all philosophers, notably
by the scholastics. Fortunately this rather philosophical cast
of thought is not continued ; it is given only as a basis ; the
various essays that compose the volume consider the spiritual
influence of the various fundamental doctrines of the church,
God, The Trinity, The Incarnation, The Sacraments, etc., upon
the soul of the believing Christian. Many apt and beautiful quo-
tations are given, and in general the author has succeeded
remarkably well in his stated purpose. We would call atten-
tion especially to one feature of the book, the quotations from
the Sacred Scriptures, placed in such connection and form as to
draw attention to their beauty. We could wish that some such
indication as this might be the means of sending many souls
to the holy books, if only to find in them poetic beauty, for
this would effectually provide an introduction to the too much
neglected spiritual stimulation of the written Word of God.
That Father Tyrrell's most recent volume * has gone into a
new edition is a fact both pleasing and significant. It gives
us an indication of the great good that is being accomplished
by its circulation, and it proves that our people do appreciate
fine work. Rarely have a brief set of conferences contained
the germs of so much healthy thinking as in the case of these
clear and splendid presentations of the eternal principles of
real religion. Buy it and think it over.
Not only is the writer a trained thinker ; he is a spiritual-
minded man of high degree. And further, he is a stylist of no
* External Religion: Its Use and Abuse. By George Tyrrell, S.J. Second edition. St.
Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.
270 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
mean merit. The beautiful clothing of his wholesome thought
is the proper dress to recommend it to those whom the author
wishes to reach the intelligent souls of his generation who are
looking for instruction on the eternal principles that rule man's
relationship with God.
; A Day in the Cloister* is one of the most recent results of
the present literary activity among the English Benedictines.
The writer, with characteristic Benedictine kindness and hospi-
tality, introduces his imaginary guests within the cloister of a
typical monastery, and conducts them through every depart-
ment of one of those famous religious establishments, explain-
ing everything about the monastic life and those who pursue
it. Incidentally the author treats his readers to a little con-
ference on some of the many phases of community life, always
with a delicious interest and attractiveness.
There is an atmosphere of ripe tradition about everything
Benedictine. The life of religious peace planned and com-
menced by " the spiritual father of Europe " far back, almost
in the beginnings of Christian times, smacks necessarily of rich
Catholic antiquity ; it recalls the power of pure Christian charity
for regenerating human life, it speaks particularly of the
beauty of true Christian sentiment, it boasts of triumphs no less
in art, in architecture, in music, in industry, in civilization, than
in religion and sanctity. Rich with the religious and artistic
endowments of the centuries, it has attracted the attention and
love of lofty souls and world-sick hearts, and having drawn
them, it has held them and sustained them with the pure,
simple religion of Christ as it has been handed down within the
cloister.
A visitor to a monastery, it would seem, must of a necessity
live in the past ; but if this excellent little work is, as its editor
claims, "a plain and unvarnished description of life in a
modern monastery," the past lives again, and one of the chief
reminders and exponents of the strength and beauty of Chris-
tianity, the monastic life, is in no danger of being absorbed in
the rush and worry of contemporary worldliness.
In Let there be Light-\ we have the story of a club of work-
ingmen, of exceptional ability and information, whose object is
* A Day in the Cloister. Adapted from the German of Dom Sebastian Von Oer, O.S.B.,
by Dom Bede Camm, O.S.B. St. Louis : B. Herder.
t Let there be Light. By David Lubin. New York : G. P. Putnajn's Sons.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 271
to cure the evils of society. The number is very few ; some
one or two have no moral or religious opinions of any kind,
but they pin their faith to the conclusions of advanced social-
ism and attach an equal value to the discoveries, hypotheses,
guesses, and unverified hints of science men. The principal
leading religious bodies of America are represented an enthu-
siastic and uninstructed Italian standing for the profound and
laboriously built theology of the church. The number of such
creeds in the field is four : the Baptist, whose champion is a
negro; the Jewish, answered for by the president, as philo-
sophical as Philo ; the Presbyterian, by an Irish Orangeman
named Moore ; and the Church, by the eloquent and ignorant
Italian.
They discover the power to reform society in a new reli-
gion called the Church Universal. Though one of the objec-
tions to the old forms of worship was the remoteness and life-
lessness of the ceremonial, they introduce a ritual in scientific
travesty of that of the Church and that of the Jewish dispensation.
This, which is done for the purpose of attaining simplicity by
bringing the mind of the worshipper in close communion with
the ceremonial, is accomplished by a process more difficult to
understand than the esoteric meaning supposed to be hidden in
Egyptian or Assyrian rites, or any of the ancient worships from
Babylon to Rome in which there was supposed to be folded up a
sense from which the outside world of believers was excluded.
The geological tiers of the new church suggest a protest against
the cosmogony of Genesis. " The heavenly bodies " to be seen
through a glass dome, is like a provision to meet the Bible for
regarding the worship of " the host of Heaven " as a conse-
quence of man's fall to a lower depth through the government
of the senses. The attacks on the Catholic Church by the dif-
ferent speakers so feebly answered by the irrelevancies of the
Italian for her idolatry as the cause of social crimes, could be
well retorted on themselves ; for in their unidolatrous new tem-
ple it is intended that orreries are to be so arranged " as to
be in view in front of the worshippers." " The altar," he directs,
shall " be quite large," " the size of a stage " a measure about
as definite as the Yorkshireman's "size of a bit of wood.''
Then other specifications are given which remind us of the
ceremonial of secret societies that make war on the etiquette
of courts, but which are far more elaborate in their own pro-
ceedings than any court. The profanity would be shocking if
it were not childish ; and yet we are quite ready to acquit the
272 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
writer of any intention to offend us. We shall conclude by
saying that we are informed Mr. Lubin is a Jew. When he
makes -the Jew Ezra victorious in all the debates we are re-
minded of the apologue of the man, the lion, and the piece of
sculpture. To his arguments for the rising of the masses against
the existing order we retort the fable of the Belly and the Mem-
bers, and to his hope in the union of international interests we
rejoin the practical differences exemplified in the story of the
besieged town. There is but one way in which the races of
the world can be brought into harmony, one way in which the
interests of rich and poor can be reconciled. Mr. Lubin has
not found the road to either. The prospect of the first seems
no nearer despite the conference at The Hague when we recol-
lect the recent instance of a war falling within one or more of
its resolutions. The prospect of the second seems as remote as
ever when we find the nations of the world looking to distant
regions in which to shoot their excessive production, instead of
adjusting the scale of production with regard to consumption
at home. We are not afraid this remark may be thought a de-
nial of the relation of supply and demand ; for, whatever value
there may be in the principle under normal conditions, the
compulsory acquisition of a market for excessive production is
not the observance of an economic law, but the commission of
a national crime.
The solution of the two problems will not be effected by
Mr. Lubin's scheme of a " Church Universal," but in world-
wide obedience to the Church of Christ. For this consumma-
tion we must wait with hope.
* The Flowing Tide* by Mme. Belloc, is an extremely in-
teresting book, in which the author gives what she herself calls
a record of the " Catholic impact upon English life during the
century which is just expiring." If there is any subject of
universal interest to the Catholic reading public, it is the story
of the revival of the true faith in England. The present book
is not a comprehensive account nor a philosophical study of
this revival, but rather a small sketch built up around per-
sonal recollections. The general effect is rendered very pleas-
ing by the reminiscent tone which runs through nearly every
chapter, making the style lively and attractive. A glance at
the table of contents reveals a list of important and interest-
ing subjects, some of which, however, would appeal to the
* The Flowing Tide. By Mme. Belloc. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.
1 9oo.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 273
reader as having very little bearing on the English Revival ;
a careful reading of the entire book, though, will show that
while there is some room for objection on this score, the plan
is on the whole substantially consistent. It must be confessed
that the chapter on the Irish in America is very weak. In
general the book contains much valuable information on its
subject, imparted in an effective manner, and inspiring its
reader to a more thorough study of a question of world-wide
importance.
The Council of Trent teaches that Holy Mass forgives us
our daily faults. " He left to the church a sacrifice by which
is represented the sacrifice of the cross ... to apply to
us its salutary virtue in remitting the sins which we daily
commit." This remission is not limited to the forgiveness of
venial sins, for the Council adds : " By the oblation of this
[sacrifice] God being appeased, and granting grace and the
gift of penance, blots out transgressions and even great
crimes, provided that with sincere heart and right faith we
approach penitently to God." St. Alphonsus explains this
teaching of the Council as to the power given by God to the
Holy Sacrifice to remit sins that it is not direct, such as is
the remission accorded in the sacrament of Penance, but indi-
rect by exciting true contrition in the hearts especially of
those who hear Mass with attrition ; and that it involves, of
course, the submission of all sins to the power of the keys.
The more frequently, therefore, the faithful hear Mass the
better, and the more methods placed at their disposal in which
to hear it, the more is it likely that they will avail themselves
of thit privilege. Father Kennedy has given in this little
book* a method of hearing Mass which many will find useful.
It is full of devotion, based on the idea that Holy Mass is the
one survival on earth of what constituted the happiness of
our first parents before they fell, and the foretaste of what
constitutes the happiness of heaven the walking of God with
man and of man with God. With this underlying idea the
author gives a running commentary on the Ordinary of the
Mass.
We cannot quite concur with the author when he says
(p. 52) that had not our Lord Jesus Christ taught us to say
our Father, it would not only be the utmost hardihood but
* Holy Mass : A Morning Paradise. By the Very Rev. R. O. Kennedy. Notre Dame,
Ind.: The Ave Maria.
VOL. LXXII. 18
274 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
the wildest lunacy or most audacious presumption so to ad-
dress God in heaven. On the contrary, we think that the
natural light left man ought to have shown God to him as
analogically the father and benefactor of all ; and that at all
events the Jews of old, David and the prophets, knew Him as
such. " Blessed art Thou, O Lord the God of Israel, our
Father from eternity to eternity," David said to all the assem-
bly of the children of Israel (I. Par. xxix. 10). "The son
honoreth the father, and the servant his master : if then I be
a Father, where is My honor ? and if I be a master, where is
My fear ? saith the Lord of hosts," are the words of the last
of the prophets (Mai. i. 6).
The rather queer story of The Gateless Barrier* is written
with very decided ability ; and owing to the sharp discrimina-
tion of character it has an interest not depending on a plot.
So much the better, for there is not even the faintest attempt
at one. Old Rivers, a rationalist of a cynical kind, with a ten-
dency to the investigation of "phenomena " of the border land
between this and the other world, as one would examine ap-
pearances in this one with a view to the discovery of a law,
is a clever study. We think it possible there are men like
this Mr. Rivers who, while refusing to accept anything not
verified as a fact of experience, would be prepared to hear all
that might be said concerning an alleged preternatural phe-
nomenon, and probe it to the bottom regardless of conse-
quences to accepted views concerning such subjects. He is a
strong character with insatiable intellectual curiosity. This
impels him, even at the point of death, to insist that his
nephew should investigate the facts connected with a singular
apparition said to haunt a disused room and a pleasure-ground
on which its windows look. He does not like to die without
knowing the truth of the matter. The results reported by the
nephew are contemptuously criticised as involving puerilities of
transmitted consciousness or, as he prefers to call it, multifold
identity and a postulate of reincarnation. With an urbanity
more exasperating than abuse, he employs his nephew's ser-
vices for the task which he regrets may take some time ; since
neither himself nor the physicians who amiably expended their
limited and somewhat empirical skill upon him could fix the
date at which his disease should prove fatal. The work is very
clever and can be honestly recommended.
* The Gateless Barrier. By Lucas Malet. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
i goo.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 275
From the Land of the Shamrock* by Jane Barlow, is a
series of sketches of Irish life by one who knows the land
and people. " In the Winding Walk " there is the impress of
the sad truth that war is not altogether " the pomp and cir-
cumstance " which glorified it in Othello's mind when all was
gone that for him had made life worth living. The sketch is
very amusing despite the shadow of death. The mother of a
soldier at the war dictates to the school-master a letter to her
son. She used to be very proud of his height " a head and
shoulders higher than half of the lads," she said ; but this
seemed to be a disadvantage at the front. " Bid him to be
croochin' down back of somethin' handy, or he might anyway
keep stooped behind the others."
The school-master did not like this way of looking at the
business. " Bedad now, Mrs. Connor, there 'd be no sinse in
telling him any such things. For, in the first place, he
would n't mind a word of it, and in the next place goodness
may pity you, woman, but sure you would n't be wishful to
see him comin' back to you after playin* the poltroon, and be-
havin' himself discreditable?"
" Troth and I would," said Mrs. Connor, " if he was twenty
poltroons." And she proceeds earnestly to show herself the
reverse of a Spartan mother.
We suspect there is a shot at " a highly distinguished
general," recently in active service, in the allusion to a draught
report dictated by that gallant officer "to his discreet secre-
tary."
" Pilgrims from Lisconnel " is unsurpassable. The whole
piece is a sustained exercise of the spirit of drollery not rest-
ing for a second. Woods, bog, mountains, roads, donkeys,
huts, men and women, and a baby are seen in this aspect, and
presented as seen. The incident of an illiterate woman taking
to the church " a secular song book " to aid her devotions, is
merely in keeping with the spirit of the whole. The expedi-
tion some dozen or so of miles is like travelling to a far
country. The natives at the end of the journey make the
acquaintance of a French lace maker.
" A Christmas Dole " centres round a touching instance of
that fidelity of old servants to the honor of the family by
which they were err ployed so often witnessed in bygone
times, and which Scott has vivified in Caleb Balderstone. As
in the other sketches, the raciness of description is in evidence ;
* From the Land of tht Shamrock, Py Jane Barlow. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
276 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
the gift is inseparable from anything Miss Barlow turns to,
and one could never tire of it.
It would be impossible to do justice to the " Field of Fright-
ful Beasts " ; but if there be any truth in the saying that men
are children of larger growth, poor Goldsmith's description of
children as little men cannot be far wrong. We shall just hint
at the origin of the little boy's idea and its consequences.
Little Mac Barry, walking with his nurse, saw cows and a pony
looking over a wall as high as a house. He concluded that the
field inside the wall was on a level with the road outside. He
would not show his dismay, but he took care to refuse going
along that road again. In an adventure all by himself that is
by giving his nurse the slip and taking his dog with him he
discovers the exact state of affairs. In i his great delight he
proposes to his great- grandmother that she should accompany
him in a walk through the fields. The old lady having ob-
jected, he proceeded to overrule her reasons, winding up in
this way : " And as for the Frightful Beasts, if that 's what you
are thinking of, I really can not imagine who put it into your
head that there were any such things."
We can promise the reader excellent entertainment ; nor
are we afraid that the sketches will afford less gratification to
the jaded man of the world than to him who has preserved in
age much of the freshness of boyhood.
The Isle of Unrest,* by Henry Seton Merriman, is a tale
part of the scene of which is laid in the island of Corsica, so
long notorious for its lawlessness, and where vindictiveness has
been a cherished cult for generations. The time of the story
is immediately before and during the war between France and
Germany in 1870. It is not often we come across a more
spirited and healthy novel. There is not one bit of prejudice
in it from beginning to end. Even the thriftlessness, treachery,
and ferocity of the Corsicans are gently dealt with, weighed in
a fine balance in which extenuating circumstances are employed
with a benevolence entirely removed from fantasy on the one
hand or sentimentality on the other. He does but simple
justice to the gallantry of the French in the war; even he can-
not do justice to the magnificent devotion with which all
classes rose to defend the country when the Empire had fallen
all except the class which prospered by the corruption of
the Empire, the very class which now is fattening on fraud and
* The Isle of Unrest. By Henry Seton Merriman. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 277
proving its devotion to the principles of progress and enlight-
enment it professes by the bitter and irritating persecution of
that church with which so great a part of the country's fame
is indissolubly united.
Is the Bible alone the rule of faith ? Did the Saviour
establish a church ? Where is that church ? These three
questions are discussed in the first part of Father Godts' book. 4 *
The second part treats of the consequences both of a false
rule of faith and of the true rule of faith after answering the
question why some do not see the church. This little book is
better fitted for busy men and women than for scholars and
divines. Father Godts has taken pains to render himself ac-
quainted with recent literature. He quotes a really striking
testimony from Dr. Briggs as to the true relation between the
Church and the Bible : " The New Testament does not give us
the entire instruction of Jesus Christ, the sum total of apos-
tolic instruction. It does not decide the mode of baptism ; it
does not clearly determine whether infants are to be baptized ;
it does not definitely confirm the change from the Sabbath to
the Lord's day ; it does not clearly fix the mode of church
government ; it leaves undetermined a great number of ques-
tions upon which Christians are divided. The Bible does not
decide all questions of doctrine. The Bible does not decide
all questions of morals. It does not decide against slavery
or polygamy ; it does not determine a thousand political and
social questions that have sprung up in our day."
There are some blemishes which we fear will stand in the
way of the usefulness of this little work. The author is mani-
festly dominated by the love of God and of souls, but yet is at
times too anxious to make a point. Were this not the case he
would not have ventured to ask, as he does on page 16 :
" How many clergymen and writers in England alone were
regular pagans or atheists?" So far as clergymen are con-
cerned, we doubt whether there were any regular pagans or
atheists among them ; certainly there were none known to be
such. The answer given by Father Godts in the note enumer-
ates, indeed, some well-known holders of Socinian and other
heretical tenets, but includes no regular pagans or atheists.
Such over-statements tend to weaken the confidence of fairly
well informed readers in the impartiality of the author's judg-
* The Protestant Rule of Faith and the Roman Catholic Church. By Rev. G. M. Godts,
C.SS.R. Brandon, Manitoba : Christie. 1900.
278 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
ment ; they do not destroy this confidence, for this is not a
specimen but one of a few exceptions. Readers will not be
carried away by beauties of style ; and there are not a few mis-
prints. On a single page (p. 15) we find Marion for Marcion
and Arian for Arius. Cardinal Deschamps is referred to more
than once as Cardinal Deckamps ; Mozaic appears for Mosaic.
The work, however, cannot fail to be of service to a sincere,
single-minded seeker of truth. Although there are some mistakes
and exaggerations, it abounds in facts and arguments clearly
and sometimes powerfully stated. See, for example, the state-
ment of the argument for the necessity of a living authority
(p. 24). The author is well acquainted with the workings of
the human heart, and shows how the church supplies its wants ;
especially for those for whom it is written it is useful, for he
brings out clearly the truth that the Church is Christ's Church,
established by him for man's salvation. The abundance of the
citations from Holy Scripture will prove very helpful. The
work will do great good.
The bishops of Aberdeen and of Argyll and the Isles have
approved of this Form of Prayers* prepared by the Marquess
of Bate for the use of Catholics gathered together for worship,
when circumstances are such as to render it impossible for
them to hear Mass. The Bishop of Aberdeen recommends it
to the faithful of his diocese. The Form of Prayers is pri-
marily meant for the use of a congregation, it being of a
strictly liturgical character ; but it will adapt itself easily, like
the private recitation of the office, to the use of individuals.
The service may begin with a hymn ; then follows, after one or
two prayers with versicles and responses, the Venite with the
invitatory, varying according to the season and office. Another
hymn may then be sung, and afterwards, with proper antiphons,
the psalms of Lauds as found in the Breviary for feast days ;
except that the Te Deum is on some occasions used instead of
the Benedicite. Then follows the lesson, taken as a rule from
the Missal, and generally from the Gospels. A third hymn
may then be sung ; the Form of Prayers does not give these
hymns. The responsory, taken from Prime, is then said. Then
there follows the Benedictus, except that on certain feasts the
Magnificat is substituted for it. The office proceeds then as
* A Form of Prayers, following the Church Office, for the use of Catholics unable to
hear Mass upon Sundays and holydays. By John, Marquess of Bute, K.T. Second edition.
London : Burns & Oates, limited ; New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900.
1900.] TALK ABOU? NEW BOOKS. 279
at Prime ; a legend abridged from the second nocturn is read
instead of the martyrology. According to the season, one of
the four antiphons of the Blessed Virgin brings the service to
a conclusion, unless it is seen fit to sing a fourth hymn. The
invitatories, antiphons, responsories, and prayers proper for all
the Sundays of the year, for all the great feasts, and for many
saints, are also given.
If there were any one to take the lead, this, or a work a
little more popular in its character, would be of great use in
holding together Catholics at a distance from church. There
are many places in this country of this kind, and where many
have fallen and are falling away from the faith. What is being
done in Great Britain could surely be done here. What is
wanted is a leader and organizer.
This little work adds another to the many services which
its noble author has rendered to the church, particularly to
that revival of the ancient liturgy which we believe he has
much at heart, and to which his edition of the Breviary so
greatly contributed. A new edition of this most valuable
work is, we understand, on the point of being published.
W. Chatterton Dix has expressed some very devotional
thoughts concerning the mystery of Calvary and the groupings
about the Cross in verses. They make a booklet* printed in
attractive form and bound with good taste.
I. CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, f
As the author of Christian Philosophy tells us in his preface,
the volume is the fruit of thought and study to present the
truth of God's existence with best advantage to the mind of
the present day. And since modern thought is by no means
a harmonious unity, he has certainly adopted the best plan in
presenting the Catholic view side by side with the doctrines
familiar to the non-Catholic world. And it will be refreshing
to the scholarly mind to see the outline of each writer's view
accompanied by accurate references to his works. But when
we consider the author's desire to preseat his thoughts in a
manner that will appeal to the modern mind, and when we re-
member, on the other hand, the present ever-growing tendency
to avoid at least the appearance of possessing any precon-
*Diys of First Love. By W. Chatterton Dix. London : Barclay & Fry, ltd.
t Christian Philosophy : God. Being a contribution to a Philosophy of Theism. By
Rev. John T. Driscoll, S.T.L. New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900.
280 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.,
ceived prejudices when entering upon the task of criticism, we
certainly regret to see too free a use of such adjectives as
erroneous, false, fallacious, etc. Though it may be perfectly
true that certain philosophers have erred in their conceptions
of a principle that underlies an argument for God's existence,
still, when one wishes to appeal to the modern mind in the
strongest way possible, he would do well to refrain from sub-
joining a list of Errors to his own statement of that principle.
It is indeed necessary to scientific treatment of any question
to state the various opinions as to its solution and to criticise
each ; but it is more in accordance with the modern spirit to
refrain from styling those opinions errors which we criticise
unfavorably. But even in this point our author is superior ta
a great number of writers who seem to take pleasure in call-
ing every opinion, they reject an absurd and unreasonable
hypothesis. A little more attention to this point of method
would, we think, decidedly improve his presentation of the
questions discussed.
About one-half the book is given up to the establishment
of man's right to retain the idea of God, which idea, though
neither innate nor intuitive, is so easily formed that we may
consider it a fact of human consciousness. This method is, in
our opinion, superior to one of systematic doubt concerning the
existence of God. Having established the right to retain our
idea of God as representative of an objective reality, the
author takes up the question of creation, and thence passes on
to discuss the nature of the creator. After having discussed
some of the more prominent attributes of God's being, he comes
to the consideration of God's activity his Providence. This
is a weak chapter in the book, and should have been in some
way amalgamated with the chapter on Evil, which follows
those on Prayer and Pessimism. The book concludes with a
discussion of the Natural and Supernatural, which gains both
in interest and scientific value by the author's usual method of
stating and criticising the modern views upon the question.
One cannot help comparing Father Driscoll's work on God
(which we hope will be followed by others in the series he
entitles Christian Philosophy) with the work of the learned
Jesuit, Father Boedder, on Natural Theology, in the Stonyhurst
series of Catholic Philosophy. And we do not think that Father
Driscoll's work will suffer by the comparison. From the
scholarly point of view, the new book has a sufficient raison
d'etre in its great superiority to the old. And if the ordinary
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 281
reader be not frightened away by the number of references
and foot-notes, we feel quite certain that he will peruse the
book not only with profit but also with much interest. As an
aid to the seminarian's study of Natural Theology we know of
no book, either in Latin or English, that can fill its place.
Let us hope that Father Driscoll will give us many more such
works. And if he will take a little notice in his future works
of the point of method referred to above, he may give to the
world a series of English works on Catholic philosophy which
considering aim and purpose will be well-nigh perfect both
as to the matter and method of presentation, and easily superior
to anything that has yet appeared.
2. SACERDOTALISM.*
The great, perhaps the greatest, obstacle to the conversion
of Protestants is the absolute independence of mind and
character which springs from the fundamental principle of
private judgment in matters of religion. This principle was not
worked out, its consequences were not foreseen, by the
Reformers. What it involves is clearer now, and the general
break-up of religious opinions of which we are witnesses is the
result of this fuller realization. " Every Englishman is his own
Pope " is declared by Cardinal Vaughan to be the inmost con-
viction of far the greater number of the dwellers in the British
Isles. Americanism is defined by a writer in a recent number
of the Dutch Reformed Review as the right of every individual
to work out his own career, social, political, and religious, ac-
cording to his own ideas, without let or restraint of any kind.
Mr. Radcliffe Cooke recently in the Times gives expression to
this generally received and all-pervading spirit of Protestantism
when he says: "Our preference of the Protestant over the
Romanist system springs from our love of liberty, our con-
viction that no human being can possess or exercise any
spiritual power to the advantage or disadvantage of any other
human being, and our consequent rejection of pretensions
founded on a belief in such power." Sincerely religious Prot-
estants find their greatest difficulty in the alleged interposition
between the soul and God of human mediators involved, as
they have been taught, in sacerdotalism.
The subject, therefore, of sacerdotalism is one of the highest
importance ; in fact it is, in our opinion, the crucial question,
* Sacerdotalism in the Old and New Testaments. By the Rev. J. D. Breen, O.S.B.
London : R. & T. Washbourne ; New York : Benziger Brothers. 1900.
232 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Nov.
the parting of the ways. Has God ever established an order of
men who are to act for men in religious matters to be His
ministers in imparting grace? This subject Father Breen dis-
cusses, and although his pamphlet is short, it deserves to be
read and re-read. We have never seen the sacerdotal character
of the Christian ministry so clearly proved from our Lord's
words in the institution of the Holy Eucharist as it is here.
The distinction, too, between the priesthood of Christ according
to the order of Aaron and the priesthood of Christ according
to the order of Melchisedech, between His bloody and His un-
bloody sacrifice, is shown to afford the full and perfect solution
to the Protestant objections based on the passages found in
the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author is both a Hebrew
and a Greek scholar, and this pamphlet derives its special
value largely from this fact. It enables him to point out, in
addition to what is mentioned before, that a function of the
Jewish priesthood was the receiving confession of sin as a part
of the divine law given to Moses : the Douay version obscures
this, by translating Lev. v. 5 by " do penance " ; the more
correct version being "confess." This pamphlet deserves care-
ful study.
NEW BOOKS.
THE FRENCH ACADEMY, 853 Broadway, New York:
Mttie. By Jules Le Maitre. Translated by Francis Berger. i2cts.
J. B. HERBOLDSHIMER, Gibson City, 111.:
The Enslavement and Emancipation of the People. 75 cts.
GOVERNMENT PRINTING PRESS, Washington, D. C.:
Bulletin of American Republics. The Digestibility and Nutritive Value
of Bread.
HENRY T. COATES, Philadelphia :
Lyrics. By J. Houston Mifflin.
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Philadelphia:
The Confessions of St. Augustine; in ten books.
M. H. WILTZIUS, Milwaukee:
The Three Ages of Progress. By Rev. Julius E. Devos. Preface by Bishop
Spalding\
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co., Boston :
Theodore Parker. By John White Chadwick.
MACMILLAN COMPANY, New York:
The Soft Side. By Henry James. The Golden Legend. Vol. vi. 50 cts.
The Temple Classics.
MARLIER, CALLANAN & Co., Boston :
Cithara Mea. By Rev. P. A. Sheahan. $1.25.
FR. PUSTET & Co., New York :
1 'he Holy Rosary. 5 cts.; $2.50 per 100.
LONGMANS. GREEN & Co., New York :
T he Things beyond the Tomb. By Rev. T. H. Passmore, M.A.
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & Co., New York :
A Princess of Arcady. By Arthur Henry.
THERE should be found some way to compel
the arbitration of industrial difficulties. We com-
mend to the closest attention of our readers
the leading article in this issue, " A Country without Strikes."
It discusses the ethics of arbitration and effectively answers
the favorite contention against arbitration of the necessity of
preserving the freedom of contract. In the matter of the great
anthracite coal strike, it is no longer a question between the
operators and the miners. It involves the comfort and con-
venience of the millions of people who live along the Atlantic
seaboard. The strike will do not a little to convince the pub-
lic that in a great industrial battle, as this is, the public are
the chief sufferers, and the public will devise ways and means
whereby these battles will be brought to a speedy close.
The proposition of establishing a Labor Department in the
national government, which will be represented by one who
will have a voice in the President's Cabinet, is growing in
favor. The argument is well put, that if the Indians have
their representative in the Interior, and the farmers in the
Agriculture, why not the industrial classes, representing the
wage-earners of all classes? There is no better way of meet-
ing the industrial difficulties than by giving them the fullest
discussion. While not a little must be done to secure unto labor
its just rights, there is also a great work to be accomplished
by squarely presenting to labor its duties and responsibilities,
and insisting on the performance of the same.
The American government in the interests of her mission
in the Far East is obliged to resist the partition of China, and
by her moral influence to offset the efforts of other nations to
dismember the Empire. The United States can contribute far
more than any other nation in the advancement of the Chris-
tian missions in China, because the Chinese believe that we
are actuated by no desire of dominion, while they fear the
aggressions of all other nationalities.
284 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
READING CIRCLE DAY at Cliff Haven, N. Y., gave an opportunity to all
in attendance at the Champlain Summer-School to learn something of the
work for self-improvement which the Catholic Reading Circles have accom-
plished. Mr. Warren E. Mosher, editor of Masher's Magazine, especially de-
voted to this movement, presented a list of the circles now organized, and
regretted that many had failed to make any report. Some of the small circles
recently formed may be somewhat timid, but it is to be hoped that this sort of
timidity will not be regarded as a virtue worthy of imitation. For the general
study of the movement for post-graduate work on different lines of study, it is
necessary to get the facts concerning all the circles. It is well known that
some have exceptional advantages in their environment and in having gifted
leaders, but those less favored should be encouraged in every possible way.
This is the chief reason why the Champlain Summer-School has endeavored
year after year to bring together on Lake Champlain all representatives of
Catholic Reading Circles.
One of the very best reports is here given, showing the remarkable progress
during the past year of the John Boyle O'Reilly Reading Circle in Boston, under
the expert guidance of Miss Katherine E. Conway. The report was read by the
secretary, Miss Sabina G. Sweeney, and was as follows:
We closed last June the eleventh year in the history of the John Boyle
O'Reilly Reading Circle of Boston. With not a misgiving, and unswerving in
our purpose " For the Church of God," we began the work of the year. The
first important step was the biennial election, resulting in one change in the
board of officers, due to the retirement of our faithful secretary, Miss Ellen A.
McMahon, who declined renomination. Later our valued treasurer, Miss Mary
J. White, found it necessary to send in her resignation. The Circle congratu-
lates itself, however, on retaining both these efficient workers on its administra-
tive board; and both have constant and unmistakable assurance of the grateful
remembrance of their associates. The preceding year found our studies of Con-
troverted Points in Church History unfinished, and it was thought best to com-
plete this course before entering upon a new course of study. Resuming this
work, we reviewed the dark days of the French Revolution, and saw how Catho-
lic interests were preserved ; we noted again the struggle of Napoleon and the
Church; reviewed the Pontificate of Gregory XVI.; and reflected with keener
insight and fuller understanding on the great events of the Pontificate of Fius
IX. This period closed the course on Church History, one that proved of ines-
timable value to the members of the Circle, and an excellent preparation for the
work that followed later in the year.
After a careful study of The Bible in the English Tongue we were ready,
at the opening of the New Year, for our studies on The Saints, Heroes, and
Poets of the Sacred Scriptures. It is our privilege to number among the friends
of the Circle many zealous priests of the church that, through the centuries,
has guarded and protected the Scriptures. Fortunate were we at this point in
the year's work to be able to turn to these authorized teachers for help and
guidance. As preliminary to the new course, the Rev. Joseph V.Tracy, pro-
fessor of Sacred Scripture at St. John's Seminary, came to us, giving valuable
suggestion and advice, and extending kindest encouragement. In connection
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 285
with the study of Genesis the Rev. William P. McQuaid addressed the Circle,
dwelling especially on the tenth chapter, " that most authentic, ancient, and
complete account of the dispersion of men and the foundation of nationalities."
Our Very Rev. Vicar-General, Dr. Byrne, guided us through that grandest thing
ever written by pen, the Book of Job, and we profited by the wisdom of Job in
his solution of the never-ending problem man's destiny, and God's way with
him here on this earth. There came still later the Rev. Thomas I. Gasson, S.J.,
to share with us the fruit of deep research and study in his treatment of The
Mosaic Record as Confirmed by Scientists and Explorers. To lead us safely
over that storm-centre of criticism and doubt, the miracle in the Book of Josue,
came still another friend, the Rev. Patrick J. Supple, D.D. The Circle's appre-
ciation of the great kindness of these good friends finds constant expression,
and on this occasion most gladly makes public acknowledgment of its deep
sense of gratitude. In addition to our devotion to the study of the Bible as the
inspired word of God never weak while there are men capable of defending it
we have enjoyed the Bible as the most fruitful source in the enrichment of
literature, music, and other arts, and even of what are now the commonplaces of
speech.
The mid-month meetings throughout the year have, in the main, been de-
voted to a consideration of current fiction. Many of the recent successes in the
field of historical novels have been informally discussed, and an appreciation
gained of what these romances are doing in brightening the severe and hard
lines of days ofttimes dark and troublous, especially in the history of our own
country. Novels more distinctly religious have been given a share of considera-
tion, and frequently special books of fiction have been recommended by the
president.
A very successful lecture course opened in December. Through the cour-
tesy of the Rev. W. G. Read Mullen, S.J., the first lecture was given in Boston
College Hall, the Most Rev. John J. Keane, D.D., Archbishop of Dubuque, giv-
ing as a compliment to the Circle his lecture, The Soul of Art. The Circle took
this occasion to make an offering of one hundred dollars to the fund of the
Catholic University of America.
In Africa near the Boer Country was the subject of the second lecture,
given by Mr. Paul du Chaillu. The Rev. Thomas P. McLaughlin, of New York,
closed the course, giving great delight by his beautiful rendering of many of the
Songs of Ireland. Not the least of the many pleasures of the year were visits
from our Summer-School friend, the Rev. John Talbot Smith, LL.D., and later
from our beloved honorary member, the Rev. James A. Doonan, S.J.
The year has witnessed a most agreeable exchange of courtesies and
friendly interest between the Catholic Union of Boston and the John Boyle
O'Reilly Reading Circle. In February a reception was tendered the Circle by
the Union, and a most enjoyable evening resulted. In April the Circle returned
the compliment, and took the occasion to present to the Union a hall clock, as a
mark of its appreciation for long and helpful interest in the work and aims of
the Circle.
A literary and musical programme was given, representing almost entirely
the work and talent of the Circle. In recording these proofs of fellowship and
good will the Circle takes pleasure in expressing its gratitude to the Union and
pledging assurance of devoted friendship. We are pleased also to record further
proof, in the form of a most generous offering, of the constant loyalty of our
good friend, Mr. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick.*
286 'I HE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov.,
While our duties in performing the regular work of the Circle have in great
measure claimed our attention, we have been ever mindful of our summer home
by the lake at Cliff Haven. We cannot mention this home without expressing
deep gratitude to Miss Ellen Wills, whose untiring efforts made of it so great a
success during the summer of '99, and whose services were freely and generously
given. We have reduced the debt on the cottage during the year, but are not
yet where we may pronounce this work complete. Through the kindness of the
Hon. Thomas J. Gargan and Mr. Thomas B. Fitzpatrick we have additional
time, which in this case pre-eminently is money. We look forward to a speedy
cancelling of the debt, and bespeak the hearty co-operation of the members of
the Circle in carrying to ultimate success its future plans.
There has been an increase of membership during the year, thirty-one
names having been added to the roll. We close with an active membership of
135. It is our sad duty to record the recent death of one of our oldest and
most valued members, Miss Mary E. Nason.
The close of the season found the members of the Circle interested in the
visit of the Cuban teachers to the Harvard Summer-School. Valuable suggestion
has been offered by Professor de Moreira, of Boston College, ard of the Harvard
Summer-School, in connection with this matter. The Circle stands ready to co-
operate in whatever may add to the pleasure of these strangers, who are so little
used to prolonged absence from home.
The large attendance at the twenty-two study meetings, the interest and
faithful study evidenced in the papers presented, together with the work ac
complished, testify to the value and need of such a society as the John Boyle
O'Reilly Reading Circle. The good accomplished is an encouragement to the
beloved president. Miss Katherine E. Conway, who has planned, directed, and
made possible the successes of the year. Standing always true and strong in
defence of our guiding principle, she embodies all that is sacred in hospitality,
friendship, and good will. Conscious as we are that the best of prophets for the
future is the past, we trustfully ask God's blessing on our work, and may he
ever be our hope, our stay, our guide.
* * *
The patrons of the Champlain Summer-School, as well as those in charge
of Reading Circles, will be pleased to learn that Miss Marion J. Brunowe, one
of the most distinguished graduates of Mount St. Vincent's Academy on the
Hudson, has prepared a number of literary talks on distinguished women.
These Talks are an endeavor to give, after the manner of Sainte-Beuve, in his
inimitable Causeries du Lundi, a comprehensive estimate of the writers under
discussion, by means of an easy blending of biography, abstract of work, and in-
terspersed critical comments. This method was also that of Matthew Arnold
at his best, as we are reminded by Professor Saintsbury.
The women selected are : Maria Agnesi, 1718-1799; Jane Austen, 1775-
1817; Mrs. Oliphant, 1828-1897 ; Kathleen O'Meara, 1839-1888. Second Series:
George Eliot, Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Siddons, Rose Bonheur. Third Series: Lady
Geargiana Fullerton, Augusta Fheodosia Drane, Vittoria Colonna, Adelaide A.
Procter.
For terms and further particulars address Miss Marion J. Brunowe, No.
106 Ashburton Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y.
After an extended trip to Europe Miss Helena T. Goessmann, M.Ph.
Bellevue Place, Amherst, Mass. is now ready to give lectures on the following
subjects :
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 287
Pleasant Hours in Paris : In the Palace and Galleries of the Louvre ; Notre
Dame Cathedral ; Some Shrines of Paris ; A Summer Day at Fontainebleau ; At
Versailles with Marie Antoinette ; Among the Tombs of the Kings of France
(St. Denis) ; A Month at the Paris Exposition. English Impressions: Some
Historic Corners of London ; An Afternoon in the Tower of London ; Walks in
Westminster Abbey ; Coaching Trips through the Isle of Wight; The Regatta
at Henley. In the Swiss Country : A Month on Lake Lucerne ; At the Home of
Wilhelm Tell (with readings from Schiller's Drama) ; A Visit to the Castle of
Chillon. German Life and Scenes : The Home of a Mediaeval Philanthropist ;
Hans Sachs at Home and Abroad ; Christmas in a German City ; Carnival Days
in the Bavarian Capital ; A Treasure House at Munich ; The Lady of Hiilshof
(Annette von Drost- Hiilshof, Poet) ; Johanna Ambrosius the Peasant Poet;
Pleasant Hours in German Homes ; The German Woman and Higher Education ,
Bits of Life along the Way.
* * *
The editor of the Saturday Review of Books in the New York Times has
shown commendable courage in dealing with a recent book. He argues that
in two ways a book may tend to effect an ethical disintegration in the reader.
Some so fa-niliarize him with vice that, in accord with Pope's well-known lines,
he insensibly loses his abhorrence, and is degraded instead of elevated by a
story in which the author may have honestly intended to teach a lesson of
righteousness. Others, and these the worst, obliterate the lines between good
and evil, ignore the fact that sin is sin, and bridge the chasm between the
regions of light and darkness.
Such is the nature of Miss Atherton's Senator North, There have been
novels more salacious, more possessed with the single motif si enthralling pas-
sion ; but the utter moral obliquity of Senator North is something before
which the reader stands aghast. . . . Upon the whole, however, Senator
North merits strong condemnation. At best, with all the helps we can get, it
is so hard to be good, so easy to be bad ; we slip from the steep and toilsome
ways of rectitude into by and forbidden paths with such fatal facility that to
have the literature with which we solace our leisure so blurring our moral vision
that right and wrong are indistinguishably mingled is a calamity not to be
lightly tossed aside.
What saith the prophet ? " Woe unto them that call evil good, and good
evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for
sweet, and sweet for bitter."
William L. Alden in his weekly letter from London to the New York Times
ventures the opinion that Miss Corelli's main motive in writing The Master
Christian was to burlesque the modern theological novel. Her method is the
one so familiar to many humorists the reductio ad absurdum. She introduces
the reader to a large collection of cardinals, archbishops, and other clergy, and
shows them to be, without exception, monsters of vice and iniquity. He is
given to understand that a Roman Catholic clergyman is the incarnation of
wickedness, and that from the Pope to the most obscure parish priest the pur-
suit of selfish pleasure is his sole motive in life. Of course, this is intended as a
burlesque of the reckless assertions of fanatic Protestants, and that it is ex-
tremely funny in its intentional exaggeration every one will admit. Still, it is
possible that here and there may be found some one who will accept it all as
serious, and imagine that Miss Corelli really means to paint true portraits of the
Roman clergy. Miss Corelli ought to remember that even among her own
288 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Nov., 1900.]
readers there may be one or two who are unable to appreciate humor, and for
their benefit she might have added to her book the explanation that it was
" writ sarcastic."
* * *
The writer of fiction should have from reliable critics honest expressions
of opinion. In the interest of Christian morality certain phases of life should
not be brought forward into broad daylight. The late Very Rev. Augustine
F. Hewit, C.S.P., gave at one time a theologian's estimate of fiction in these
words :
It is absurd to say that novels are intrinsically bad, simply as being works
of fiction; or that it is a sm,per se, to read them. Though many of them be
bad, and many more useless trash, and so unfit or unworthy to be read, this is
an accident ; and the same may be said of some books in every other species of
literature. It is certainly desirable to hinder the multiplication and use of this
as well as of every other kind of noxious and useless reading. The best means
of promoting this end is the production of good works of fiction i.e., those
which are at least innoxious, and afford a harmless amusement if not too
eagerly devoured ; but, better still, while they recfeate the mind and imagina-
tion, answer a higher purpose, like that of art in generaWpoetry, music, paint-
ing, sculpture. In its higher forms the literature of fiction rises to the level of
a fine art; for surely the romances of Walter Scott have as truly a claim to be
placed in this category as the dramas of Shakspere. It is the scope and object
of art to embody ideals of the imagination in beautiful forms, which give
pleasure by being simply seen. The ulterior end of instruction and moral im-
provement may be the principal motive of the artist ; and if so, he takes ad-
vantage of the pleasure which allures and captivates the attention of those
who are pleased by looking on his work to bring before their minds the true
and the good under the aspect of the beautiful.
This is the highest and the best end of art, and specifically of that kind of the
literary art which depicts imaginary scenes, events, and persons ; panoramas of
an ideal world, more or less a representation of the real world. Here, assuredly,
is one province of the legitimate domain of fiction. Works of fiction of this
kind which are masterpieces, or which approach in a notable degree the ex-
cellence of acknowledged masterpieces are undoubtedly worthy of admiration
and commendation. They give great pleasure of an innocent and even of an
elevating kind. Besides, they exert a wide and powerful influence which is most
salutary. They are vehicles of conveying the highest truths of religion, philoso-
phy, and ethics ; and of instilling, even into those who are but little accessible by
formal methods, moral sentiments and principles by which their characters are
purified and ennobled, besides refining their tastes, and giving them by an easy
and pleasant process a great deal of general knowledge. Examples of this kind
of fiction are: / Promessi Sposi, Fabiola, Callista, Dion and the Sibyls a work
too little known and Ben Hur.
There are many other provinces within the legitimate domain of fiction. It
is not necessary to aim always at the highest ulterior end beyond the immediate
object of pleasing in a direct manner. But nothing is legitimate which tends to
a contrary end by undermining religion and virtue, defiling the imagination, cor-
rupting the heart, and insinuating fatal errors or immoral principles. If it is
right to hang anarchists, imprison thieves, and banish the demi-monde from
decent society, impious aad immoral literature ought to be put under the ban.
M. C. M.
Murillo. At the Hague.
" A FOREHEAD FAIR AND SAINTLY,
WHICH TWO BLUE EYES DO UNDERSHINE,
LIKE MEEK PRAYERS BEFORE A SHRINE."
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LXXII. DECEMBER, 1900. No. 429
THE LATEST WORD ON THE TEMPORAL POWER
OF THE POPE.
BY REV. HUMPHREY MOYNIHAN, D.D.
^HE assassination of King Humbert and the events
T "\ which followed it have once more brought before
( I *K the eyes of the world the question of the Tem-
poral Power of the Pope. Although this was in-
evitable, yet accident rather than design caused
the Roman Question to leap into prominence dur-
ing the terrible days of August. It was the voice
of contention, which should have been hushed in
the presence of death, that forced the Vatican to
reassert its position lest it should be placed in a false light
upon an issue of momentous importance to the Church.
Catholic journals of Italy, it will be remembered, had been
amongst the first to denounce the deed of Gaetano Bresci as a
crime against civilization. Catholic leaders, such as Signer
Santucci and Don Albertario, had been foremost in branding
the murder of Humbert as an outrage upon the supreme
authority incarnated in every society. Catholic priests had
chanted the Miserere in the funeral procession of the king, and
bishops had appeared in cope and mitre at the obsequies in
the Pantheon. The Church in Italy shared the sorrow of the
nation, and the sympathy of a Catholic people finds expression
in its sanctuaries. This spontaneous outburst of condolence
was misconstrued as a concession of the Vatican ; the gentle-
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK, 1900.
VOL. LXXII. 19
290 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. [Dec.,
ness due to the grief of the living and the memory of the
dead was misinterpreted as a surrender of the Pope. While
the " Dies Irae " was echoing through the land, a cry was
raised that Leo had weakened and was about to surrender the
principle for which he had stood with unflinching fortitude for
two-and-twenty years. In other countries, also, there were
not wanting those who said that at last the Pope was bearing
his captivity with complacency, and that a new era would be-
gin with a new reign. The time for silence was past. On
August 1 8 there appeared in the Osservatore Romano a Com-
municate which explicitly defined the attitude of the Holy See :
Ecclesiastical solemnity was accorded the funeral services of
the king as a protest " against the execrable crime " of which
he had been a victim, and as a tribute to " the unquestionable
tokens of religious feeling " which he had evinced, especially
during the months which preceded his tragic death. This
Communicate was at once understood ; indeed, there was no
possibility of misunderstanding its intent : it signified that there
had been no yielding of principle, and that there would be no
truce so long as the rights of the Papacy were withheld. Thus,
at the dramatic moment when the gaze of the nations was
fixed on Rome, did the Pope effectually protest once more
against the spoliation of the Holy See, and give notice to the
world that the Roman Question was not to be buried away
in the grave of King Humbert.
THE CHURCH MUST BE FREE.
And, in fact, the Roman Question will not be a dead issue
until the Temporal Power is restored to the Papacy, for the
simple reason that the Pope cannot sacrifice his freedom in
the exercise of his spiritual jurisdiction. The Church is essen-
tially a sovereign and complete society, possessing its own
organization and laws, and having to do with the moral and
spiritual interests of mankind. At its head is one who is the
Universal Teacher of Christendom. The spiritual ruler of many
nations cannot be the vassal or dependent of a government ;
the man who guides the destinies of a mighty spiritual empire,
standing for justice and righteousness amongst the nations and
rulers of nations, must be independent of political control.
Independence is the very breath of life of a moral power.
"Let the very enemies of the Temporal Power of the Apos-
tolic See," wrote Pius IX., " say with what confidence and
respect they would receive the exhortations, advice, orders,
1900.] THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 291
and decrees of the Sovereign Pontiff if they beheld him sub-
ject to the will of a prince or government." The Pope must
be above suspicion. His authority must not be neutralized by
mistrust as to his motives or uncertainty as to his freedom of
action. If Leo XIII. were but the first subject of the new
King of Italy, he would ere long be regarded as the instru-
ment of a government, and his decrees would be scanned for
evidences of Quirinal diplomacy. Other nations would not
turn to him with that unquestioning confidence which is due
to the Father of the Faithful. Sooner or later the Roman
Pontiff would be no better than the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who exercises spiritual jurisdiction only under the shadow of a
sceptre, and the Church Catholic would shrink to the limits
and the servitude of a national institution. The Popes have
always understood that they were not as other kings. When,
for example, seven hundred years ago Nicholas III. published
a constitution in which a foreign prince or potentate was for-
bidden to rule in Rome, it was on the ground that the Pon-
tiff should be free in his administration of the Church. When,
in more recent times, by the orders of Napoleon I., the Papal
colors were hauled down in Rome, Pius VII. at once launched
against the French Emperor a decree of excommunication,
while other princes were silently acquiescing in the sentence
by which the master of the world deprived them of their in-
heritance.
PROTESTANT TESTIMONIES.
In the Roman Pontiff sovereignty and independence are
inseparable. This is freely acknowledged even by eminent
Protestant historians, who admit that, on the one hand, secu-
lar governments have an inborn tendency to control the
Church, and that, on the other hand, the saddest pages of the
annals of the Church were written when the Papacy was under
the influence of a dynasty. Gregorovius, rising from his study
of the mind of the Church, testifies : " The Metropolis of
Christendom, representing a universal principle, should have
liberty, and the Supreme Pontiff who has his seat there should
not be the subject of any king." Ranke, with the history of
the Church before him, re-echoes words spoken at the Council
of Basle : " I was once of opinion that it would be good to
separate the spiritual wholly from the temporal power ; but I
have learned that the Pope without the patrimony of Peter
would be nothing more than the slave of kings or princes."
292 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. [Dec.,
And the verdict of history is ratified by the practical wisdom
of statesmanship. The men who shaped the destinies of our
Republic disfranchised and set apart as the seat of government
a "District," in order that the rulers and legislators of the
country might be free from the control or dictation of any
particular state ; similarly, the prudence and piety of the past
reserved as the centre of the Catholic religion a neutral spot
where, above the bias of all surroundings and independent of
all secular influence, the Papacy might rule the universal com-
monwealth of Christendom. Hence the unceasing protest made
by the present Pontiff against the spoliation of the Holy See.
It is by virtue of that protest that Leo XIII. is independent.
Silence, as recent events abundantly prove, would be equiva-
lent to submission ; it would be regarded as a surrender of a
sacred principle which is in the keeping of the Pope, but not
at his disposal. It is only as a prisoner of the Vatican that
Leo retains the independence essential to his high office ; to
be independent now a Pope must be either a sovereign or a
captive.
THE LAW OF GUARANTEES INSUFFICIENT.
It has been said, indeed, that the dignity and independence
of the Pope are sufficiently provided for by the Law of Guar-
antees, which secures the personal inviolability of the Pontiff and
assigns him a yearly pension out of the revenues of Italy ; but
surely no appeal to experience is required to show that rights
which are sacred on paper may in practice be easily trodden
under foot, and that liberty which rests upon an act of parlia-
ment is in reality no liberty at all. A Law of Guarantees is
only a domestic ordinance which can be modified or abolished
by the assembly that enacts it a mere statute of a parliament
that can undo to-morrow what it does to-day. Upon this plain
fact Leo XIII. has insisted more than once : " The condition
that is affirmed to have been guaranteed Us is not that which
is due to Us, nor that which We require; it is not an effective
but an apparent and ephemeral independence, because subject
to the discretion of others. This manner of independence may
be withdrawn by him who bestowed it ; those who yesterday
sanctioned it may annul it to-morrow. And have we not in
these recent days seen the abrogation of what are called the
Pontifical Guarantees demanded in one quarter and fore-
shadowed by way of menace in another?" Too well does the
Holy See know the value of Laws of Guarantees, for Rome
IQOO.] THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 293
was wrested from the Popes in defiance of the most solemn
treaties. The Sardinian Code of 1865 treated as a crime every
act of hostility to the Pope as a Prince of Italy ; the Statute
of March 4, 1848, reprobated in its first article every act detri-
mental to the Church; the Convention of September 14, 1864,
signed between Italy and France, pledged the honor of Italy
not only to respect but to enforce respect for the Pontifical
frontier and the dominions of the Papacy. A proclamation of
Victor Emmanuel on December 15, 1866, declared that "The
government of Italy will respect the Pontifical territory accord-
ing to the Convention of September 14, 1864." And yet, the
men who framed these conventions and statutes and proclama-
tions did, without provocation or excuse, or even the formality
of declaring war, take the city of the Popes by force of arms,
and, with impudence equalled only by ignorance of the lessons
of history, proclaim it Roma Intangibile " A conquest not to
be touched."
THE LAW HAS BEEN DISREGARDED.
The Law of Guarantees is nothing more than a sop thrown
to the conscience of Christendom ; if further proof of this be
needed, it may be found in that utter contempt for the spirit
of the Guarantees which the government has steadily manifested.
A penal code has been enacted which the English press charac-
terized as a " challenge to the Italian clergy to choose between
God and Caesar." In the very heart of Rome a statue has
been reared to an apostate monk by a ribald and riotous
minority, and pilgrims from the uttermost bounds of the earth
daily pause in mingled wonder and horror before this monu-
ment of needless contumely to the Vicar of Christ. Funds be-
queathed by the piety of generations to the Church, and by
her administered in that marvellous system of charity which is
one of the glories of Italy, have been withdrawn from eccle-
siastical control, and this at the bidding of a man who had
preached an open propaganda of infidelity against Christianity
in the towns and villages of Italy. A funeral procession
which in the stillness of the night was escorting to their last
resting place the remains of the venerable predecessor of Leo
was set upon by gangs of ruffians who, taking advantage of the
reign of license and violence tolerated in Rome, fought to
throw the dead body of the Pontiff into the Tiber. And how
far the Italian government goes in its persecution of the Pope
may be inferred from the fact that a mayor of Rome has
294 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. [Dec.,
beenHdismissed by the ministry for a simple expression of good
will towards the Sovereign Pontiff, and that the Holy See,
which possesses more moral force than all the rulers of Europe
combined, has been excluded by the machinations of the
Quirinal from the greatest peace congress of the age. These
are but the most flagrant instances of the ceaseless warfare
waged against the Pope by those who point to the Law of
Guarantees as a security of the Pontiff's independence. Truly
the modern Magna Charta of the Papacy guarantees nothing.
Even if Leo were willing to barter the Patrimony of Peter for
Italian lire he would not be safe against the infringement of
his most elementary rights. The very existence of the Law of
Guarantees is a presumption that the Pope is a subject. The
Pope, if any man, must be his own master, and his own master
he cannot be if he becomes the pensioner of a secular govern-
ment, with rights safeguarded only by an act of parliament.
SPOLIATION A VIOLATION OF INHERENT RIGHTS.
The unique position which the Pope holds in the world
proclaims the spoliation of the Holy See to be a violation of
the rights of the Vicar of Christ; a glance at the past shows
that spoliation to be a crime against history. Few dynasties
there are that have not begun in violence or perfidy ; the
Papacy, the most majestic as well as the most ancient of all
dynasties, is founded not on fraud or force, but on the homage
of a grateful people. " The Temporal Dominion of the Popes,"
writes Gibbon, " is now confirmed by the reverence of one
thousand years, and their noblest title is the choice of a people
whom they had redeemed from slavery." None, save perhaps
those who are profoundly ignorant of history or careless of
the arguments that would buttress usurpation, now deny that
for eleven hundred years and more the Popes ruled Rome
through the choice of the people they had saved. The days
when the Papacy acquired its title-deeds to Rome were the
stormiest that Italy and the world have ever seen. Europe
rocked beneath the tramp of hordes of barbarians ; the fairest
provinces of civilization were given over to havoc and pillage ;
those who cowered in walled cities looked out on flaming
homes and vineyards, and listened to the cries of their country-
men as they were put to the sword or swept away as slaves.
It was a time when, as Dean Church says, it seemed as if the
whole world and human society were hopelessly wrecked with-
out prospect or hope of escape. It was then, when animalism
1900.] THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 295
and brute force were let loose upon the Garden of Europe,
that Italy, left to the mercy of every invader, looked to the
Popes of Rome for safety, and the Popes saved Italy, and with
it the cause of civilization. Then, and in days to come, the
Papacy was the one stable institution which by virtue of the
dominating power of religion could exercise a controlling in-
fluence over the warring elements of the age, and establish a
new order of things upon the ruins of the old. Hence it is
that the work of Pepin and Charlemagne as Dr. Creighton and
other Protestant historians acknowledge did but give definite-
ness to the Temporal Power which the course of events had
in previous centuries gradually forced upon the Papacy. The
wisdom, the devotion, the administrative genius of the Roman
Pontiff, and the services which he rendered to mankind these
were the causes which, under Providence working through
history, led the Pope to be regarded as the head in temporal
as well as in spiritual affairs. And the work which the Papacy
did in the darkest ages that Europe has known, it continued
to do whenever the cause of civilization was at stake. For
many centuries the Papacy was the heart and brain of Europe,
and it was from St. Peter's there went forth the call to arms
whenever Europe was to be saved from barbarism. "The
Pope," wrote Herder, " might give his blessing to all emperors,
kings, princes, and lords of Christendom, and say, ' Without me
you would not be what you are.' The Popes have saved
antiquity, and Rome is worthy of remaining a sanctuary in
which to shelter the treasures of the past."
POPE HAS MADE ROME.
If the Papacy saved Italy, it also made Rome what it is.
Were it not for the Roman Pontiffs, Rome would have shared
the fate of Memphis and Babylon : it would be a nameless
and shapeless heap of ruins in a wilderness swept by pesti-
lence. "It is not necessary," writes Leo XIII., "to recall the
immense benefit and the glory with which the Popes have
covered the city of their choice a glory and benefaction
which are written in indestructible letters upon the monuments
and the history of all the ages. Rome belongs to the Popes
by titles such and so many that no prince, whoever he be,
can show the like for any city in his kingdom." The story of
civilization is the story of Rome, and the story of Rome is
the story of the Popes. And yet, although Rome is not Rome
without the Pope, the Pope resides there only on the suffer-
296 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. [Dec.,
ance of a government that is the transitory product of a revo-
lution.
While Rome belongs to the Pope by every title of justice
and gratitude, it has fallen into the hands of its present occu-
pants by an act of treachery that is a blot on the history of
Italy and a scandal to the world. The deed of the 2Oth
of September, 1870, was a violation not only of the rights
of nations, but also of a Convention to the observance of
which the honor of Italy had been pledged. That deed,
unjust and dishonorable in its inception, has never been legiti-
mized, True, in the reign of terror which followed the storm-
ing of Rome, almost before the roar of the cannon had died
away, a plebiscitum of the people of Rome was held in order
to justify usurpation ; but the fact that only forty votes were
cast for the Pope, while forty thousand were cast for the in-
vaders, is sufficient proof, if any proof were needed, that the
popular vote of the Romans was a shameless farce. Only a
few months afterwards an address of loyalty presented to Pius
IX. by a society of the city bore the signatures of over
twenty-seven thousand Roman citizens. On the first anniver-
sary of the so-called plebiscitum an address was again pre-
sented to the Holy Father by the young men of Rome, who
declared: "Our hearts burned with indignation when we wit-
nessed the impudence of your enemies, who dared to lie on
parchment and marble, representing as a vote of the Roman
people that ridiculous plebiscite which was nothing but the
vote of a horde of immigrants, strangers, public criminals, and
the few cowards who allowed themselves to be drawn by
threats and promises." It will hardly be believed that the
triumph of political iniquity thus stigmatized stands to the
present day solemnly recorded on marble, and thrust amongst
the ancient monuments of the Eternal City, so that all who
pass from shrine to shrine may read the self-stultifying words
extorted by a lingering regard for the decencies of political
morality. This inscription is the only title-deed of the Pied-
montese to Rome, and as such it is a petrified falsehood, re-
minding all who see it of that shaft of infamy in London
which " Like a tall bully lifts its head and lies." The real
plebiscitum is that of the millions throughout Italy and through
all Christendom who for thirty years have persistently con-
demned the spoilers of the Holy See. That plebiscitum will
one day restore Rome to its lawful owner.
1900.] THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 297
TEMPORAL POWER AN INTERNATIONAL QUESTION.
That plebiscitum also reminds us that the question of the
Temporal Power is an international question, for it deals with
the rights, not of an Italian subject but of the Vicegerent of
Christ; it concerns the lot not of a prince of the peninsula
but of a sovereign who counts millions of subjects in every
part of the world. Wherever there is a Catholic there is the
Roman Question, for no Catholic can be indifferent to the
freedom and dignity of the Head of the Church. " If I were
a Catholic," said Bismarck on a memorable occasion in the
German Imperial Parliament, " I do not suppose that I should
regard the Papacy as a foreign institution, and from my stand-
point, which I must retain as a representative of the govern-
ment, I concede that the Papacy is not simply a foreign but
a universal institution, and because it is a universal institution
it is a German institution and for German Catholics." In
these words of the shrewdest statesman of the century is con-
tained the reason of the interest which peoples and govern-
ments manifest in the Roman Question. The Papacy is not a
merely national institution ; it is at home wherever Catholics
are found. It is of vital importance to Catholics that the
Pope should retain his international position, and it is to the
advantage of governments that one in whom there resides so
vast moral and social influence should be unshackled in the
exercise of his universal and beneficent pastorate. There is
not a statesman in Europe who does not wish to see the
Roman Question solved, not only because of the religious im-
portance which it possesses for Catholic subjects in all lands,
and because of the world-wide power for good which is vested
in the Sovereign Pontiff, but also because every government
would fain see removed from the domain of international poli-
tics a question which is a source of febrile restlessness among
Catholic peoples and of danger among many nations.
IT IS OF SUPREME INTEREST FOR ITALY.
But while the question of the Temporal Power has interest
for all the world, it has supreme interest for Italy. Italian
statesmen now know that the Pope will never accept the Law
of Guarantees, and that a pittance from the Quirinal treasury
will not atone for an outrage upon the most sacred rights of
the Papacy. The government beholds itself beset on every
side by difficulties which it had not foreseen, and of which it
298 THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. [Dec.,
can see no end. In Rome itself there is the anomaly of a
dual sovereignty, and in Rome less than in any other city in
Europe is there room for two royal courts. The Pope cannot
be a sovereign by courtesy only, even if he were willing to be
a mock king in the city where Popes have reigned for more
than a thousand years. But more serious than this anomaly is
the deplorable condition of the country at large by reason of
the abstention of the vast body of Italians from the urns. The
masses of the Italian people are Catholic to the core ; they
love their Pope not less than their country ; and they stand
aloof from national politics as a moral and political protest
against an order of things which they cannot remedy by legal
means and which they will not perpetuate. The henchmen of
the party in power and some thousands of Republicans and
Socialists are, practically, the only people who go to the polls ;
the bulk of the population of the country remains extraneous
to the institutions of the nation. Italy presents the strange
spectacle of a land where there are elections without electors,
for the nominees of the government are chosen by a miserable
minority of those who are entitled to vote. The consequences
are disastrous to the people and the rulers. The millions who
make up the bone and sinew of the nation are not represented
in parliament, and by the abstention of those who could use
the right of suffrage with discernment the government is de-
prived of the conservative forces of religion and morality, with
which no government can afford to dispense.
The real Italy the best blood of the country will have
nothing to do with the domination of the Piedmontese, and is
forced to witness the slow demoralization of national life ;
while the House of Savoy, placed in a position hostile to the
politico-religious convictions of the mass of its subjects, finds
itself alienated from its natural and most powerful allies and
weakened for the conflict with the forces to which Humbert
has fallen a victim. The normal condition of the country is a
state of crisis. It is not strange, therefore, that on every side,
not only among those who have at heart the interests of the
Holy See, but also among those who were loudest in pro-
claiming Rome " a conquest not to be touched," there has
grown up a conviction that the present agony of the nation
cannot last indefinitely and that peace with the Papacy is the
supreme need of the hour. They who deemed the Roman
Question ended, when in reality it had only begun, now see
that even from the point of view of expediency it was a disas-
1900.] THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE. 299
trous blunder to transform the Capital of Christendom into the
chief town of a struggling kingdom. They also realize that
Italy will never be happy until the present baneful and un-
natural conflict is over, and the elements of order and stability
be once more enlisted in the political welfare of the nation.
THE ROMAN QUESTION IS A LIVING ISSUE.
In the meantime the Roman Question is a living question.
Indeed, it is more acute to-day than it has been at any time
during the past thirty years. The question of justice stands
where it stood on the morning when Cadorna's guns were bat-
tering the walls of Rome, and further, a clearer perception of
the issues involved has been gained. Men now understand the
full significance and the grandeur of Leo's protest. They
understand that the world has changed since the days of the
Apostles, and that the needs and consequently the rights of
the Church, become a world-wide polity, must not be gauged
by the needs and the rights of the Church of the Catacombs.
When the Church, as its Divine Founder had ordained, en-
circled in its vast embrace the peoples of the earth, there arose
the supreme necessity of safeguarding through all the compli-
cations of international strife and the shifting conditions of
men and things through all the vicissitudes of time the inde-
pendence of the Papacy upon which the well-being of the
Church depends. In the past, a civil principality has been the
means by which this independence has been realized ; in the
future, Temporal Power will also be the normal actuation of
the freedom essential to the Holy See. All this is clearly
understood, and this is the work of Leo XIII. If the senti-
ment of Christendom is to-day more solidly arrayed than ever
against the usurpation of the Piedmontese, if there is abroad a
stronger conviction than before that Temporal Power is not
an extraneous adjunct of the spiritual jurisdiction of the Pope,
it is because Leo XIII. kept before the eyes of the world the
rights of the Holy See until he made all enlightened men
champions of the inalienable union of the Papacy and the
Eternal City. Already, the still, solemn, persistent condemna-
tion which the awakened conscience of Christendom has passed
upon the deed of the 2Oth of September has amply ratified
Leo's crusade for the rights of the Papacy, and the whole
world feels that justice must be done the Vicar of Christ. The
Prisoner of the Vatican may not see the fruits of his work it
is the undisputed privilege of a Roman Pontiff to be a martyr
300
THE TEMPORAL POWER OF THE POPE.
[Dec.,
to principle but he looks into the future with confidence,
knowing that Rome will be restored to Christendom. The
spoliation of the Holy See is only an incident in the history
of the Papacy. Nine times have men taken Rome from the
Popes, and nine times have they given it back. Once more
will the Patrimony of Peter be given back not, perhaps,
so extensive as it was in days gone by, for it is only indepen-
dence that is sought, not territorial aggrandizement but cer-
tain it is that immemorial right and the eternal patience of
Rome will triumph over the iniquities of " accomplished facts,"
and Leo's dream will be fulfilled : " Rome will again become
what Providence and the course of ages made it, not dwarfed
to the condition of a Capital of one Kingdom, nor divided be-
tween two different and sovereign powers in a dualism con-
trary to its whole history, but the worthy capital of the Catho-
lic world, great with all the majesty of Religion and of the
Supreme Priesthood, a teacher and an example to the nations
of morality and civilization."
The St. Paul Seminary.
i goo.] YULE TIDE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES. 301
YULETIDE IN MEDIEVAL TIMES.
BY N. RYLMAN.
JHRISTMAS may still be termed the greatest
Church Festival of the year, but I think that it
was kept more beautifully and solemnly in pre-
Reformation times ; because Christendom was en-
tirely Catholic, and the Catholic world brought
faith, love, and charity to the feet of The Child and His
Mother, even as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthassar brought
gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Those who have seen the beautiful picture called " The
Star of Bethlehem " will remember the majestic angel with the
great gold star, which has led the Magi to the Manger !
Well, the Church in the same way led Europe to the Crib,
and unbelief was, comparatively speaking, unknown.
In the midst of that green Shakspere-land, in the heart of
that England which dwellers in the New World call Old, is an
ancient city which in the Middle Ages was a centre of Catho-
lic life, was distinguished for its zeal in religion.
Through its quaint, brown streets rode Henry of Windsor
and Margaret of Anjou to hear Mass in the magnificent church,
built by two princely brothers, merchants of the town.
And through it in stately, long processions, with white-robed
choristers chanting and thurifer-bearers sending up clouds of
incense to the clear blue sky, went White Friars and Black,
Brown Friars and Gray. In it they kept fast and feast, and
worked and prayed throughout life's little day.
In this same quaint old city Noeltide was celebrated with
great pomp.
The bells of the many churches began to ring right early
in the Gothic steeples, and old men and maidens, young men
and matrons, wended their way in the gray December morning
to first Mass.
The principal church was dedicated to St. Michael. It had
three altars, and several religious guilds. The children, who
were taught and fed by various charities, knelt with the sisters
in charge of them, in long rows, as they do now in Continental
churches.
3O2 YULE TIDE IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES. [Dec.
i
The singing at High Mass was exceeding sweet, and when
it was over my Lord Bishop and the Worshipful Mayor en-
tertained the poor at dinner in the noble Guild Hall, opposite
the cathedral. We can all of us picture the scene.
The wintry sunshine would fall through stained-glass windows
on the rush-strewn floor and carved oak roof ; on the dais hung
with tapestry representing King Henry, Queen Margaret, and
Cardinal Beaufort at Mass on Palm Sunday ; on the purple-
robed father in Christ ; the rosy-cheeked hautboys in the
minstrels' gallery, and the hundreds of God's poor ; flat-caps,
hinds, the halt, the maimed, the blind up and down amongst
them would pass and repass ; kind gentlewomen, in picturesque
russet and brown and green, the wives and daughters of mem-
bers of the Mercers' Company, who on this day were truly the
handmaidens of the Lord.
The server would place the boar's head on the high table,
chanting :
" The boar's head in hand bear I,
Dressed with sprigs of rosemary."
Then would follow the beef (an oxen roasted whole in the
market-place), and our old friend, the plum-pudding ; and the
entire company would keep Christmas cheerily, before they
again turned into the snow.
At eventide the Waits would play. The burghers would
wake in the night and hear the harp and the viol and the
long drawn
" Christus Natus, Christus Natus,
Christus Natus ho-di-e."
The suppression of the monastic buildings threw a cloud of
sadness over the festive season. Many poor souls, who had
been fed and housed by the charitable religious, had literally
no lodging but on the cold ground, and the monks and nuns
themselves must have been like sanctuary birds rudely driven
from their nests.
Most touching is the story of Father Austin Ringwood, a
monk of Glastonbury.
Austin Ringwood, a scion of an old English family, had
spent many quiet years in the beautiful abbey, whose gar-
den was his especial care. When it was dissolved he could
not leave it ; in the words of the Psalmist he said : " If
I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cun
1900.] YULETIDE IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES. 303
ning." So he tarried near it in disguise ; lived in a hut on a
coombe near, and was styled " The Old Gardener " by the
country folk round about, because he used to potter about in
the deserted garden.
Can you not fancy that you see him pruning the holly-
trees and nailing up the ivy at Noeltide, thinking the while
of the father abbot and the brothers who used to chant in
choir.
Time passed on, and one day a priest from a great distance
came to the aged monk, and gave him the last Sacraments,
before he went on his journey to that Celestial City whose
Builder and Maker is God. Then, but not until then, was it
known who he really was.
Here is a little story of mediaeval Europe for the children,
which impressed me when I read it, ever so long ago.
Once on a time, when little girls wore queer pointed caps,
and little boys had not half as much as they have nowadays
to learn, a little Savoyard, harp on back, found himself out-
side the closed gates of the city of Nancy one Christmas eve.
It was dark, and he was cold and hungry ; but, though he
shouted loudly, he met with no response. So he moved away,
and in moving fell down a round hole into a pit. Here he
lay for some time, half stunned.
And when he came to himself he heard a loud snoring, and
made out what seemed to be a big dog lying near. He was
so lonely that he felt pleased to have doggie's company, and
moved nearer. Then he saw that it was a bear ! He had
fallen into the bear-pit.
Filled with fear, the orphan child prayed silently ; all that
Christmas night his prayers ascended to heaven ; and we may
believe that Jesus, who was once a child, and Mary His
Mother, who loves little children, were sorry for and protected
him, for Bruin (who had had a good feed) slept soundly ; and
when morning came the watchmen heard his cries, and drew
the poor minstrel out of that horrible pit.
And he heard Mass in Nancy Cathedral, and told his story
to the bishop, and they all made much of him ; and after all
he had a happy and beautiful Christmas Day.
One word more. That which made the mediaeval Noeltide
so bright and beautiful a season can also make it the same
for us wanderers. We can visit Jesus and His Mother. We
304
YULE TIDE IN MEDIAEVAL TIMES.
[Dec.
can go to Mass, and when we hear the solemn " Agnus Dei "
can adore the Lamb of God, who came as a very small, very
snow-white Lambkin, on Christmas morning. For the presence
of Jesus maketh Christmas !
Agnus Dei ! thy fleece is
Whiter than the snow ;
Agnus Dei! no crimson
Blood-drops on it show.
Agnus Dei ! thy Mother,
Tender, kind, and sweet,
Will in greenest pastures
Lead thy little feet.
Agnus Dei ! we love thee
On thy Mother's knee.
Sing we Adoremus,
Sing we Venite.
Gentle little Shepherd,
Now thy sheep-fold bless ;
Love us as a mother,
Holy Shepherdess.
MURILLO'S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, IN THE LOUVRE.
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET.
HE Spaniard, in some quaint, fanciful fashion,
ever lovingly names the great ones of his
native land, showing by a sort of familiar, affec-
tionate nomenclature his pride and tenderness
for them. Cervantes is named " The Prince of
Jesters," Lope de Vega they dub " King of Dramatists," and
Murillo, whom every true Spaniard loves as his own soul, is
called " El Pintor del Virgen " Painter of the Virgin a beau-
tiful name and well deserved, for all his life Murillo loved to
bring the weight of his genius to bear upon the portrayals of
the Blessed Virgin.
VOL LXXIL 20
306 THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN. [Dec.,
Many other subjects he painted, and especially did he enjoy
bringing in the accessories of that nature which he studied and
loved.
" He alone
The sunshine and the shadow and the dew
Had shared alike with leaf and flower and stem ;
Their life had been his lesson, and from them
A dream of immortality he drew,
As in their fate foreshadowing his own."
His St. Anthonys are famous; his beggars are marvellous
pieces of genre; his children and ninos are enchanting; but
much as he loved them all and he lent the divine fire of his
genius to nothing save con amore his whole soul went into the
painting of his Madonnas.
Classic as was his taste, yet he never permitted himself to
paint a mythological subject. He did not leave us
"Adonais painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid."
Patriotic as was his soul, he did not lend his brush to the
portrayal of Spain's greatness, though the splendid conquests
of Ferdinand and Isabella in the Moorish wars and the roman-
tic episodes of the discovery of the New World offered him
an endless variety of subjects.
Pre-eminently a spiritual man, Bartolom Murillo was a re-
ligious painter par excellence, and his devotion to the sweet
Mother of God shows itself in his many paintings of her, for
during his life he painted nearly every scene in her career.
As a child he pictured her as the very personification of
artless innocence. A charming painting is in the museum at
Valladolid, where the lovely little maid of about five years is
led by St. Joachim. She bears a lily branch, this lily among
thorns ; her little skirts are modestly held, and she is the
very picture of a dainty little princess, reminding one of the
Spanish peasants' idea that the Blessed Virgin was of pure
Castilian birth. Her expression is one of artless innocence,
and there is about her a grace of dignity and a charming air
of good breeding, though not so much thoughtfulness as in
the picture where St. Ann is represented as teaching her to
read. This charming scene hangs upon the walls of the Madrid
Museum of the Prado, and is one of his best works. St. Ann,
a womanly, dignified figure, is seated in the shadow of a
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
307
"THE LOVELY LITTLE FIGURE OF THE LlLY MAID OF JUDEA."
pillar at one side of the picture, in a dense gloom which
throws the other side of the picture into a correspondingly
strong relief. This is a favorite method of Murillo's when he
wishes to give emphasis to one figure above another. In this
case the figure of the Blessed Virgin is clearly outlined against
a light which seems to fall upon her in a refulgent 'shower
direct from the clouds above, whence lovely cherubs descend
with a crown of roses. The accessories of the picture, the soft
Spanish exterior, the dignified form of the saintly mother all
are charming yet subservient to the lovely little figure of the
Lily Maid of Judea. She is such a little princess in her trail-
ing robes, yet so meekly sweet, so gently thoughtful. The
wistful little face, so attuned to heavenly wisdom, is framed in
308
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
[Dec.,
floating dark hair ; the tiny finger points to her place in the
Sacred Book, from which all Jewish maids were taught to
read, while the deep, dark eyes seem to see strange visions, as
the mother explains some hidden prophecy of Scripture.
Perhaps some inkling of her great destiny stirred in that child-
ish heart, for she was " wise beyond her years and full of
knowledge."
The thoughtful childhood grew to pensive youth, for in
Murillo's wonderful painting of the Annunciation we see the
Jewish maiden portrayed in all her perfect beauty, her childish
innocence merged into true maidenliness, as she kneels in
meek submission at the message of the angel. Still is she of
the dark Spanish type (there are those who say that Murillo's
wife, the stately, lovely Sevilliana, posed for these dark-haired
Madonnas) and she seems to have been surprised at the home-
ly task of mending the family linen, for it lies beside her upon
the floor, the angel having called her " To rise from earthly
TO RISE FROM EARTHLY DREAMS, TO HYMN ETERNITY."
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
309
"FOR MARY, THE SINLESSLY BORN."
dreams, to hymn Eternity." She was such a child, our poor
little Lady, meeting the great mystery alone, yet not quite
alone for Murillo has given her hosts of angel forms to com-
fort her and the perfect submission of her sweet face shows
that the good God was with her as well, and that his grace
was sufficient for her.
But lovingly as the Maestro painted the varied scenes in
the life of the Blessed Virgin, there was one scene which was
dearer to him than anything else the Immaculate Conception.
In the year of the artist's birth the Holy Father Paul V.
issued his famous bull forbidding attacks on this, the favorite
dogma of the Church in Spain. All the country flew into an
ecstasy of delight, and even
" Earth wore the surplice at morn,
As pure as the vale's stainless lily
For Mary, the sinlessly born."
3io THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN. [Dec.,
Henceforth Spanish art was enriched by the portraying of
the precious belief, upon canvases bathed in almost heavenly
light, by brushes sanctified by prayer.
Into this atmosphere of religious fervor Murillo was born
and here he was bred.
" His spirit gave
A fragrance to all nature and a tone
To inexpressive silence,"
and it is not surprising that a painter who formed an art
school the pupils of which met with the salutation " Praised
be the most Holy Sacrament of the pure Conception of Our
Lady," should have painted pictures of this wonderful belief
in a truly wonderful manner.
The Maestro 's numerous paintings of the Conception have
many points of similarity, yet each one is distinctive. The
Blessed Virgin is depicted as young, very beautiful, with- an
expression of perfect purity and innocence. Generally the
face is of the rich Spanish type of Andalusia, oval, brows
arched and wide apart :
*' A forehead fair and saintly,
Which two blue eyes do undershine.
Like meek prayers before a shrine."
She has brown hair, parted and floating about the face, regu-
lar features, and wears cloudy draperies of soft blue and
white. Frequently she stands upon a crescent (symbolizing
the conquest of Spanish Christianity over the Moors), and her
figure is given full length. Thus it is in the Seville Concep-
tion, and in the well-known painting in the Dresden Gallery;
but a particularly beautiful picture on this subject hangs in
the Museum of the Prado in Madrid. Here the half figure
only is shown ; the crescent encircles it, and above are charm-
ing cherubs, hovering lovingly about the fair face of the
Mother of God. This Virgin differs from many in having
splendid masses of dark instead of light brown hair.
Pacheco, when familiar of the Inquisition, laid down the
law that the Blessed Virgin should be painted as "light- haired,
modestly attired, and in no case should her feet be uncov-
ered"; but Pacheco was no more when Murillo painted his
wonderful Conceptions, and the Sevillian artist was wont to
set at defiance hard and-fast rules, painting according to his
own sweet will. But so pure was his nature, and so fervently
IQOO.]
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
"THE SPANISH TYPE WHICH MOORISH BLOOD HAD TOUCHED."
did he dip his brush in prayer, that one finds always a pecu-
liar spirituality about his religious paintings, however at vari-
ance they may seem with the preconceived notions and con-
ventionalities of his predecessors.
The most famous Conception that in the Louvre repre-
sents the Blessed Virgin as slightly older than the sweetly
wistful maiden surrounded by cherubs, with her gentle, pathetic
face. Magnificent golden brown hair streams upon her shoul-
ders, her hands are folded upon her breast, her splendid dra-
peries float about her, her eyes are cast upward, and an
expression of sadness and inexpressible resignation rests upon
her features.
Murillo was unlike Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi,
and many other religious painters, in not adhering to one type
for his pictures of the Blessed Virgin.
His Virgin of the Conception is a spiritual type, his Virgin
of the Napkin more earthy, that of Li Hague a thoughtful,
312
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
[Dec.,
brown-haired, intellectual creature. He particularly fancied the
Spanish type which Moorish blood had touched, and painted
many lovely Madonnas, dark-haired, oval-faced, placid, sweet,
with full lips, straight noses, arched brows, and a certain life
about them which seems to bespeak the loving, earthly mother,
as well as the Virgin Queen.
Such an one is in the " Holy Family," a charming picture
painted in Murillo's best style, with a marvellous chiar-oscuro.
God the Father, surrounded by cherubs, blesses the group
from the clouds above, and the Dove of the Spirit is hovering
over the head of our Lord. The Blessed Virgin holds her
Son lovingly, upon her face an expression of motherly pride
THE HOLY FAMILY.
1900.]
THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN.
RESIGNED SADNESS OF THE LOVELY FACE."
and exaltation. At
her feet are St. Eliza-
beth and St. John the
Baptist with a lamb,
the boy saint holding
up his staff for the
Baby our Lord to play
with. On the faces of
the three there is eager
interest, worship, and
deep devotion. As all
eyes are turned toward
Christ, so all the light
and color of the pic-
ture is dentred upon
him. He is the darling-
est baby ever painted,
but oh ! how much
more. His little round-
ed limbs, his chubby
hands, his smiling face
all exquisitely mould-
ed are charmingly natural. The thoughtfulness of the face, the
depth of the eyes that see more than mere human vision, the
resignation of the hands which grasp the cross all this tells
of more than man : it is the mystery of the God-Man made a
child for us, while the Blessed Virgin is one of Murillo's sweet-
est creations.
Painting generally the more glorious scenes of our Lady's
life, Murillo did not forget the more sorrowful ones. He has
a Mater Dolorosa which is pitiful in the resigned sadness of
the lovely face.
" The star that in his splendor hid her own,
At Christ's Nativity,
Abides a widowed satellite alone
On tearful Calvary."
This Madonna is of the more regular of Murillo's concep-
tions; indeed, at times it seems as if he could not have painted
it, so Italian is the pure outline, yet that it is an original
Murillo there is no doubt, and it is rarely beautiful in rich,
subdued coloring.
In the same gallery with his finest Conception is the As-
3H THE PAINTER OF THE VIRGIN. [Dec.,
sumption of the Virgin, one of Murillo's greatest works.
Floating aloft on a bank of clouds, entrancing baby forms
hover about her, a flying bit of drapery, floating over the
half moon, conceals her feet and makes her seem as if being
wafted heavenward. Her hands are folded across her breast,
her eyes raised to heaven, the attitude and pose similar to
that in the Conception ; indeed, the picture may readily be
mistaken for a Conception, save that the face is more mature
than that of the Jewish maiden, the portrayal of whose great
mystery won for El Maestro his title " El Pintor del Con-
cepcion."
Such are some of the famous Madonnas of the greatest
Spanish artist, a noble and beautiful soul who, dying, left a
rich legacy to posterity in the marvellous works of art which,
" Finger marks
Along the ways of time, may lead
Us all to higher things,"
and whom all who love our Lady should refer to lovingly as
" The Painter of the Virgin."
V
TRUTH.
SHE hath changed never; never will she change,
Although we question watching from afar :
She hath the boundless universe to range
And only moveth court from star to star.
ARTHUR UPSON.
1900.] THE ANGLICAN MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 315
THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN THE ANGLI-
CAN CHURCH.*
BY REV. WILLIAM L. SULLIVAN, C.S.P.
'ATHER RAGEY'S work in its method and spirit
is a noble, and in the grave suggestiveness of
the lesson it enforces a remarkable production.
It is an exhaustive exposition, based always on
first-hand information, of the foreign-mission
movement in the Church of England, written with a double
purpose one explicitly and frequently held up to view, the
other only implied, or delicately insinuated. The first is to in-
spire an apostolate of Catholic intercession for all our mission
interests, and above all for the conversion of England to her
ancient Catholic allegiance. The second is to arouse Catholics
to the summoning of all their forces, to give them matter for
some apprehensiveness, and to sober them with a little salu-
tary confusion for past and present apathy, by holding up to
their inspection the extraordinary missionary activity of the
Anglican Establishment without doubt one of the most pro-
foundly significant phenomena of contemporary religious his-
tory. Toward both these ends Father Ragey constructs his
work, and sustains it from beginning to end in a spirit of
vehement love for souls. In the light of that supreme priestly
purpose he completely loses sight of the prejudices of race or
the prepossessions of polemics, and gazes steadfastly at the
highest interests of God's glory and the church's welfare. He
does away with national feeling. In the kingdom of Christ he
sees a wider citizenship than French or Italian or English or
American. There we are in presence of God and souls, and
there our sympathies and labors must be confined by no
national boundaries or ancient antipathies, but be limited
solely by the resources of pure, simple, apostolic zeal, mighty
in its powers of achievement, infinite in its possibilities of prayer.
WORLD-WIDE INFLUENCE OF ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES.
Here is a fact which as members of this or that nation we
* Les Missions Anglicanes. Par le P. Ragey, Mariste. Paris: Librairie Bloud et
Barral. 1900.
316 THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN [Dec.,
may grumble at and take ill, but which as Christians we ought
to accept as the disposition of God's providence, and endeavor
to turn to his greater glory ; and this fact is the unprecedented
progress of the English speaking peoples, and their immense
if not predominant importance in determining the future re-
ligious as well as political condition of many tribes and races
who can learn from no other source the lessons of a dawning
civilization. England with one-fifth of humankind beneath her
sceptre, holding in her hands the destiny of India, Australia,
and, after her recent wars in the Soudan and in South Africa,
the vast stretch of continent between Cairo and the Cape ;
the United States, become since our war with Spain of deci-
sive influence both among the powers of the world and with
several millions of a subject race, at this spectacle of bound-
less power the priestly heart, wherever it beats, feels only one
sentiment : " O God, turn this mighty kingdom to Thy glory
by making it Thine own ! " In this supernatural spirit Father
Ragey's work is steeped. He loves another people than his
own greater, as he confesses, than his own ; but with a love
that is part of his love for God. It would be only a half-
truth to say of him : " Here is a Frenchman who loves Eng-
land." It would be better expressed : " Behold a priest who
loves souls as his Master loved them."
Still nobler than Father Ragey's immunity from national,
is his freedom from polemical feeling. His purpose is not to
search out the failures of Anglican missions ; to taunt English
Churchmen with the fruitless expenditure of vast sums in
foreign proselytizing and with the wasted labors of hundreds
of their missionaries. Such a style of writing has its place, it
is not to be denied, though there are few who are great-
minded enough to indulge it with conspicuous success. But
our author's purpose is quite another and a more exalted one ;
more warm and winning too, and with a spiritual suggestive-
ness that brings us in touch with divine things and leads us
close to the spirit of prayer. He would show us the genuine
fervor of great numbers of Anglicans for the coming of Christ's
Kingdom, as they feebly conceive it ; their earnest zeal for
the triumph of Christianity over heathenism ; the fine spirit of
many of their missionaries, and the magnificent generosity of
the laity who support them and lavish colossal treasures to
enhance the success of their undertakings. It is with solemn
impressiveness that he bids us see how these children of spiritual
exile, strayed into devious ways and lost therein, are husband-
1900.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 317
ing the little spark which is all they possess of the great
hearth fire of Truth that burns splendid and life-giving in the
ancient Mother's household, fanning it with solicitous care that
it may not die out, that it may even become a mighty pillar
of fire that will touch the sky, the guide of many millions
out of the wilderness of infidelity, the lux mundi of new
peoples and a new age. Let us admire them. Let us love
them and pray for them noble souls and our brothers by im-
memorial ties. Let us reserve to another time the asperities
of controversy. True, if we descended to them or were forced
to deal with them, we might enjoy the fierce pride of victory.
But now we will rather feel the pathetic affection hidden in
the divine words : " Other sheep I have " ; not other wolves,
other scorpions, but other sheep, who in great numbers are
following the Shepherd even in his carrying of the cross. It
is a higher vantage point surely, and gives a nobler and
diviner view of the spiritual world than we could get in the
hot wrestling of polemics. There is no danger that in our
charity for the erring, which is a duty, we shall at all indulge
their error, which would be a sin. The more we know of
their zeal and their devotion to Christ, the more shall our
hearts be wounded with the thought of what they would
achieve if they but possessed the truth : the more ardently
shall we pray God to forgive that ancient sacrilege which visits
with so sad a curse the children of its perpetrators, and to re-
store to unhappy England the grace and privilege of her bar-
tered birthright.
This is the spirit of prudence, the spirit of charity, the
spirit of truth. We shall work best and pray best for souls
when we know best their native nobility, love of truth, and
spiritual culture. The nearer we see them approach by inborn
aptitude, or by the graces they have received, to the divine
fulness of Truth which God's predilection has gratuitously
given us, surely the more instant shall we be in imploring the
Almighty Father :
" These good things being given, to go on, and give one more,
the best."*
The great convert makers of the church have always felt
this sentiment. It is the spirit of the great Gregory, pope and
saint, who sent Augustine and the Benedictines to England and
made it Christian and Catholic. When told that the handsome,
* Browning's " Saul."
318 THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN [Dec.,
fair-haired slaves in the Roman market were Angles, " Nay,"
said he, "were they but Christian, it is not Angles they would
be, but Angels." And we, thirteen centuries after Gregory, may
say with truth : " Were their children Catholic, they would be
to day not disseminators of heresy, but the apostles and con-
verters of the world." So in the zealburned heart of Isaac
Hecker, love of the great natural gifts of the American people
was as coals that fed his vast desire to see God possess his
best, to see Heaven stoop down and glorify what soared above
the earth so high ; and the same spirit is displayed in a great
son of England and eminent prince of the church, the present
Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster, when he writes to the
author we are now reviewing : " It is impossible to know these
men and women belonging to the rank of the simple faithful.,
and a great number (une foule) of their clergymen, without
being struck with proofs of their fervor, good faith, zeal, spirit
of sacrifice, piety, and love of our Lord. If it pleases God
that we should work for the conversion of souls that are dis-
figured and debased by every vice and wickedness, assuredly it
must be supremely gratifying to him that we pray and labor
for those who practise so many and such splendid virtues ;
men and women who often heap confusion on our head by
their fervor and their zeal. What mighty services might they
not render to the cause of God, what holiness might they not
attain, what exalted throne in heaven might they not win if
they but possessed the Sacramentum unitatis which is a key
that opens the treasury of sacramental grace ; which is the
first condition of our incorporation with Christ the Lord."*
Surely it is an inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the Univer-
sal Church of Christ has ever been moved with special longing
for the conversion of this people, and is to-day, in obedience
to our Holy Father's express exhortation, organizing legions of
prayer for the same sacred end.
THE NATIONAL ELEMENT IN ANGLICAN MISSIONS.
Before we approach the details of Father Ragey's work we
ought to consider an aspect of the Anglican foreign-mission move-
ment which to Anglican eyes gives a new spiritual nobility to
their enterprise, but to us ought to be a matter of grave concern,
and a vigorous spur to action when our hands would idle and
our supplication faint. This aspect consists in the hand-in-hand
progress of British Empire and Anglican endeavor, the in-
* Letter to P. Ragey, appendix.
1900.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 319
teraction and mutual dependence of the conqueror or colonial
ruler and the missionary ; the practical identity of interest
between England the constitutional state and England the
religious establishment. To understand the sense of power
which this consideration gives to Churchmen in pushing for-
ward their missionary undertakings, we must bear in mind that
Englishmen have a feeling of destiny that they are to civilize
and evangelize by far the greater part of the inferior races of
the world. Whatever the great place in history filled by
Britain in the past, her sons to-day regard her as only at the
threshold of an era of achievement which shall crown her
future with a splendor never before conceived by states or
statesmen. They see her the tutor of infant peoples, millions
strong, teaching them by the patient method of daily contact,
of jealous care, of valiant protection, of wise laws, how great
she is, and how fortunate they are in resting beneath her hand
of power; raising their view to a world-expanse that they may
see upon the background of civilized humanity the dominating
outline of her own imperial figure; holding out to them the hope
of an ever greater share in her vast policies, her unlimited
power, and her royal emoluments; inculcating civilization, but
a British civilization ; the genius of politics, but of British
politics ; stability on the basis of laws and constitutions, but
always British laws and the British Constitution. Then some
day, when these lessons have been well learned, when they
have passed from facts of mind to determinations of purpose
and impulses of sentiment, the multitudes of India and Africa
will sweep out on the plain of human affairs in perfect order
and superb equipment, civilized, trustworthy, British, and here
is our present purpose Christian. For England is too relig-
ious a country, and even were she not, she is too old in the
business of government to omit so vital a factor in the pacifi
cation, reconciliation, and incorporation of subject peoples, as
religion, and especially the Christian religion. So the children
of her millennium are to be Christian, and accordingly every
step forward made to-day by Anglican missionaries is regarded
by British statesmen as an advance toward the great accomplish-
ment of destiny ; being such, they are rejoiced at it and are
eager to do all they can to help in the work.
THE SPELL OF A GREAT VOCATION.
In their turn English Churchmen feel the spell of this great
vocation, and, in a powerful blending of patriotism and relig-
32O THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN [Dec.,
ious zeal, they are rushing forward in hundreds and are pour-
ing out wealth in millions, that their share in this remarkable
programme may nowise fall short. At a recent missionary
conference in England the young clergy of the Establishment
were reminded that they must regard themselves not so much
as ministers of England but as ministers of the Empire, and that
they must extend their activity and zeal to the farthest limits
of British possessions. Bishop Whitehead of Madras has de-
clared that the breaking up of the native Indian religions, with
their 200,000,000 adherents, has already begun, and that it will
be a happening so momentous as to challenge comparison with
the dissolution of the Roman Empire. And the work of recon-
struction must, he says, be undertaken by England and the
Christian forces that go out from England. The oldest son of
Lord Salisbury has given it as the very justification of England's
recent wars, with all their harrowing consequences of ruin and
bloodshed, that it is " solely because we are convinced that,
thanks to the genius of our people and the purity of our religion,
we are able to confer on our subject peoples benefits which no
other nation can confer in equal degree. It is solely because
we know that the preaching of the Church of Christ is part of
the programme of the British government that we are in a
position to justify the Empire of which we are so proud."
And in a striking phrase of Lord Curzon, the present Viceroy
of India, the whole design we have been outlining is neatly
expressed, if we extend to the whole Empire what he says of
a part of it : " The spectacle presented by our rule in India is
that of British power on the background of a Christian ideal."
Impressive words all these ; and making a fair allowance
for excited fancy and political effect, we would best consider
them as bespeaking an urgent summons to our missionary
spirit, our zeal, our generosity, our supplication.
DETAILS OF THE ANGLICAN PROPAGANDA.
There are three principal societies which carry on the work
of Anglican missions : The Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge (S. P. C. K.), founded in 1696; The So-
ciety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts
(S. P. G.), established by royal charter in 1701 this is a
strongly High Church organization; The Church Missionary
Society (C. M. S.), of Low Church tendencies, begun in 1799.
We omit the British and Foreign Bible Society, which, though
it substantially aids Anglican missions, is not distinctively and
1900.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 321
exclusively Anglican, but extends its benefits to other sects
as well. The three societies which we shall inspect it will be
best, for the sake of brevity, to designate by their initials.
The S. P. G. requires of each member an annual subscrip-
tion of one guinea ; ten guineas down purchase a life member-
ship. The income of this society for 1898 was $661,775. It
has charge of :
787 missionaries ;
2,900 lay catechists ;
3200 students in higher schools;
38,000 children in lower schools.
United to the S. P. G. as an auxiliary is The Oxford Mis-
sionary Society of Graduates, composed, as the name indicates,
of gentlemen who have been graduated from Oxford. The
special service which this society seeks to aid is the conver-
sion of the native women of India.
The C. M. S. was founded one hundred years ago by six-
teen clergymen and nine laymen, who met in London to de-
vise means for sending missionaries to the heathen. In the
first year of its existence it raised $4,555. Its revenue for
1897-1898 was $1,657,980. At present it supports:
520 missions ;
1,136 missionaries;
6,154 native missionaries, or missionary assistants.
During the year 1897-1898 its agents administered 16,103
baptisms. Its schools and seminaries educate 88,094 pupils.
It has five missionary colleges in England, and besides, a Mis-
sionaries' Children's Home, which is a feeder for its higher
seminaries. It enjoys the support of the following affiliated
societies :
The Church of England Zenana Missionary Society ;
The Missionary Leaves Association ;
The Ladies' Church Missionary Union ;
The Young Ladies' Church Missionary Study Bands;
The Gleaners' Union ;
The Sowers a children's association.
The first of these auxiliary branches procured for the general
fund in 1896 $40,300 in money, and $13,380 in gifts other than
money.
These three great bodies are finely organized in every de-
partment ; they have strict regulations for members, for offi-
cials, and for missionaries. Every year they publish an ex-
haustive report, accounting for every receipt and expenditure,
VOL. LXXII. 21
322 THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN [Dec.,
and containing mission statistics, edifying incidents, and every
other matter of missionary interest. The president of the
S. P. G. is always the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the
C. M. S. the chief officer must be a member of Parliament;
the incumbent at present is the Right Honorable Sir John
H. Kennaway. This society counts as patrons several mem-
bers of the royal family, and as vice-patrons many distinguished
personages of the realm.
THE PRESS AS A MISSIONARY AGENT.
From such vast resources and wise management as these
societies may rely upon, we may surmise the extent to which
they sustain, consolidate, and augment their work by the power
of the printed word. Let us draw on Father Ragey's statistics
once more.
For the year ending March 31, 1897, the S. P. C. K. dis-
tributed :
145,205 Bibles ;
22,975 New Testaments;
324.426 prayer-books ;
12,537,091 tracts.
The S. P. G. conducts :
The Cowley Evangelist ;
St. Mary's Quarterly Mission Paper;
The Star in the East.
The C. M. S. publications are :
The Intelligencer, . . . 6,600 copies a month.
The Gleaner 83,400
The Awake, 44,250 " "
The Children's World, . . 600,500 " "
Mercy and Truth, . . . 6000 " "
The Quarterly Paper, . . 20,000 copies every quarter.
The Quarterly Token, . . . 225,000 " " "
in English, 5,500 in Welsh, and 300 in Chinese.
Stupendous as all these figures are, they still fall short of
adequately expressing the missionary spirit which, like a fire,
is kindling the Establishment from end to end. No device is
forgotten which would be likely to arouse fresh enthusiasm
and inspire greater generosity. Lecturers in the cause travel
the country over; magic-lantern exhibitions are given; fairs
and charity sales are held ; almost every imaginable means is
brought to service in keeping alive in all classes and condi-
tions of men the conviction that the noblest cause which can
THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 323
enlist their sympathy, and the divinest work to which they
can give their help, is that their religion should follow fast in
the footsteps of their empire in the conquest of half the world.
Even the poorest are given an opportunity to share in the
work, and the returns of a penny-a-week collection started for
this special purpose by the C. M. S. prove abundantly that
they, too, are capable of enthusiasm and generosity. Finally,
to throw into the soil of the future the seeds which have
made the present so full of harvest, missionary agents have
visited the great schools of England, and in Eton, Rugby,
Liverpool, Malvern, and Sherborne have preached to the
future scholars and statesmen of the kingdom zeal for Lord
Curzon's "spectacle of British power on the background of a
Christian ideal."
SPIRIT AND MOTIVES OF THE ANGLICAN REVIVAL.
We should fall far short of a just and adequate judgment
of the movement which we are trying to understand if we
failed to say a word under this head. Even the statistics we
have seen, much as they disclose, leave us with little more than
the ground plans of the great structure of English Church mis-
sions. We must enter if we would know the spirit that per-
vades there. This spirit, to a very impressive degree, is the
spirit of wide zeal and devout reliance on intercessory prayer.
The former of these may be illustrated from the report of the
Lambeth Conference of 194 Anglican bishops in 1899. From
that report we make these extracts :
"We come now to the subject of foreign missions, the
work which at present holds first place among all the tasks
which we have to achieve."
" The Jews seem to merit an attention greater than they
have hitherto received. The difficulties of converting the Jews
are very great, but the greatest are those which come from
the indifference of Christians when there is question of leading
this race of men to our Saviour."
Here it will be in order to mention as organized Anglican
efforts in this direction, "The London Society for Promoting
Christianity among the Jews," founded in 1809, and now sup-
porting in England, Palestine, and Persia 184 missionaries ;
" The Parochial Missions to the Jews at Home and Abroad,"
and " The East London Missions to the Jews." The Lambeth
report continues with regard to a religion which counts as
adherents one-seventh of the population of the earth Mahomet-
324 THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT IN [Dec.,
anism : " One fourth of this number are citizens of the British
Empire. . . . They have therefore a special reason for
counting on the charity of their more favored fellow-citizens.
. . . An essential thing is that the missionaries who under-
take their conversion should have made a profound and patient
study of Mahometanism and of the Arabic language, and
that they should show absolute justice in treating of Mahometan-
ism and of the character of Mahomet." This last certainly
would be refreshingly new.
Of the spirit of prayer in the Anglican mission revival let
one striking instance suffice. The younger ministers of the
Established Church have formed a "Junior Clergy Association "
which now numbers 3,000 members, one of whose ends is to
pray and to form bands of prayer for the success of foreign
missions. This association has composed special litanies and
invocations for that purpose, which they have had approved
by the Archbishop of Canterbury and recite at their official
sessions.
WHAT ARE WE TO THINK OF THE MOVEMENT ?
To this natural question the answer of Father Ragey seems
the obvious one. We should confront this missionary fervor of
the Anglicans with as widespread and as efficiently directed a
fervor among the children of the Church ; and we should be-
siege the entrenched mercies of God that He win this great
people to the fulness of His Truth. It is invidious to make com-
parisons. One comparison we could indeed make that would
thrill us with triumph. We could point to the consecrated
sons and daughters of Christ who are the living proof that the
ancient church is still to-day, as she has ever been, the church
of martyrs. Peerless souls! never equalled in apostolic success ;
never to be approached in the heroism of their sacrifice ; to
whom the missionary life is not a career, but a martyrdom
and a longing after martyrdom ; whose exile is not refreshed
with domestic ministrations ; who may not and who would not
look forward to an old age back in the home they have left
once and for ever, where honors await them and every comfort
will soothe them in their age ; who have no human support
when the spirit faints from toil or is broken with ingratitude ;
who can reckon on only a slender dribble of means for the
works which their hands, before their strength be gone, would
upraise for God and Souls ; who carry alone the forlorn hopes
of zeal; who are free from the harassing competition of the
1900.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 325
sects when the leper's sores are to be cleansed, the outcasts of
the human race spiritually attended, critical peril to be met
and certain death for Christ to be encountered. Thanks be to
God for the church's missionaries to-day ! No ! with these
there is no comparison. A single one of them in his direst
poverty outweighs the treasuries of opulent associations and
puts to confusion the resources of empires. But whether there
may not be the suggestion of a lesson for the Catholic laity in
the missionary spirit of the Anglican body ; whether there may
not be hints to the fulfilment of a possibly forgotten duty in
the spectacle of 3,000 young Anglican ministers bound together
in a society of missionary prayer ; these are questions
which this article chooses not formally to answer. It contains
matter, however, whereon to base an answer for those sufficient-
ly concerned. One consideration alone we would urge as a line
of missionary effort likely to stimulate our people to a display
of eminent and enthusiastic zeal. Would it trespass on the
venerable premises of our seminaries to impress on our coming
priests their responsibility not a slight one, God knows toward
our brethren who are separated from us by the gulf of error;
to begin among those who will be the leaders of God's people
an apostolate of prayer for the conversion of America which
shall spread from them to the faithful of the whole country ?
Would it not be a thing approved of God to preach now and
then on zeal for converts ? Could directors propose a diviner
object for the prayers of holy souls individually, or for the in-
tercession of their organized confraternities, than God's glory
in the winning of souls to Truth ? Would it not be well if
the whole church in the United States were begging God for
the mighty grace of our country's conversion ; if priests and
laity, Catholic societies and sodalities and reading circles ; the
Catholic rich and the Catholic poor, were bound fast together
in one inspiring union of intercession, in one grand association
of active zeal to bring in converts to the Church of Christ?
If Anglicans are so thrilled with the prospect of converting
pagan tribes, may not we be penetrated with the divine desire
of bringing the land we love to the faith we worship ? May
we be solemnly impressed with the zeal displayed by error ;
may we feel an efficacious reproach at the spectacle, if there
is need for reproach ; may a restlessness for souls possess us,
priests and laymen ; and may we make at least as many
efforts and sacrifices for the gathering of the harvest of God
as others do for the increase of the empire of error !
326 BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.,
Lit iX'
BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT.
BY ANNE ELIZABETH O'HARE.
LD Judge Dale's shrewd eyes measured the young
man before him.
" I 'm an old man, Mr. Barrett," he said slow-
ly. " I 've been dabbling in politics ever since I
was a stripling with many enthusiasms and few
clients. Sometimes I 've been in pretty deep deep enough to
taste the bottoms and I 've learned that to be a successful poli-
tician a man must be one of two things : either he must be a
gambler who is not afraid to stake his last chance on the turn
of the die, or he must be a man who seems to be an absolute
party-tool, silent, watchful, cautious. It 's all a matter of policy.
One is the popular hero ; the other is your safe man. But one
or the other, and winning or losing, he must wear an invincible
front. As in every other game of great odds, the best player
is the one who can lose splendidly. If you 're brave enough
to take the first deep plunge, Mr. Barrett, and cool enough to
stop at nothing after, you 're likely to come out on top. But
the man who once flinches is lost. Ah, it 's hazardous play-
ing !" the old man's eyes glowed reminiscently. "Sometimes
the fire and fever of it are worth the stake ; oftener they 're
not It depends on the man."
The judge's glance travelled around the room as he spoke,
finally resting on a solitary figure sitting at one of the less
frequented tables.
" Now, there 's James Farnham," he went on in the same
oracular tone. " He played for pretty big game, but he staked
too much on it. He 's one of those men who pin their life-
hopes to the result of an election. They take things too serious-
ly. For my part, I 'm glad Farnham was defeated."
" Why, I thought you were one of his warmest supporters,"
said the young man, lifting his eye brows in surprise.
" So I was," answered the judge composedly. " I worked
for him as hard as ever I worked for anybody. But I
would n't do it again. He has n't the calibre of a true gamester.
His disappointment is too evident. He's one of your emo-
tional politicians!" The speaker smiled with the contemptuous
BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 327
wisdom of a man who has pretty often rubbed against the
under side of things.
" He does seem to be hit pretty hard," agreed the other,
pushing back his chair. " He's not the same man since."
" He has no spirit," said the older man, a gleam of disdain
in his keen eyes. " He plays too much for the stake, which is
the least part of the game. If I- had his money, I 'd snap my
fingers at one defeat and play it out to a desperate finish. If
you 're not a very dare-devil of a fellow, Mr. Barrett," he
added, blinking pleasantly up at his companion, " stick to your
practice, and don't let the fire burn your fingers."
" I fear your advice is too late, judge," the young man
answered, smiling, as he drew on his gloves. " Good night, and
a merry Christmas to you."
Then he turned to greet a tall man who was walking list-
lessly towards them. " Merry Christmas ! " he repeated cordial-
ly. " So you are deserting the club, too, even as we benedicts
desert it! It doesn't look very lively," as he glanced through
the empty rooms, " and even a bachelor likes to sit by his ain
fireside to watch the Christmas in."
The other smiled perfunctorily. " One place is about as
good as another," he said. " Thank you, thank you ! Same to
you ! " he added as Barrett repeated his merry greetings at the
door and went off into the darkness with buoyant step, shout-
ing another " Merry Christmas ! " to an acquaintance he met at
the corner.
James Farnham stood looking after the hurrying figure for
several minutes. The light from the swinging lamp above fell
full on his face. It was a good face, clear-cut, strong-browed,
well featured. A bit too mobile about the mouth, perhaps, and
with no lustre in the eyes. A disappointed face, telling of
power quenched before the spending time. It bore the marks
of recent fires, not deep enough to be long stamped, and not
many enough to be the scarring of years.
The indifference in his eye's gave place to something like
resentment as he heard the joy-giving voice echoing down the
street. A merry Christmas ! What, merriment left in the life
of a man with felled ambitions and dead hopes ? What merri-
ment in the richly hung solitude of the rooms he called home ?
What merriment in always thinking over the same thoughts,
in waking up each morning to the same weariness? He would
face it again to morrow, and to-morrow would be Christmas !
Only a year ago it had meant something to him. He remembered
328 BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.
how he and five of his bachelor friends had eaten their turkey
and plum-pudding together, and afterwards, over their cigars,
they had gone back to other Christmases and told snatches of
life history between the smoke-puffs. For him the retrospect
had been a smiling one. Then he had been used to taking
flights, secure and confident in his own strength. Within that
year he had soared beyond his heights, and he had fallen woe-
fully, his wings crushed and broken. He was weighed down
with a physical sense of their helpless heaviness, and he felt
that the weight would never be lifted. It was this weariness
into which each new day ushered him. He tried to shake it
off, clinching his hands at his own impotence. Then he
turned slowly and went back into the club.
James Farnham took things too seriously, as old Judge
Dale had said. Not one man in a thousand would have suf-
fered a political defeat with such poignant keenness. Woman-
ish weakness, the old campaigners called it. But Farnham was
a young man, to whom life was still more a strife than a
spectacle. And his politics, while not above reproach, were
mainly based upon fair principles. He was too young to be
governor and too clean-handed to be successful, said the wise-
acres. He had gone into the field, not much more than ten
years before, full of ambition and with almost limitless money.
From the first he had thrown his young power and his wealth
into politics. There had been no half measures. His heart as
well as his brain had been in his career, and he had shown
rare singleness of purpose for so young a man. His ambition
had crowded all other interests out of his life. Pleasure, love,
friendship these things he had never known, nor, indeed, had
ever felt the want of them, so full was his life of the ex-
citement of the game he was playing. He had held two or
three State offices; he had done some vigorous work in the
legislature. At the Republican State Convention a ringing
speech, the magnetism of his personality, the thought of the
money behind him, and, with a suddenness that startled the
assembly, he was nominated for governor.
The nomination blinded him with its unexpectedness and it
carried his ambition to dangerous heights. He had put all his
strength into the campaign that followed. He had been eager,
resolute, unflinchingly confident to the last. With the stake
tempting and glittering in front of him, he had drawn prema-
turely on his last reserves of power and he had lost. The
election returns showed an overwhelmingly Democratic victory.
BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 329
The blow quenched the fire out of him with startling swift-
ness. It was as if there had been swept away, by one wither-
ing stroke, his love, his faith, the light and hope of living. It
was death to his ambition, the well-spring that fed his life.
He did not rally as another man would have done ; he did not
gird himself for another fight, as perhaps a brave and right-
spirited man should have done. He had been beaten, he who
had never known the taste of defeat ignominiously and com-
pletely beaten ! That was all. The future was nothing. There
was no future ; only a sleepless past that taunted while it
benumbed him. Surely, James Farnham took things too seri-
ously.
The club was deserted. He glanced at a newspaper, stared
at the clock, got up and went out again into the night. He
heard the hard snow crunch beneath his feet and felt the sharp
flurries beating against his face. Instinctively, he pulled his
coat collar about his ears, and turned into a street which led
to the brightly-lighted shopping district. He wanted to lose
himself in the crowd of hurrying men and women that poured
past him. He was swept onward with the rest, and finally took
refuge near the wide and gaudy window of a great toy shop.
A couple of news-boys chattered wistfully at his elbow, and
behind him a high-pitched little voice was exclaiming over a
red wooden doll-cradle in noisy ecstasy, while two eagerly
compelling hands tugged at the skirts of a wan-faced woman
in a faded shawl. He watched them idly as they went into
the shop and presently came out again, the red cradle out-
thrusting a surreptitious, flaming rocker under the thin shawl,
the woman anxiously counting over the pitiful stock of pennies
that remained in her shrunken hand. Then he saw another
mother with a little flock of three, ill-clad and shivering, but
with shining delight in their pinched faces.
" I choose that ! " cried one. " O Tommy, le's p'rtend it 's
our very own ! "
" It 's all the Chris'mas they have," whispered the mother,
seeing his eyes upon them.
A little lad and lass passed hand-in-hand in front of him.
Their eyes were wide with happiness.
" Now it mus' be a secret," decreed the maid, " 'cos 't 'd
be no fun at all ef you wuz to know w'at I 'm goin' to git you,
an' I wuz to know w'at you 're goin' to git me. But I '11 let
ye feel the outside! O Ted, it'll be sump'n grand!" And
she fairly danced with excitement and jingled her coins merrily.
33o BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.,
Next a whistling father, cheerily staggering along under
the bristling burden of a great fir-tree. And a pair of lovers
laughing and blushing as they bought a sprig of mistletoe from
the wheedling old woman at the corner. And the children
always the children ! the fever glowing in their hungry eyes,
tingling in the restless little fingers, dancing in the ill-shod
little feet. Thus the old pity and pathos and beauty of the
Christmastide has new birth eternally in the ready hearts of the
poor.
But the man standing in the shadow remained unmoved.
The Christmas had no meaning for him, and neither had the
little tragedies playing themselves out before him. He closed
his eyes with an impatient impulse to shut out the waifs who
were so uncomfortably happy over nothing. As he did so
some one pushed violently against him and he heard a low
sobbing at his feet. Stooping down quickly he saw that the
sound came from a child that some careless passer-by had
pushed aside roughly and thrown down on the slippery flagging.
" Are you hurt, child ? " he asked, raising up the crying
little bundle of rags and looking around for some one to whom
she might belong.
" No-o," sobbed the child, edging away distrustfully as
she heard his voice, but looking about her so forlornly that
Farnham was touched in spite of himself.
"Wait a minute! Are you lost? Is no one with you?"
The little creature stopped at the new note of kindness in
his voice. " No, I 'm not lost," she said, catching her breath
between the words. " I live way down there on Bank Street."
She pointed indefinitely over her shoulder, but Farnham knew
the street in a dirty, ill-smelling region down by the river. " But
it's cold and I'm tired and so hungry!"
The thought of any one's suffering from so simple and
primitive a thing as hunger jarred freshly on Farnham's sensi-
bilities, wearied with subtler emotions. He looked down at
the child curiously. " I think I had better take you home,"
he said. "You ought not to be out alone in the cold."
" Oh, I don't want to go home ! " she cried, shrinking away.
"It's just as cold. An' there ain't no lights or pretty things;
nothin' Chris'massy at all! An' I don't mind bein' out I'm
used to it."
" But it 's getting late, child, and you can't stay here all
night. Come ! Why don't you want to go ? " as the child still
stood shivering and unwilling.
1900.] BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 331
"Oh, father 's cursin', an' mother an' the rest of 'em 's cryin'.
Ye see, we ain't had no fire for a week, an' las' night father
said they wuz no more bread nor nothin' an* he swore
awful."
Farnham felt something stir inside of him. " Poor child ! "
he said gently. "But come, suppose we get some bread and
carry it home to surprise the others ! "
Taking the little cold hand in his, he went out from the
shadow of the doorway. The crowds on the street were thin-
ning and the cold blasts were blowing sharper. After they
had made their purchases and the number of them made the
child's eyes shine they trudged along the darker streets, where
the wayfarers were few and the scattered lights cast fitful
shadows over the grimy snow. An occasional wagon, heavily
laden, and swinging a murky lantern in its front, crunched
past them in the dark, and now and then the sound of loud
voices and the shrill laughter of children floated out from the
ill-looking buildings they passed. The air, still and numbing,
seemed to grow colder every minute, and Farnham, once more
indifferent, began to regret the strange freak of fancy that had
drawn him on this uncomfortable pilgrimage.
The child's hand clutched his fingers and the piping voice
was borne up to him vaguely in ceaseless chatter, which paid
no heed to his preoccupied silence.
" 'Deed, it wuzn't always like this," she was saying when he
listened. " Las' Chris'mas we had plenty o f fire an' lots o'
other things even turkey an' pink popcorn on strings !
Mother didn't cry then an' father didn't curse, cos he wuz
workin'. He ain't had nothin' to do since 'fore 'lection. What
d'ye s'pose that has to do with it? It must have lots, cos ye
ought to hear him when he talks about it ! " And the little
hand in his shrank with something more than cold.
Farnham made a movement of impatience. " Child," he
said almost roughly, " are n't we nearly there ? "
She looked up, crestfallen. " Here we are now," she said
timidly, as they approached a tumbledown old tenement, from
the windows of which dim streaks of light came forth as if to
emphasize the darkness. "Won't ye come up with me? I'm
'fraid. Maybe father 's still swearin'."
He nodded his head in ungracious consent and groped his
way after her up two flights of uncertain stairs. On the third
landing she stopped and stood listening in the dark passage-
way.
332 BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR ELECT. [Dec.,
" Everything 's quiet," she whispered. " I guess it 's all
right now. Come on." % .
Unwillingly he followed the child, shivering as he entered
the bare, half-lighted room. The air seemed chiller than out-
side, and a smoky lamp on a table in the corner threw murky
patches of pitiless illumination on the empty stove, the poor
bits of furniture, and on a couple of children and a hopeless-
looking woman in a thin shawl, who came forward to meet
him. The child, pointing to the bundles he laid upon the
table, made some explanations in an audible whisper while his
eyes took in the squalor of the room.
" Thank ye, sir, for bringin' Molly home," said the woman
finally in a voice of strained indifference that jarred on
Farnham's nerves. " I 'd hardly noticed that she was n't here
there 's so many of 'em and I 've been wonderin' how the
life was to be kept in 'em all. I don't know how to thank
ye for this, sir, or what we 'd 'a' done without it. My husband
would n't let me go out and beg some bread, though it 's been
breakin' my heart to see the young ones famishin' before my
eyes. I'm afraid he won't want us to be takin' this" she
lowered her voice and glanced apprehensively toward the next
room " though it 's killin' him, too, to see the misery we 're in.
And it might ha' been so different." The words trailed off
into a sob and the washed-out eyes brimmed with ready tears.
Farnham stood before her in uncomfortable silence. He
had faced many trying moments in his years of public life, but
he had never before felt so hopelessly at a loss for something
to say. Before he was able to frame any reply the door of
the inner room opened and a man entered. A frightened hush
fell upon the little group of children, and only the woman's
low, inconsequent sobbing broke in upon the stillness. He
looked defiantly at the stranger as his eyes rested on the
bundles that covered the table.
" What 's this ? " he demanded. " Not charity, Mary ; surely
not charity ? "
" I I did not seek it, John," she faltered. " The gentle-
man met Molly on the street, and brought her home with
these. There's no use holdin' out any longer, anyhow. The
children must have bread. What in Heaven's name are we to
do ? I won't let pride step in the way while they 're cryin'
out for a mouthful o' food I won't, John ! " The mother-
feeling conquered her fear of him, and with the last words
she wiped her eyes and set her lips defiantly.
1900.] BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 333
The man turned wearily to Farnham, who still stood by in
helpless discomfiture.
" Sir," he began. Then he stopped suddenly and his face
grew stern and resentful. "Mr. James Farnham!" was all he
said, and Farnham started slightly as the woman shrank back
a step or two and he felt the wide-eyed gaze of the children
upon his face. Even here he could not get away from him-
self. Then he spoke for the first time since he had entered
the room.
" I am James Farnham," he said coldly and questioningly.
" I suppose you have seen my name and my face placarded
about the streets as the late candidate the defeated candidate
for governor."
" Seen it ? " echoed the man, with a bitter laugh in his
voice. " Seen it ? Man, I put all my strength into that cam-
paign for you. I was different then and I worked day and
night to get you in. You see the result!"
Farnham looked at him curiously. He remembered him
now as a fellow whose rough eloquence had been the deter-
mining power in his ward. All the old details came up before
him again the things he had spent weeks striving vainly to
forget. He remembered Martin's speaking of this very man,
John Driscoll. It had been just a few days before election,
when everything had been bright and promising, and he had
been so glowingly confident of the result. The memory sick-
ened him, but he only said with a shadow of a smile :
" There seems to have been a disappointed pair of us."
Driscoll's face was suddenly alive with feeling, and great
fires of long-smouldering anger blazed out in his eyes.
"Disappointed!" he exclaimed. "Good God, man! what
does it mean to you ? What is disappointment to starvation ?
Is a man disappointed when he loses his own life and all that
he lives for ? Look at these children crying for bread and
shivering for lack of a few sticks of wood, and then go sit by
your fire and nurse your disappointment?"
"I do not understand," put in Farnham wearily. "What
has all this to do with me?"
" Do men of your class ever understand ? " said the other
passionately. " What do you know of hunger and cold ? Do
your ears ever ring with the hopeless wailing of the children
you have brought into an overcrowded world ? Your pride is
sore and your ambition baffled. You are disappointed. Great
heavens ! . . . Stay ! You shall listen to me ! " as Farnham
334 BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.,
turned impatiently towards the door. Then he continued more
quietly :
" Six months ago I was a foreman at the steel works. I
was earning enough to keep us all comfortable, and the chil-
dren were well clothed and well fed. I had gained some sort
of influence with the men, perhaps because the books I read
gave me a readier tongue to speak their wrongs. Anyway, I
could sway them pretty much as I pleased, and I did when-
ever I had the chance. This ward is one of the strongest, as
of course you knew, and when the campaign opened one of
your agents, that man Martin, came to me and asked me to
work for you. Before that I had done many foolhardy things,
but I had had the grace to keep out of politics. But he talked
me into it ; the fever of the thing got into my blood, and I
promised. I told him I 'd lose my work. The boss was a
Democratic backer and he 'd already tried to buy us up for
Chandler, but I 'd made the men hold out for a higher price.
Martin lied to me. He showed me figures which could not be
disputed and swore to their genuineness. According to his
showing there was n't the faintest possibility of defeating you,
and it would have been simple folly to work against you.
He persuaded me to leave my work and gave me money
enough to get me through the campaign. If I carried the ward,
I was to have the stewardship of the State Penitentiary, and I
was satisfied and confident. I was discharged of course, and
I gave myself soul and body to your interests. I could
be bought, but I still had spirit enough to earn my wage !
The men followed me like sheep and I made a clean sweep o,f
the district. I reveled in the power of it ; I got into the whirl
and fever of it deeper than ever you got, though you were the
figure-head and I only the fire-feeder. The election came.
... I dropped down from the heights, a ruined man, with
my own weapons turned against me. Who wants an over-
thrown demagogue ? I had played so recklessly and had dragged
so many of them down with me, poor devils ! that the men lost
faith in me. There was nothing for me, nothing on God's
earth! I had no money left, no hope of earning any. God
knows I tried. I have walked the streets all day and far into
the night, begging to be allowed to shovel snow, break stones,
light fires anything. It was hopeless. I have sworn and cursed
until the children run away when I come near. There 's only
beggary before us, and death is easier than that. You need n't
start, Mr. Farnham ! There 's many like me if you look for them."
1900.] BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 335
He paced the narrow floor, his mouth working painfully.
" Good God ! is it any wonder I feel bitter against you and all
your fellows ; against all you men who lie and twist and tempt
a man, and then leave him to die and his children to starve?
I should n't have been tempted, I suppose, but you politicians
are very devils ! "
He wheeled around suddenly and his eyes blazed into the
face of his listener. " Mr. Farnham, who lost more by this
election, you or I ? That 's what it all amounts to. That 's
what I Ve been wanting to shout into your ears all these weeks,
as I heard of you coddling your pride and nursing your failure.
You 've lost a few friends, a little honor. I Ve lost everything
in life, and lost it for those who depend upon me. You, de-
feated candidate though you are, lost not a tithe as much as
the meanest day-laborer who worked for you. Go think on
that," he ended with a laugh that made the children start,
"and a merry Christmas to you!"
But James Farnham did not move. The man's voice had
pierced his stupor at last. He was all at once surcharged
with living pain he who had lived for days in benumbed
lethargy. He felt it pulsing in his brain and in his heart and
tingling in his finger-tips. "You or I ? You or I ? " The words
danced before him in letters of fire. He reached for the door
to steady himself, while the children looked into his face won-
deringly. Even the man was silenced by the expression in it.
Finally he pulled himself together with a start, the hot
blood still racing through his veins.
"Come!" he said, grasping Driscoll by the arm. "Come,
before it is too late ! No man shall say that through me he
has suffered such despair as I have suffered. Come!" With
fierce energy he led the way down the ricketty stairs and into
the nearly deserted street.
At the next corner he pushed the man into a cab. The
direction he gave the driver roused Driscoll from his bewil-
derment.
"Where are you going?" he demanded. "What are you
going to do ? Mr. Farnham, are you crazy ? "
" I 'm just saved from a spell of madness," answered the
other recklessly. " I am a man among men once more ! I
feel a resurrection of old power that was dead ! "
Driscoll looked at him curiously, but with a light of com-
prehension in his eyes. And they were both silent as the cab
rolled over the frozen ground.
336 BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.,
It drew up at last before a brilliantly lighted house.
" Stay here until I return," commanded Farnham as they
stopped, and with the same feverish energy he ran up the walk
and pressed the bell. Through the undrawn curtains he saw a
tall Christmas-tree, angel-crowned and blazing with lights, and
around it a group of laughing, eager children. In the midst of
them, with something in his face that Farnham had never seen
before, stood Robert Chandler, the man who had defeated
him.
Only then did the .strangeness of his errand dawn upon
him, and he trembled a little as he gave the servant his card
and was ushered into the darkened library. As the door
closed after him he heard the echo of merry voices and above
them all the ringing laugh of the Governor-elect.
He had to wait only a few minutes before the door opened
and Chandler entered. The light had died out of his face, and
he was again the shrewd, self-possessed politician that Farnham
knew. His face was perfectly calm, but there was a puzzled
look in his eyes.
"Mr. Farnham?"
There was a world of significant questioning in the words.
These two had been very bitter rivals, and the election was
too lately over to take away the sting in the heart of either.
It was the first time they had met since before the final
struggle. As they looked at each other there came to the
victor the remembrance of all the bitter things this man's
agents had charged him with things that even his splendid
triumph had not sweetened because of the ugly truth at the
core of them. And to Farnham recurred the stories of the
measures his opponent had taken to beat him, measures at
which the most hardened politicians had lifted their eyebrows
and shaken their heads.
It was Farnham who broke the uncomfortable silence.
' Mr. Chandler," he said constrainedly, " you must pardon my
intrusion at such a time. I hope you will pardon, too, the
nature of the errand that brings me here to disturb your
Christmas festivities. I come on strange business. I doubt if
a man in my position ever approached a man in. yours with a
request such as I am about to make you." He stopped, non-
plussed. He had not thought how hard it would be. He had
not reckoned on the immobile face before him, on the keen
glance of the cold eyes that looked into his. With a visible
effort he pulled himself together and went on.
1900.] BY GRACE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 337
"I am not going to appeal to your justice, Mr. Chandler; I
am going to strain your generosity. I am going to ask you
to do something the like of which, perhaps, no politician was
ever asked to do before. I may as well say in the beginning
that you will gain nothing by it save, indeed, a poor man's
blessing and my gratitude."
Then he told Driscoll's story with something of the emo-
tional eloquence that marked its recital to himself. He mar-
shalled out all his powers, and used all the magnetism that
was half the secret of his rapid progress in public favor.
When he had finished he pleaded that the new governor would
use his influence to give the man the position he had been
promised by the opposing party. His appeal was almost des-
perate in its earnestness; but at the close he found Chandler's
keen eyes upon him and a quizzical smile about the corners
of his mouth.
" It is indeed a strange request that you are making, Mr.
Farnham," he said slowly, with no change of expression; "I
think you hardly realize how strange. You ask me to extend
my favor to a man a man of some power among his fellows,
I understand you to say as the reward of trying his best to
defeat me. You ask me to put a fire-brand into my own camp.
A very strange request indeed all the stranger because it
comes from you."
" But he did not work for me or for my party," interrupted
Farnham hastily. "Surely you are politician enough to know
that a man who is bought must work for his pay. He would
have worked just as hard for you had you bid as high for his
services. He will work as hard now if you make it worth his
while. It is a humiliating thing for me to say to you, Mr.
Chandler, but the man himself did not hesitate to make his
attitude unmistakable."
" It matters very little what was his object," replied the
other. " It is enough that he used his weapons against my
cause. I have heard of the fellow, and I have reason to know
that he alienated many votes. Besides, Mr. Farnham, even were
I disposed to overlook the harm he has done me and the ex-
traordinary nature of this whole transaction, what would my own
men say to it? Do you suppose they had no thought of spoil?
Do you suppose I am not besieged by them, day after day ?
What excuse could I offer this army of office-seekers were I
to give to the enemy the political plums they have so dearly
bought?"
VOL. LXXII. 22
338 BY GRACE of THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. [Dec.,
Farnham looked up quickly. There was a note of weariness
in the voice of the Governor-elect that made him forget for a
minute the old strife between them.
" I told you I should strain your generosity to its utmost,"
he said gently. " Mr. Chandler, I came to beg of your charity
as one man of another, not in our relations as victor and van-
quished in a heated political campaign. Let us shut out poli-
tics for once God knows they 've caused enough misery ! Let
us forget the too bitter things that have been said and done
between us. I appeal to you in a need to which you alone
can apply the remedy. If you had seen the man and felt his
despair and only this one thing will give him back his hope
and faith you would not even wonder at my asking. I will
not speak of what it will mean to me, save that your granting
my request will leave me always your debtor. You will be
free to command me at any time and in any crisis. ... I
have some power still, Mr. Chandler."
He looked straight into Chandler's eyes as he spoke. Each
knew what was in the other's thought. There had been whis-
pers of a foul ballot, whispers that were growing louder as the
inauguration day approached, and that vaguely portended trou-
ble to the man who was to take up the reins of government.
The weariness that had been briefly in the voice of the Gov-
ernor-elect looked out of his eyes as he weighed the good-will
of his opponent, and the silencing of scandalous tongues against
his inability to explain his action to those who had a right to
question him. Farnham, in the brief space that he looked in-
to the face of the man before him, came to thank God that
he was not to be the Governor.
While they were standing thus the door behind them opened
softly. A wee bit of a girl with laughing eyes and tangled
hair peeped through the narrow opening.
" A merry, merry Christmas, papa ! " she cried. " Rob has
just let old Christmas in ! A merry Christmas to us all ! " And
she ran laughingly away.
The two men turned and looked at each other. The light
that Farnham had seen from the doorway was again in Chand-
ler's face. He put out his hand
"A merry Christmas to us all!" he repeated. "Mr. Farn-
ham, you have your answer. God forbid that we should cherish
strife or close our hearts to any one's need to-night."
Farnham wrung the hand in his long and silently.
" You are a good man, Mr. Chandler," he said with a little
1930.] BY GRICE OF THE GOVERNOR-ELECT. 339
catch in his voice. " You have been the bearer of good tidings
to more than one man to-night. You have saved more than
one from despair. You will make a better Governor than ever
I should have made, and I pray God to bless your govern-
ing."
Before the other could answer the front door closed behind
him, and he rushed out to the waiting cab.
" A Christmas gift for you, Driscoll ! " he cried. " A Christ-
mas gift! Come, man, you shall make a Christmas yet for the
mother and the little ones. Tell them that, by the grace of
the Governor-elect, you are still to have your stewardship !
Tell them that there will be no more hunger, no more cold, no
more curses ! And tell them, my friend, that all is not lost by
Farnham's defeat ! "
The man bowed his head upon his hands and sobbed like
a child. "God in heaven bless you, sir! . . . This is more
than I can bear. . . ." He was out of the carriage like a
flash. " May you hear the laughter of little children in your
dreams ! " he turned to say huskily, and then rushed homeward
through the darkness.
When Farnham reached his own rooms at last the little
clock on the mantel was chiming twelve. He sank wearily into
a chair and closed his eyes. But his lips were smiling and
there was on his face a look of unwonted peace.
' . . . Glory, glory, glory to God ! . . ."
The far-off voices of the Christmas waits floated out upon the
night. He threw open the window. The street was silent and
a single star gleamed out in the darkness.
" And peace on earth and peace on earth,
Made glorious by the Saviour's birth,
By the Saviour's birth ! "
" Amen ! " he said softly as the voices echoed and died away
in the distance. " Amen ! "
THE ENCHANTING PANORAMA FROM THE CLOISTERS OF THE CAPUCHIN MONASTERY.
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL
the artist and the tourist, to the antiquarian
and the poet, Amalfi has long been one of the
brightest spots on this terrestrial globe. The
appalling landslide that took place here some
time ago has given the quaint old village a
new interest, and during the present season it has become a
veritable Mecca for American visitors to the sunny land.
Castellamare rises on the northerly slope of. the southern
horn of the Bay of Naples, and Amalfi is right on the other
side of that horn or promontory.
No town in all Italy is more strikingly tranquil, more pictur-
esque, or more romantic than this delightful spot, which glows
white and iridescent in the warm sunshine and in the limpid,
elastic air of the sunny land.
Analfi was the Athens of the Middle Ages. It is believed
to have been founded by emigrants from Melfi, the Greek city
lying some seventy or eighty miles inland. We find mention
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL. 341
of Amalfi in the sixth century ; in the seventh it was governed
by doges, and in the ninth Sicardo, Prince of Salerno, came
there for the pious purpose of collecting the relics of various
saints, and, being opposed in his intent by the no less religious
inhabitants of the city, plundered and pillaged the town and
carried off a vast number of prisoners. These prisoners after-
wards got free, burned Salerno, the rival of their native city,
and inaugurated thenceforward a wonderful period of prosperity
for Amalfi.
The city now assumed a species of independence. The
Emperor of Constantinople fixed there a tribunal for the set-
tlement of all disputes regarding naval matters, and the Tabula
Amalfitana, or Code of Amalfi, soon became recognized as the
guiding laws for all Europe, and Amalfi was regarded as the
foremost naval power in the world.
Amalfi in the time of Robert Guiscard had fifty thousand
inhibitants. Its merchants traded all over the known world,
and established colonies at Byzantium, in Asia Minor, and in
Africa. They also instituted the order of the Hospitallers of
St. John, who became afterwards known as the Knights of
Malta, and these merchants were the foremost traders in the
world, for only after their decline did Venice, Genoa, Florence,
and Pisa rise to greatness. It was consequently inevitable that
at the time of the Crusades the city swarmed with armed men,
and that from its port multitudes of knights, with the cross as
a device, set out in the interests of the good cause and to
satisfy personal love of gain and adventure.
Amalfi at this period was a proud and haughty city, and
took every occasion of defying the Norman sovereigns of Na-
ples. King Roger finally made war upon the city and, after two
years of more or less constant attack and circumvallation,
obliged it to capitulate in 1131, after which he placed it under
a species of suzerainty while still allowing it perfect freedom
as to its internal government.
A few years later Amalfi had a quarrel with Pisa. The
Pisans took the offensive and, in spite of the efforts of King
Roger to protect Amalfi, the enemy raided the city and carried
off its greatest treasure, the celebrated manuscripts of the Pan-
dects of Justinian, now one of the principal treasures of the
Laurentian Library in Florence, the Florentines having taken
it from the Pisans in the fifteenth century. The Pisans re-
turned again in 1137, two years after their first attack, and
obliged Amalfi to sue for peace. The little republic had thence-
342
AMALFf, THE BEAUTIFUL.
[Dec.,
THE FAMOUS AMBO AT REVELLO.
forward lost its power and its primacy, and became subject to
the Dukes of Anjou.
In 1343 the lower part of the town, which had been gradu-
ally underlined by the sea for at least a couple of centuries,
collapsed and almost the whole of its buildings, with arsenals
a-id harbor, were thenceforward covered with water. Amalfi
from this on was merely an antiquarian relic of its former
greatness. It retained, however, the glorious boast of having
been the first of the dominating naval powers of Christian Eu-
rope, and of having given birth to Flavio Gioja, the man who
in 1302, by the discovery for the Caucasian race of the mari-
ner's compass, led the way to the discovery of America and
helped powerfully to spread civilization and practically to revo-
lutionize the world.
1900.]
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL.
343
THE BELL TOWER OF THE CATHEDRAL DATES FROM 1276.
Amalfi at the present day shelters some seven thousand
souls, and is a relatively lively little place, macaroni, paper,
and soap being its chief products. The manufacturing of these
articles forms an interesting study, and shows how machinery
can be employed to reduce manual labor without necessarily
involving unpicturesque tall chimneys, black lowering clouds of
smoke, or inartistic sights, noises, or odors.
A ravine behind the city is called " The Valley of Mills."
It is a cool and shady retreat, and a delightful place for an
afternoon walk. It is the subject of the following interesting
and brilliant description by Dean Alford : " The valley is full
of mills, each going with its deafening clack, and its great
splash of water; each variously contrived so as to borrow the
344 AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL. [Dec.,
descending motive power, and to pass it on, and thus present-
ing a series of arches, and aqueducts, and bridges, and stone
stairs, and piled-up roofs, such as I should think can nowhere
else be found. Add to all this diversity of form the colors of
stone, and wet wood, and brick, and clinging vegetation, and
chemical matter employed in the mills ; insert here and there
a cottage door with a family group, the old man on his staff,
the old woman spinning, the half-naked children, the curious
mummy-like chrysalis of an in.fant in its swathing clothes;
break the series now and then with a pergola, or trellised
canopy of lemon trees, bright green in the leaf, violet purple
in the young shoot, hanging their pale gold fruit almost
thicker than the leaves, and then let all the scene be dappled
with the dark, cool shadows of the south, cut clear into the
white mass of sunshine, let it all be towered over by fantastic
rocks of every shape and tint, leaving only a broad stripe
above for the blue heaven to look down through, and you
have but the vain struggle of words with the unparalleled
strangeness and overpowering beauty of the glen of the molini
at Amalfi."
In the chief piazza of the town is the Cathedral of St.
Andrew, a beautiful and interesting structure in Lombard-
Norman style of the eleventh century. The bell-tower dates
from 1276. The bronze doors were executed by Byzantine
masters in the year 1066, and were the gift of two members
of the noble Pantaleone family of Amalfi, who at this period
were famous for the founding of hospitals at Jerusalem, Antioch,
and various parts of Italy.
The interior of the church is filled with artistic monuments
which are attractive and interesting to the historian.
High up above the cathedral is located the Capuchin Mon-
astery founded in 1212 by Cardinal Capuano, and originally
inhabited by Cistercian monks. The building lies in the hollow
of a cliff which rises abruptly to the height of two hundred
and fifty feet from the sea. From its cloisters an enchanting
panorama is before the spectator.
Amalfi has been the subject of a descriptive poem by Long-
fellow, whose verses, embodying the chief features of this
wonderful little town, are well worthy of being transcribed :
" Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet :
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL.
345
Where, amid her mulberry-trees,
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
" In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Cannetto rushes down,^
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammer of the forge.
'Tis a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
" Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight.
346 AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL. [Dec.,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil ?
" Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.
" Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west ?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast ?
" Where the pomp of camp and court ?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers ?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines,
Sailing safely into port,
Chased by corsair Algerines?
" Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past
And the commerce and the crowd.
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves ;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls :
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies :
Even cities have their graves.
1900.]
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL.
347
' TOILING IIP FROM STAIR TO STAIR
PEASANT GIRLS THEIR BURDENS BEAR."
" This is an enchanted land !
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand :
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lovely land of doom.
"On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these.
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut-trees.
348
AMALFI, THE BEAUTIFUL.
" Nothing else he heeds qr hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon ;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep.
" Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea."
[Dec..
1900.] THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA. 349
THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT THE EVOLUTION
OF DOGMA.
BY THOMAS L. HEALY.
EN fail to realize that all the ' signs of the times '
point to the vastest moral, religious, theological
revolution that has yet transpired in history."*
Such a statement, set down by a man claiming
authority to speak whereof he knows, will arrest
the attention of all who would read the " signs of the times."
Chronicled in history are some wonderfully radical and epoch-
making movements, and if her record is now to be broken it is
something worth inquiring into. What are the grounds for
such a prophetic utterance ? what are the signs which forecast
this phenomenal movement ? where can they be seen ? what
is to be its nature, its extent, its results ? Explain ; please ex-
plain. Such impatient questionings may well be urged, and
eagerly be awaited the answers, on a matter of such tremen-
dous import as this movement promises to be. Seemingly
this prophecy loses some of its evil-boding tone when we
realize that not the commercial, not the political, but the reli-
gious world is to witness this radical and epochal movement.
And yet this narrowing of the sphere to be influenced makes
the matter only the more important ; for while all might not
be equally interested in the state of the commercial and politi-
cal worlds, we all are equally interested in the condition of
the religious world, and fain would we know the reason why
men make such alarming predictions.
A CRISIS IMMINENT.
These alarmists it may be said at the outset are confined
entirely to Protestantism. It is among the Protestant clergy
and laity that all this hue and cry is raised. Nevertheless, it
has a bearing on the status of Catholic theology and religion,
and hence a review of the matter is not irrelevant ; it is even
important why, we shall see later on. We have but to
take the word of Protestant leaders themselves to believe
* Evolution of Trinitarianism. By Levi Leonard Paine, Professor of Ecclesiastical His-
tory, Bangor Theological Seminary. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1900.
350 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT [Dec ,
that a crisis is imminent ; imminent, that is, as far as they
are concerned, for they are not entitled to judge for the
Catholic portion of Christendom. Of this more anon. Prot-
estant writers tell us that uniformity of belief does not exist
even among their teachers. Confession is openly made that
" the mode of selecting ministers, while it tests a man's
rhetoric and elocution, and whether he has taking ways with
the young people, gives little or no means of ascertaining
whether he has a reasoned, organic body of truth to communi-
cate or not."* And as for the people, another writer has
said : " Ask men and women why they have ceased to attend
church, and they will tell you that they have ceased to believe
much that is preached, and that their religious needs are not
ministered to."f More startling still are declarations like the
following: "The current creed is a chaos of contradictions";^:
and again: "There is no accepted body of doctrine, clean-cut,
well reasoned, consistently and comprehensively thought out,
which you can count on hearing when you enter a Christian
Church."
Little wonder then is it, that men facing such a condition
of affairs are fretful for the future ; little wonder that we
find two schools of writers, one school clamoring for a Recon-
struction, a second predicting a Revolution. All this, of
course, within the domains of Protestantism.
THE RECONSTRUCTIONIST AND THE REVOLUTIONIST.
The " Reconstruction " sentiment has been championed by
William De Witt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College. Mr. Hyde
views with saddened heart the old orthodoxy trembling to its fall,
and thinks that the work of destruction has gone far enough ;
that " it is time to weld together the truths we have saved from
the wreck of ancient systems, and the truths that have been
brought to us on the flood of scientific and historical studies,
into a definite, coherent, reasoned, and reasonable body of doc-
trine."! His self imposed task is, then, the adjustment of Chris-
tianity to modern scientific and philosophic conceptions. This re-
minds one of Mr. Lecky's claim that a proof of the flexibility of
Protestantism is its power to assimilate with modern Rational-
ism, but Mr. Hyde's effort in this direction was so unsuccess-
ful that one of his critics, after examining his system, was
* God's Education of Man. By William De Witt Hyde. Boston, 1899.
t Evolution of Trinitarianism, chap. vi. \Go<?s Education of Man, Introduction.
Ibid. | Ibid.
iqoo.J THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. 351
forced to exclaim : " Rationalism I know, and Christianity I
know; but what art thou ? " * The idea of reconstruction is
eschewed by a class of Protestants themselves. Professor Paine,
who is a " Revolutionist," says that " theologians of this class
are utterly blind to the fact that historical criticism has al-
ready destroyed the metaphysical foundations themselves "
which in the plan were to form the basis of the new system.
It is into the claims of this latter writer that we would
especially examine, since he voices the principles of a school
which is coming into greater and greater favor every day, a
school which teaches that all theological phenomena are resolvi-
ble in the crucible of evolution ; that to understand the condi-
tion of the theological world, to understand theology at all,
one must know the workings of the law of " historical evolu-
tion," with its three cooperative laws: i. The law of develop-
ment; 2. The law of cycles and cyclic changes; 3. The law of
reaction and revolution. Dogma, they tell us, like all other
phenomena of nature, has to suffer the same laws to control
its history as have controlled the history of all nature, animate
and inanimate. We have now to propose and answer a few
pertinent questions anent Professor Paine's exposition of the
theory of evolution as applied to the history of dogma. Does
his theory include the history of Catholic theology ? Is it
justifiable in fact, and does it recommend itself to reason ?
A POLICY OF IGNORING.
I. Does it include Catholic theology? The Catholic reader
is struck by the vexing way in which Protestant writers and
speculators, like Mr. Hyde and Mr. Paine, ignore the Catholic
Church. Professing to be scientific and professing to employ
scientific methods, they exclude the Catholic Church from
all consideration in solving the problems of the Christian world,
although that church numbers more Christians in her fold than
all the other churches of Christendom combined ! This is
what no infidel scholar even the most hostile to the Catholic
Church ever dared to do. No historian, no scholar of repute,
has yet treated her as these men are treating her. Her power
and influence have ever been recognized. Fault may have
been found with her, she may have been persecuted, and men
may have tried to ridicule her, but not till now has she been
ignored. Christianity is now spoken of and written about as if
* Catholic University Bullttin, April, 1933; article " The Reconstruction of Christianity,"
by James J. Fox, S.T.D.
352 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT [Dec.,
it were the exclusive property of Protestantism. The Catholic
Church, as old as Christianity itself, has in some mysterious
way lost its right to recognition.
What makes this unbearable is, that conditions of Protestant
churches are described, with the result that problems arise and
are discussed as to the past, present, and future of " Christianity,"
as if that word were synonymous and coextensive with Protestant-
ism. To illustrate, we will repeat a quotation made awhile ago
from Mr. Hyde. This gentleman says: "The current creed of
Christendom is a chaos of contradictions." If Mr. Hyde means
by Christendom Protestantism, he is right ; his statement is
absolutely untrue if he would apply it to Catholicism. But he
does not seem to be thinking of Catholicism ; the Christian
world as he seems to conceive it does not comprise the Catho-
lic Church. When Mr. Paine speaks of " men and women not
going to church because they do not believe much of that
which is preached nowadays and their religious needs are not
ministered to," his remark evidently applies to Protestants,
with whom church-going is often a matter of easy dispensation,
but cannot be true of men and women who throng their
churches Sunday after Sunday, as is the case among Catholics.
New theologies, new creeds, reconstruction, and revolution
may be distressing problems in non-Catholic circles, but is any
man justified in deducing from this that the whole Christian world
is on the eve of a tremendous upheaval, revolution, or other
similarly frightful calamity ? There may be " voices in the
wilderness " of Protestantism lamenting and crying out for
peace, for unity, ay, for faith itself; but dare any man say
that the Catholic Church is the seat of innumerable sects, that
she is experiencing a disintegration of doctrine, that she is
crying out with a pitiful voice to save what is left of the
" wreck of ancient systems," that her members are deserting a
sinking ship? Impossible ! Catholicity is Christianity, was the
only Christianity for 1600 years, and no historian has yet re-
corded her passage into oblivion. Then we have reason to insist
that when any problem affecting Christianity is under discussion
the Catholic Church must not be left out of consideration. This
concession Protestant writers ought to make if it were only for
the sake of method. But no, they will ignore Christianity. They
even speak and write about the early church and early Fathers
as if Protestantism, and Protestantism alone, were inseparably
one in spirit and faith with the first ages of Christianity. We
quote Cardinal Newman's quiet rebuke of this conduct : " Did
1900.] THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. . 353
St. Athanasius or St. Ambrose come suddenly to life it cannot
be doubted what communion he would take to be his own.
These Fathers . . . would find themselves more at home
with such men as St. Bernard or St. Ignatius Loyola, or with
the lonely priest in his lodging, or the holy sisterhood of
mercy, or the unlettered crowd before the altar, than with the
teachers, or with the members of any other creed." * It is really
wearying to consider longer what we are tempted to call rapa-
cious vandalism ; for materially it almost amounts to that : an
unjustifiable appropriation by Protestantism of what was pos-
sessed for centuries before its birth by the Catholic Church.
Surely Protestant writers ought to see this, for they are not
blind. Then what? We do not know.
Abstracting from the injustice done to Catholicism in ignor-
ing it as a factor in the solution of the problems of Christian-
ity, we come to apply ourselves to the right and wrong of the
theory of historical evolution in itself.
THEORY OF HISTORICAL EVOLUTION.
2. As the theory of " historical evolution " is based on an an-
alogy at least Mr. Paine compares the phenomena of the history
of dogma to the phenomena of nature our first point to decide
is whether the comparison is to enjoy the luxury of its kind
i.e., latitude of interpretation in which case we submit that
the theory is a harmless projection ; or if, as seems more
likely, Mr. Paine would have us interpret him strictly i. e.,
as saying that dogma has experienced evolutionary changes
just as truly as the material world about us, and in the same
degree then we would oppose our judgment to his. We deny
that the history of dogma has really passed through the three
stages of evolution which he enumerates, viz , development,
cyclic change, and reaction and revolution. We confine the
argument to pre- Reformation Christianity, as it matters little
to us whether or not "cyclic changes" have occurred in Prot-
estant theology since the Reformation, and we challenge Mr.
Paine to produce facts which will support his theory of
" cyclic change " in early Christian doctrine. His statement
of the case is this : " The law of development began to work
at once in the history of the dogma of Christ. A new cycle
began with the introduction of Greek philosophy, continu-
ing to the Nicene-Athanasian period (A. D. 325-373). . . .
* Cardinal Newman : Development of Christian .Doctrine, Part I., chap. ii. sec. 3.
VOL. LXXII. 23
354 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT [Dec.,
Another new cycle began with Augustine,"* and so on down to
the present day. As for " reactions and revolutions," he refers
to the "Reformation in the time of Luther and his compeers"
as an instance where " a complete rent was made in the old
order of faith and thought." From a careful study and a
strict interpretation of Professor Paine's exposition we gather
that he would have us to believe that the transition between
the teaching of our Lord and that of St. Athanasius (the first
cyclic change in dogma) really compares with the transition be-
tween the azoic and the protozoic epochs (the first cyclic
change in nature) ; that, mutatis mutandis, there is as much
difference for change brings difference between the teaching
of our Lord and the Apostles and genuine Christian doctrine
of to-day, as there is between the azoic, physical, inorganic
world, and intellectual, conscience-endowed, religious man!
DEVELOPMENTS, AND NOT SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES.
Our first question is one of fact: Have "cyclic changes"
taken place in Christian doctrine? The evolutionary theorist
says yes, and undertakes to prove his position but fails. To
assert that because men bring to bear the learning and termi-
nology of their day upon current dogma, and because the
result is a more finely wrought-out system, a more scientific
explanation, but still an explanation a drawing out into ex-
plicit terms of what was implicit before ; in fine, a develop-
ment I repeat, to assert because of this that a real cyclic
change has taken place is beyond reason. Professor Harnack,
speaking of the introduction of Greek philosophy into Chris-
tianity Mr. Paine's first "cyclic change" describes it as
" an interpretation of the Gospel in the language of Greek
philosophy " ; f this, we say, is only a development and not a
substantial change. St. Athanasius might interpret the funda-
mental doctrines of God and of the Incarnation in the light of
his philosophical leanings, likewise St. Augustine, and the same
for all the Fathers who have contributed to the voluminous
records we still possess of these early theological disputations.
The results may have differed to a greater or less degree, but
it is not clear that each succeeding phase of the discussions
was so markedly and essentially different from preceding ones
as to warrant the application of the term "cyclic change." We
* Evolution of Trinitarianism, chap. vi.
t Outlines of the History of Dogma. By Adolph Harnack. English translation by
E. K. Mitchell, p. 82, edition 1893.
1900.] THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. 355
say that all the facts which history has given us demonstrate
simply this: that there was a process of development, not an
evolution.
DEVELOPMENT, BUT NOT EVOLUTION.
Nor is this a quibbling of words. The notion of develop-
ment, as we shall see, is far different from the notion of evo-
lution as explained by the evolutionary theorist. We might
admit an evolution of dogma, if evolution meant nothing
more than development ; but this is not the idea of the latter-
day scientific theologian. He wants an evolution which has
its development ; but more than this, its cycles and its cata-
clysms. He can find them if he twists and distorts facts,
and will see the law of evolution everywhere and always at
work. The evolutionist soundly rebukes the theologian for
trying to make theology the be-all of God's world, while he
himself, unheedful of his own diatribes against the theologian,
tries to persuade men that the factotum of the universe is
evolution, and shows very plainly that he has not got hold of
the law of evolution half as much as the law of evolution has
hold of him. We are not surprised, then, at finding Mr. Paine,
who preludes his work with a declaration of fair research and
inquiry, but is none the less truly biassed by his prejudice in
favor of evolution, disposing of facts and arguments in the
most arbitrary fashion, making startling presumptions, and de-
ducing more startling conclusions. If one begins with a pre-
sumption, and that presumption be fair and reasonable, then
facts will naturally close round it and fall in with it, if we
will but let them; if the presumption be not fair, then facts
will close round it and fall in with it, if we but make them.
That the presumption on which the evolution theory is based
is unfair, and that its advocates make facts agree with it, we
gravely suspect; arid as a reliable test of a theory, when the
agreement of facts is at least under suspicion, is in the rea-
sonableness of the presumption, we will now apply this test to
the " historical-evolution " theory.
3. Before proceeding to this, however, we ought to explain
that, irrespective of the intrinsic worth of the theory, it has
not been advanced without good cause. It is not an idle
invention of an idle hour. It is an attempt, and not the
first in its line, to solve a problem of no mean proportions
which encounters the student of historical Christianity. The
facts of the situation as they confront theorists are represented
356 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND NOT [Dec.,
by them as follows : Christianity was evidently intended by its
Founder to be a universal religion, and as such it must have a
determined body of doctrine, yet " it is absolutely impossible
to fix on any historical point at which the growth of doctrine
ceased and the sum of faith was once for all established " ; even
more, " no single doctrine can be named which starts completq
from the first and gains absolutely nothing afterwards from in-
vestigations of faith and attacks of heresy." * Even granting
that the Bible did contain the sum total of belief, it must be
further conceded that, owing to intrinsic difficulties arising from
its indefiniteness and from its condensed and fragmentary char-
acter, an interpretation and interpretation means development
would be a logical necessity. All Christendom recognizes
that the Bible as a font of belief is in an undeveloped state,
and has gone on this presumption. But for the first three cen-
turies the canon of the Scriptures had not been definitely set-
tled, and the rule of faith was Apostolic teaching preserved
and handed down by tradition and in fragmentary writings or
epistles. When, twelve years after the Ascension, the Apos-
tles went forth into the world to teach Christianity they must
have had some uniformity at least in the fundamental, saving
doctrines they were to communicate to mankind. The details
we cannot know but this much is certain, that their teachings
were very elementary and their system, if any such they had,
must have been the crudest, for they were unlettered men :
yet in reality they meted out to mankind the highest kind of
theology, a theology which was equal to the greatest minds of
subsequent centuries. Their simple and straightforward way
of preaching " Christ and Him Crucified," " Christ Risen from
the Dead," " Sin," " Grace," was never meant to satisfy the
philosophical minds of future converts to Christianity, who
must needs exhaust the Apostolic teaching ; and so we find
Justin, and Origen, and Tertullian, and Athanasius, and Augus-
tine applying themselves to the elaboration of a scheme of
Christian theology that could compare with prevalent schools
of philosophy. All this they accomplished by discussing, ana-
lyzing, comparing, deducing, formulating. This same condition
is verified to a greater or less degree in every epoch of his-
torical Christianity.
These are the facts which have supplied matter for hypo-
theses as to how they came about, and what they mean. The
theory of historical evolution is a recent and " scientific " at-
* Development of Christian Doctrine.
1900.] THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. 357
tempt to answer the questions here indicated. The very first
theory which Cardinal Newman mentions in his book on
Development is so closely akin to the one we are considering
that we quote his notice of it : " One [theory] is to the effect
that Christianity has ever changed from the first, and has ever
accommodated itself to the circumstances of times and seasons."
The idea of " accommodation " may not strike one at first as
being very significant, but on reflecting that the change referred
to is understood as a substantial change and the resultant of
accommodation, we realize that we have here the nucleus of a
genuine evolutionary theory. It is all-of a-kind with the out-and-
out, full-fledged historical evolution theory of latter-day scientists.
Cardinal Newman summarily disposes of the accommodation
theory, and we will try to show that the more recent product
of this " age of ours " cannot meet the difficulty any better than
did its precursor.
NEWMAN'S THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT.
This may be done indirectly and by contrast with Cardi-
nal Newman's own Theory of Development. The statement of
the Development theory is this:* "The increase and expan-
sion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which
have attended the process, are the necessary attendants on any
philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect
and heart, and has any wide or elevated dominion ; from the
nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full
comprehension and perfection of great ideas ; the highest and
most wonderful truths communicated to the world once for all
by inspired men cannot be comprehended all at once by its
recipients, but as being received and transmitted by minds not
inspired and through media which are human have required
only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucida-
tion." It is only the application to the body of Christian
doctrine of a law which seems to control the existence of all
great ideas or principles, and even intellectual systems or
schools. Thus, for instance, the teaching of the Apostles could
have been reduced to a few essential ideas and principles.
We see them offered to a world sadly in need of a saving
religion, and immediately the same phenomena follow which at-
tend the projection of any popular idea : promulgation, agita-
tion, confusion, misconception, modification, expansion, com-
bination, varied relations, interrogation, criticism, defence,
* Development of Christian Doctrine, Introduction, n. 21.
358 THE DEVELOPMENT, AND AOT [Dec.,
collection, comparison, sifting, sorting, selection, rejection ;
all these phases of action have had a multiform part or in
fluence in the growth and development of Christian doctrine.
But this entire growth with its complex result is one with the
seed whence it sprang, around which all doctrines centre, towards
which they all converge ; to wit, the sum of Apostolic teaching.
It is not necessary it is even impossible to define the exact
limits of .the so-called Apostolic teaching, and the demand of
Newman's critics for a " seminal idea " was unjust, for origi-
nally, in its very inception, Christianity was a complex idea,
and no single aspect is deep enough to exhaust its contents.
"For convenience," however, Cardinal Newman conditionally
adopts the Incarnation as " the central aspect of Christianity
out of which the three main aspects of its teaching take their
rise the Sacramental, the Hierarchical, and the Ascetical. But
one aspect of Revelation must not be allowed to exclude or
obscure another, and Christianity is dogmatical, devotional,
practical all at once." To quibble and juggle words over a
technical triviality in the face of momentous facts is unreason-
able. When we find a body of doctrine referable back from
age to age, with distinct and incontestable connection, each
age echoing the preceding, the whole forming a perfect, sys-
temic unit, the various doctrines being members of a family as
it were, suggestive, correlative, confirmatory, so that to accept
a part is to accept the whole from stern logical necessity,
without preference or mitigation then we may be sure of a
development. But it must be understood that the power of
development is intrinsic " an expansive power which uses
argument indeed and reflection, and even may have a certain
relation to or dependence on the ethical growth of the mind
itself, with a reflex influence upon it," but nevertheless a
power of maturation, so to speak, inherent in the germinal
seed.
ADVANTAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY.
Add to what has been already said that this develop-
ing power leads to unity, directness, consistency ; that it gives
us an explanation of phenomena which can be accepted with-
out a violent wrenching of our fixed religious views, which is
not repulsive to our finer religious sentiments, from which even
public opinion does not recoil in horror and amazement, which
does not rob Christianity of its very life blood namely, its
supernatural character which does not destroy Divine Free-
1900.] THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA. 359
dom and yet has due regard for the ordinary laws of nature,
and it possesses just so many advantages over the "evolutionary"
hypothesis. We have said that the evolution theory does not
apply in fact to pre-Reformation Christianity. Cyclic changes,
reactions, and revolutions may have been doing their work in
Protestant theology since the Reformation, but the solid front
presented by early Christian doctrine in the battle against
paganism and heathenism, and by Catholic theology against
infidelity to-day, exhibits nothing save the reasonable, necessary
if you will, development " which strengthens not weakens, con-
serves not destroys." We repudiate the theory of " cyclic
change." . * f
Scientific (?) theologians may have it if they choose, and be-
lieve in it ; but what can it give them ? Certainly not the
consistent, essential unity which comes from true development,
and which Catholic theology alone enjoys, but rather divisions
and dissensions of the most discouraging character, risings of
sects on sects, establishments and re-establishments of churches,
discord, even despair. Worse still : under such an illusory
method of reasoning Christianity is easily reducible to a cold,
heartless, spiritless moral code at best, with no more to
recommend itself to the spiritual needs of man's soul than the
ancient schools of philosophy, with no more claim to the
supernatural than the most ordinary speculative science. Then
if men will cling to such a theory, all that we can say is :
Very well ; adopt your theory, and what have you ? Results
bewildering and disheartening. Believe, if you will, that the
primal body of Christian doctrine has been subject for nine-
teen centjuries to cyclic change, reaction and revolution, that
the unrecognizable entanglement of theology in Protestantism
is the legitimate outcome of the evolution of historical Chris-
tianity. And to our reader we say : Is it any wonder that
these men are dissatisfied ? any wonder that they are lost in a
labyrinthal scheme which can show nor beginning nor end, and
whence they would gladly be liberated ? Is this Christianity ?
Has Christ's work come to this ?
NOTE. Read the two articles by Father Tyrrell, S..I , in The Month for August and Sep-
tember, 1900. Father Tyrrell says that the principles of the Development Theory, though
laid down " in the interests of a much narrower and now almost obsolete controversy, yet
are available largely for that far wider one into which it has resolved itself." This will be
realized by any one who will read W. H. Mallock's book, Doctrine and Doctrinal D'S'uption
(London, 1900), which, as Wilfrid Ward points out, is an application of the principles of the
Development Theory to explain the logical basis of Christian belief held by a Roman
Catholic {London Tablet, June 30, 1900).
360
"BLESSED ARE THE
[Dec.,
BLESSED AI^E HIRE
BY DENIS A. MCCARTHY.
OME simple shepherds in the night
Saw Heaven open ; and the light
That issues from the Eternal Throne
Around them in the darkness shone.
And downward floating came a throng
Of angels with a wondrous song
A song that echoed through the spheres,
A song that echoes through the years,
A song that shook the listening sky
With " Glory unto God on high ! "
A choral promise from above
Of God's eternal peace and love.
And so revealed to simple men
Was Ged's own Truth. And so again
The lowly-hearted, such as they,
Behold the Lord from day to day.
Before the kingly folk and wise
Who saw His beacon in the skies,
And sought Him in Jerusalem,
He chose the hinds of Bethlehem ;
And they were first to kneel before
Their infant Saviour, and adore
The first in simple wise to trace
His Mother's likeness in His face ;
The first, perhaps, to understand
The trembling of St. Joseph's hand ;
To pierce the meaning of his awe
At all he was, and all he saw ;
The first to hail with reverent word
The coming of the Promised Lord ;
The first within that stable dim
To welcome and to worship Him !
1 900.]
"BLESSED ARE THE
361
Today God's love is just as sure:
The simple-hearted folk and poor
Are His, as when a babe He lay
Long years ago, long leagues away,
In far Judea, and He chose
The shepherds (out of all of those
Who waited for His coming long)
To hear the angels' wondrous song,
To marvel at the Light of men
That ne'er would sink in night again ;
To be, though lowly, first on earth
To hail the Saviour at His birth.
362 " THE REGIMENTALS" [Dec.,
"THE REGIMENTALS."
BY EDWARD F. GARESCHE.
! ISTRESS MARGERY HONE sat by her kitchen
fire, though it was a warm, spring-time morning
the spring-time of 1777. The great pot bub-
bled on its hook, the pine logs flamed and
spluttered merrily beneath it, and a plump gray
cat, curled comfortably on the hearth, watched its mistress with
a half-frightened glance as she bent, eyes gleaming, cheeks all
flushed from the fire, above her warlike task. For Dame Mar-
gery was moulding bullets ! Never before had sleek Grimalkin
seen the iron mould in any hands save Master Timothy's;
nor often then but in early autumn, when he, sturdy hunter
as he was, was wont to make ready a store of bullets for the
winter season. Yet here was Dame Margery pouring the hot
lead, and clipping the rough spheres round with her own
slender fingers, while gay Master Timothy where, where was
he? ...
Up from the blossoming orchard came a faint rustle of
sound that stirred the quick ear of the cat to instant alertness.
A soft footstep tiptoed among the trees, paused at the hedge
as though the comer listened and peered out, then lightly
crossed the lawn and ceased before the kitchen door. A
moment after an uncouth form stood framed at the sunlit
threshold.
From his garb the new comer seemed to be a travelling pedlar,
even more road-worn, more ragged and travel-stained, than the
generality of his kind. His feet, wrapped in dusty cloths, fell
noiselessly upon the boards. A rope-bound pack hung from
his shoulders, and an ancient felt was slouched upon his brow.
From beneath its angular brim his dark eyes gleamed, with a
look that seemed of hunger, at the cool white walls, with their
rows of shining platters ; at the hearth, clean-swept and homely,
and at fair Dame Margery, busy still with melting-pot and
mould. As he looked at her a film of tears came into the
wanderer's eyes ; he stretched his hands toward her, and in a
half-whispered tone, as though he feared that the very walls
might hear, he cried, " Dear Margaret ! "
1900.] " THE REGIMENTALS. 363
The woman started, so that the mould fell clattering on
the hearth, and seeing the tattered intruder, lifted her ladle
threateningly. " How dare you, sorry ruffian ! " said she,
" creep in and startle honest people so ? Out with you, or "
" Sh.h ! " said the pedlar, " quiet, sweet ; 'tis I ! "
A sudden light of recognition flashed into her eyes, and
leaving lead and all, she threw herself into the vagrant's arms.
"Timothy!" sobbed she on his dusty shoulder; "Timothy,
Timothy ! dear, tattered Timothy ! "
" I have little time, dear wife, for greeting," said the
other, speaking softly and rapidly ; " this is a perilous time
for thy husband."
" But will you not rest awhile, Timothy, and be shorn of
those tangled locks, and freed of this dust and mire, and clad
in Christian garments ; nay, I have even made thee "
"Shorn! cleaned!" he interrupted; "that would indeed
mean ruin. My life depends on this disguise, and delay is
like to bring upon me a company of scarlet-coated villains. I
should not have ventured here save that from weariness and
hunger I had been like to lose the strength to flee. I am a
spy ; nay, more, a hunted spy ! "
As he had spoken of hunger and weariness Dame Margery
flew to a cupboard near, whence she drew foaming milk and
snowy bread. Her husband ravenously gulped them down,
and said between mouthfuls:
" Since I wrote you, dear, by trusty goodman Gray, we
have had enough of work and worry for all our lives. What
with famine and cold, in the makeshift huts at Valley Forge,
and the wounds of past fighting, many of us were half dis-
abled, and day after day brought worse shifts and harder toil.
And didst thou hear that General Washington sought to stamp
out the plague of small-pox among us by giving it to the
whole army, one detachment after another? It was even so,
and woe to the cause if Sir William Howe had marched upon
us ! Then, at last, spring came, and the darkness lifted a lit-
tle ; our ills healed, and our hearts lightened, and the whole
army wished only for action.
" Not many days ago the general came unannounced into
my tent, looking grave and mournful. ' Lad,' quoth he, ' I have
need of you.' ' Only tell me, sir,' I cried, springing to my
feet, ' how I can serve you ! ' ' Listen, then,' said he ; ' Sir
William Howe hath been recalled to England ; Sir Henry
Clinton taketh the command of the English forces. Since
364 " THE REGIMENTALS." [Dec.,
the spring is opened, it is very like that they will attempt
some move against us, and I would have more information
of their force, condition, plans, if possible. You must get
it for me, Timothy.' ' As a spy, general ? ' ' As a spy,'
said he ; and having given me instructions, gravely went forth
again.
" The next morning, from a farm-house ten miles from
camp, I, clad in worn homespun as a farmer's lout, and acting
the fool like one of feeble wits, set forth for the enemy's lines
at Philadelphia. Ah ! Margaret, I can never tell you how the
task sickened my soul. There was a plenty oi work to be
had among the British troops, and even a half-mad simpleton,
such as they thought me, was welcomed and well paid. So I
worked there at menial tasks until yester morn I was sent to
carry some refuse from out Sir Clinton's quarters. While I
was busied with the task, I chanced to be left alone only for
a moment ; but during that moment I seized his portfolio, and
rapidly glancing over the papers which it contained, chose the
bulkiest and hid them under my coat. Then, carrying forth
the rubbish, I thought to steal from their lines and be quit of
the whole cursed errand. But I had not gone far when, just
as I had started to run, to be off more speedily, I doubled
round a corner, and had near run into an English soldier !
' Hey, friend ragamuffin ! ' said he, ' whither away so fast ? '
and he held out his arm to stop me. I sprang to dash past
him ; but he seized my flapping coat, and holding on, I was
swung half round in a circle, and alas ! one of the general's
papers came tumbling out from under my coat. However,
you may guess that I did not stay to gather it up again, but,
the corner of my garment coming off in the soldier's hand, I
leapt past him, and ran away at my utmost speed. The
soldier started after me, but he being a beef fed loon, and
wasting overmuch breath in calling 'Stop! ' I soon distanced
him so that he was fain to turn backward and raise the alarm
at his quarters, I suppose, while I came for the nonce safely
off. Then, skirting the town in the woods, I came straight
here. You see, they know not who I am, and I feared to
speak to any one, lest they might betray me. Are any of the
servants near ? "
" Nay," answered his wife, " all are abroad ; but an' they
were here they would never know you poor dear ! what a
sorry spectacle."
" 'Tis a good disguise," said Timothy, glancing uncomforta-
1900.] " THE REGIMENTALS" 365
bly at his dusty extremities, " and, with speed, may save me.
I had it of a Yankee pedlar an unsavory rogue whom I
met on the way hither for mine own suit and some silver ;
he was making his way back, he said, to Boston Town. What
may be in the pack I know not. Listen ! some one comes,
and a-running ! "
Up the garden path came the patter of flying footsteps. A
moment, and a young negro, swift and agile, bounded up to
the door, and, half-falling within it, gasped with what breath
his haste had left him : " Missus ! troops English troops are
comin'; de woods are full of scarlet coatses ! "
Margaret turned imperiously to her husband. " Here,
fellow ! " said she quickly, " take thy food and sit on the
ground without. Thy rags do not beseem a decent kitchen.
Go, boy, and tell the officer who commands these troops that
Dame Margaret Hone invites his worship to enter and drink a
glass of wine with her ; be quick, do you hear me ? " The boy
opened his eyes in wide surprise ; then, grinning and murmur-
ing "Yes'm," left as hastily as he had come.
Margery turned to her astonished spouse. " An apt lad,"
said she, " but thy secret is too desperate for any but we two
to hold. Play thy part, and I will mine, Timothy, and God's
aid be with both of us ! "
Half dazed, as a man who wakes from sleep, Timothy seized
upon the platter of bread and milk, and shambled out upon
the lawn.
Scarce was he settled there when, with a rattling of hoofs
and the flashing of scarlet coats against the forest green, a
detachment of English cavalry trotted from the woods and
drew rein, at their leader's sharp command, under the wide
oak that graced the door-yard. The captain of the troop, a
fair-haired Saxon, in whose bearing vanity and a dashing
courage were strangely mingled, glanced keenly over the house
and spied poor Timothy, fumbling with a nervous hand at the
bread and milk. "Ha, Gregory!" said he loudly, addressing
one of his troop, " thy eye on that vagabond. If he moves to
depart, seize him ; he may have somewhat to tell us." And
casting his reins to another, he leapt from his horse and stalked,
preceded by the negro lad, toward the porch-surrounded door.
Scarce had he set foot upon the steps when forth came Dame
Margery, all in pretty confusion.
" Welcome, Sir Captain ! " said she, curtseying low on the
door-sill. " What chance hath brought so fine a gentleman to
366 " THE REGIMENTALS" [Dec.,
our humble house?" The other bowed and blushed and
stroked his golden mustachios.
" Truly, fair madam," said he with a grand air, " it grieves
me to disturb your sweet simplicity and rustic peace with these
rough soldiers. But even had the negro here not brought
your kind command, I should still have had to try your for-
bearance."
" Will you not come within ? " said Margery, pointing the
way to the wide, deep hall ; " and you shall tell your errand
there over a glass of true madeira. My husband is from
home." The soldier laughed.
" With all the able-bodied men about, I warrant you ! But
fear not, madam!" seeing the lady's glance of quick alarm;
"the English make not war on women. And though they did,
good mistress, i' faith, no gallant officer would tarry in the
concluding of a truce with so fair an enemy as you ! "
Captain Dangerford uttered this speech with so gallant an
air that honest Timothy squirmed with rage on his greensward
seat. Dame Margery curtseyed deeply in acknowledgment,
and led the way within. There, having placed her guest in the
high arm-chair, she sat herself upon a settle opposite, and
hastened to press her advantage. " You have not told me, in
these fine words, sir, what errand brought you here ? "
The soldier started, and assumed once more an air of im-
portant gravity. "Ahem!" quoth he, and, fumbling in his
uniform, produced a folded sheet, struck it open with a majestic
Siveep, cleared his throat again, frowned and read out :
"The Honorable Captain Dangerford, in command of his
Majesty's Third Squadron of Mounted Troops, being at present
stationed " and so forth, hum! "Honored Sir," etc., etc.,
ahem ! " whereas a Thieving Ruffian, strongly suspected of
being a Spy for the rebel General Washington, hath this day
absconded from our camp, having first, it appeareth, purloined,
secured, and sought by stealth to carry away divers most
valuable papers, plans, and letters from the quarters of our
General Officer commanding : Now, therefore, we do hereby
command you, sir, to use all diligence in scouring your neigh-
borhood for the recreant traitor : and being found, or any re-
sembling him, hang the damned rascal to a tree ! "
" That," said the worthy captain, striking the sheet with his
stretched finger tips, " is a very queer direction. The general
is too hasty, too hasty by half ! Hang any one who resembles
1900.] " THE REGIMENTALS" 367
a man I never saw ! Ha ! ha ! and but listen to the description
he hath added to it himself ; you may see where his secretary's
smooth hand ceases, and his own crabbed characters begin,
thus : " The said rascal is described as of a dark complexion
but, hang him, that may be dirt ! and low of stature, but looks
the taller from being very thin. His mind is said to be simple
though, curse him, he got off slyly enough, in short, if you
let him by, beware of it ! for that a Rebel Foole should brave
me so is not to be borne. And 1 have, moreover" here the
secretary recommenceth "the honor to be your honor's most
dutiful SIR HENRY CLINTON,
" General Officer Commanding."
The worthy captain here wiped his brow and sank back
with an air of elegant exhaustion.
"Why, troth, sir!" said Dame Margaret, much reassured,
" this is a letter curious enough ; but why you came here to
find your dark, light, tall, short, cunning simpleton I am at a
loss to know ! And pray be quick, sir, for your troopers'
horses are even now biting the buds from my tall hollyhocks!"
" Tush ! tush ! fair mistress ; 'tis a time of war ! " said Dan-
gerford, by no means pleased at being asked to take so speedy
a leave; "and since your house, with all due deference to you,
madam, is a rebel's domicile ahem ! it is but meet that we
should search it through. Ho there, Geoffrey ! "
" And so, sir ! " said the lady, rising angrily, " your great,
rude fellows must hale my linen forth, and rifle my cupboard
drawers, to suit your angry general's fancy ! My compliments
to your English manners, sir ! "
" No, no ! " said the other, striding to the door, " none of
your stores shall suffer any disturbance. But stay, " continued
he ; " whom have ye there, my man ? "
" Even the pedlar," said the sergeant, saluting " he whom
you bade us watch ; forward, loon ! " And he hauled in the re-
luctant Timothy urgently by his ragged garments.
"Ah, yes!" said Dangerford ; "stand him there, good
Geoffrey, and I '11 question the knave. Now, fellow "
" Pray, sir," said Margaret, in too tremulous a tone, " wilt
not put off this questioning until you shall have tasted a glass
of wine ? It will be here in an instant."
" No, no, madam ! " returned the officer ; " you have bidden
me hasten from your dwelling, and have called his Majesty's
soldiers ' rude fellows,' forsooth ! You have strained my for-
368 " THE REGIMENTALS:' [Dec.,
bearance too far, too far, indeed, I assure you ! " The doughty
captain was, in fact, sorely piqued by those unlucky words,
and now proceeded to spend his anger on the unlucky Timothy,
whom his burly guardian held as in a vise. " Come, fellow,"
said he, " we '11 see now what you can tell us. Pah ! what a
dirty ruffian. What's your name?"
Timothy swallowed his wrath by a violent effort, and, keep-
ing as abject a mien as he could, made shift to stammer out :
" Tobias Snaffleson, your worship."
"And where d'ye come from, hey?"
" From Boston Town, sir, in Massachusetts Colony."
" So ho ? a hotbed of damned traitors ! And what have
you in your pack?"
Poor Timothy's heart stopped beating. He did not know !
Since the old scamp from whom he had secured it had borne
it aside while they were exchanging garments, " to take," as
he had said, " some private matters from it," honest Timothy
had had neither time nor inclination to explore its greasy
recesses.
Seeing his confusion, the worthy captain grew instantly
suspicious. " Why, what ails the man ? " quoth he ; " speak
out, or we will freshen thy memory for thee ! "
" My wares," faltered Timothy, "are scarcely worth your
honor's notice. Pins and laces and beads ; needles and scissors
and thread, and such like fripperies, to catch the country folks'
fancy, sir."
" Methinks, Sir Pedlar," said Dangerford, looking at him
keenly, " you seem over-anxious to pass these fripperies by ;
let us see them. Open thy pack ! "
The poor fellow commenced with trembling fingers to fum-
ble at the cords that bound his burden, and having succeeded
in untying them, caught a corner of the cloth and rolled its
bulky contents forth on the floor ; when, to the intense sur-
prise of all the beholders, there tumbled out nothing but a
mass of withered leaves, together with sundry sticks and twigs
that rattled on the floor! The captain stared, speechless, from
the pack to Timothy.
" Heigho ! " said he at length ; " be not bashful ! Take off
thy hat, my man ! Geoffrey, methinks we have the villain
now ! "
The sergeant promptly dashed the tri-cornered felt from
Timothy's head. Stepping back and gazing at him with a
1900.] " THE REGIMENTALS." 369
quizzical air, the worthy captain continued, in the tone of one
who speaks remembered words: "Let me see 'of medium
height ' yes ; ' eyes, blue ' aha ! ' hair ' what color did he say
was the rascal's hair, Geoffrey ? "
" Brown," returned that worthy solemnly.
" Brown ! " repeated the captain with emphasis ; " ' his poll
unshorn'; 'a vacant gaze.' Ha! no vacant look hath he.
The knave is angry, Geoffrey! but looks may change; 'his
forehead, high ' was 't not so ? ' nose, long ; chin, square and
stubborn.' Enough; if this be not the man 'tis his very image
and double. Nay," turning to Margaret, " the thing's so clear,
madam, that I forbear from further searching ; your stores,
you see, may still be safe from my ' rude fellows ' ! Geoffrey,
bind the knave, and take him on thy pommel; see to 't he
escapes not. And you, fair rebel Heaven give you a more
loyal temper ere this war be over! "
" But, sir ! " cried Margaret, in almost tearful tones, " how
convict you this poor wanderer from so empty and rambling
a description as your general's letter gave you? For shame,
sir! DD you treat him thus because he is poor and but mean-
ly clad ? "
" Nay, mistress," said Dangerford, wheeling around to make
a formal bow, " I deemed it prudent not to disclose to you
quite all of my information. You may now know, since you
are so deeply interested in the prisoner " this with a search-
ing look "that General Clinton, though his letter was indeed
uncouth and vague, had yet the forethought to despatch it by
a messenger who knew the fellow well, having often seen him
at work in the camp. Now he, needless to say, was able to
afford us a more precise account than the worthy general's ;
and faith," continued he, rubbing his palms together with a
self-satisfied air, "we have the fellow now! Think you that
any but a rogue would carry dry leaves in a pack and call
them pins and laces?"
The luckless Timothy meanwhile stood gloomy and silent,
burning with helpless anger ; partly indeed at the worthy cap-
tain, but most of all against the crafty vagabond who had so
sadly tricked him by changing the varied contents of his pack
for withered leaves.
Now, binding his wrists, they led him out to where the ser-
geant's pDwerful horse stood pawing, and flung him over the
pommel, tying his legs so tightly that he was secured without
hope or fear of falling. Then, with a quick command, the
VOL. LXXII. 24
370 " THE REGIMENTALS^ [Dec.,
captain sprang upon his horse, his men swung into their sad-
dles, and bowing low, in token of farewell, the doughty cap-
tain led his clattering band back through the arching woods.
Poor Margaret ! She saw the scarlet coats go nodding
away, across the lawn and under the trees. She watched with
wide and tearless eyes as they vanished one by one in the
leafy depths. Then of a sudden the whole sunlit scene wavered
and whirled around like a wheel before her, and falling, she
knew no more.
It was the hour of dawn. The gray light, faint at first, in
the eastern sky widened and spread like the benediction of
the advancing morn. Out of the nocturnal stillness rose, one
by one, joyful sounds, hailing the awakening day. The deep
woods trembled in the rising wind. The birds awoke, the
insect chorus shrilled, and the whole world seemed quivering
with delight in the soft, cool pleasure of the morning.
But to Margaret's sleepless grief the daybreak only brought
increase of woe. Crouched in a window-seat, she looked for-
lornly forth, on blooming earth and pearly sky, turning over
and over in her weary thoughts that perhaps perhaps he
was already dead ! when of a sudden, from the woods, a flee-
ing form appeared, dashing over the dew-lit meadows ! She
started up, her face transfigured with hope, and watched the
runner draw nearer and nearer, until she could see his form
and catch the flapping of his tattered coat. It was Timothy !
Scarce was she fully sure that it was he when, to her dis-
may, there emerged at a slower pace from the same quarter
whence her husband fled a squad of soldiers, following quickly
after him. He passed the gate, he crossed the lawn, and leap-
ing up the steps with unsteady speed, thundered upon the
door. Margaret sprang forth, and, half-dragging him within,
swung the heavy portal to and shot the bars.
"You are pursued!" cried she, in answer to his questioning
look. " Friends," said he brokenly, when he had recovered
enough to speak. " I ran ahead to warn you. Listen ! At
dawn they would have hanged me ; but their bonds were never
close enough for me, who was taught by an Indian how to tie
and loosen. Fools ! they tied me with stiff cords. I worked
them loose my wrists ! "
Margaret turned back his ragged sleeves. "Heavens!"
cried she, for the man's wrists were literally flayed, laid bare
and raw by the chafing of the hempen cords.
I900.J " THE REGIMENTALS" 371
" The tent in which they threw me," continued he, " was
nearest the woods. The dull fools that took me never thought
to search these rags for weapons, and I had a knife under my
shirt. But a scream would have betrayed me ; so, at about the
middle of the night, I crept to the edge of the tent, and as
the fellow that watched me walked sleepily by, I leapt forth
behind him and struck him with all my might where the neck
joins the head. He fell, senseless as a log, and I dashed into
the woods. I ran, ran, ran, on through the darkness, not
caring whither, until thank gracious Heaven ! I saw a camp-
fire, and creeping forward then, came on the brave fellows
who follow. They are a scouting party of our army, and
when we have eaten here " He broke off as a tremendous
rapping sounded on the door.
" Enter, comrades! " he cried, shooting back the bolts. The
door swung wide, and there trooped into the hall eleven soldiers
of the Army of the Colonies. But the appearance of these
heroes of Freedom was unheroic in the extreme. Their rusty
muskets were of several kinds, their garments were sadly soiled
and tattered and torn, and their unkempt hair and straggling
beards looked ragged too.
The officer in command of the squad, who now stood bow-
ing bashfully to Dame Margery, looked such a villanous and
burly ruffian that she could scarce be pleasant to him. But in
truth beneath the soiled cloth which bound his forehead was
much keen wit and sterling honesty ; and she had only to look
into the giant's eyes, as he towered above her, to feel an
instant confidence in him. He was, in fact, a trusty fellow, and
he had a singular history. Born in a village of Prussia, and
drafted at an early age to serve in Frederick's armies, he had
fought during all of the Seven Years' War, and being finally
discharged after he had attained a sergeantcy, looked about
him for a peaceful refuge, being heartily sick of war and
soldiering. The tales that men told of the great American
Continent enchanted him, and with the savings of his military
service he embarked for New York, and travelled into the
wilds of Pennsylvania, promising himself that there he would
end his days in peace.
Scarce had the poor fellow been three years in the new
settlements, and married and built him a comfortable dwelling,
when, after rumors and threats, and bandings together, the
Colonies and England engaged in bitter war ! And Frederick
Faal took his great musket from its hooks on the wall, and
372 " THE REGIMENTALS" [Dec.,
looking mournfully back at his cozy homestead, nestled in the
green hollow of the woods, went forth with his neighbors to fight.
His descendants of to-day call the good man " Our ancestor,
Mijor Fall," and his full-length picture, in Continental uniform,
adorns the hall of a museum ; but that was painted in brighter
days !
Now, in common with the rest of his band, and indeed with
p >or Timothy himself, the good lieutenant had every outward
appearance of a vagabond, or worse. Dame Margery needed
no request to set food before them ; their hungry looks were
eloquent. But Timothy was not mindful to neglect any due
precaution. "You had best set a guard, sir," said he to the
lieutenant.
" Take thy bowl and thy bread, William Knox, and you,
Rob Dillingslea, and you, Henry Hull, and go without and
watch the woods all around us," said Faal to his men, and the
three whom he named went forth to obey. The rest had
scarcely fallen to, and were consuming the food before them
by huge and hungry mouthfuls, when one of the ragged guard
came bounding up the steps again, bawling as he ran: "Rob
Dillingslea and William Knox, come within; seek shelter! The
British are coming from the woods in front!" The other two
lost no time in complying, and being once safe within, slammed
to the door and rattled the bolts into place with great celerity.
The rest of the company, starting from their meal, hastened
to look from the windows.
Out of the line of the woods they could see the scarlet-
coated troopers come galloping, one by one. Then, forming
in more orderly lines, they made what speed they might over
the fields towards them. Since much of the land was but
newly cleared, it bristled with stumps of trees, and the eluding
of these obstacles disturbed and impeded their advance.
Meanwhile there was a hurried counsel of war at the window.
"Faal!" said Timothy, "hast any ammunition?"
" Powder for but three rounds," returned he, " and scarce
a bullet a man ; lead is hard to come by."
" Margaret ! " quoth Timothy, " there must be some lead
about; wilt search for it? We must even hew it apart with
our knives, and ram it well down on the wads. Here is no
time for moulding."
" A poor shift," said Faal, shaking his head, " but mayhap
't will serve in close quarters, in lack of a better. How think
you shall we declare ourselves?"
1900.] " THE REGIMENTALS." 373
"Never!" cried Timothy; "the front of this house hath
eight windows in it ; we twelve can make it seem well
garrisoned. One volley, all together, when they come in
range, will stop them for a space. Well-a-day! look you
there now."
For Margaret had come in dragging a linen bag, seemingly
very heavy, which bumped and rattled over the boards as she
pulled it towards them. " Bullets ! " said she exultingly ; "and
there are many more in the cupboard there. Do you not re-
member : I was moulding the last when you came upon me
yesterday? Nor is that all I did for you, Timothy; for I
made, besides, during this winter "
" Yes, dear," cried Timothy, interrupting. " Now, let every
man take a handful of these in his pockets, and, quick, to your
posts. A man at every window above, two at each here below.
Aim every man at a trooper, and, when ye hear my order, fire
all together ! " The men hurriedly dispersed as they were bid,
Faal and Timothy remaining at the casement.
" Look you, captain," said Faal, " have you no better gar-
ments than these rags ? My word for it, if the stiff-necked
English catch you in such tatters as those, they will haul you
up to a limb, or shoot you out of hand, ere they recognize
your captaincy ! "
" Why, man ! " said Timothy, his face suddenly eager, " is
their hope of anything else rags or no ? "
" Hope ! " quoth Faal. " Why, look you, when a spy hath
fled and gotten free and joined his own again, being thereafter
captured, armed and uniformed, with his command, he may
not be punished, but must be treated as a prisoner of war."
" Art sure ? "
" Sure ? Ay, or I was ten years a soldier for naught ; 't is
a known rule of war. But in that disguise, sir, and angered
as they are against you, faith you will have short shrift, an'
we cannot hold out against them."
"Oh, confusion!" cried Timothy; "if I but had my regi-
mentals ! "
His wife, who had been standing near drinking in every
word with eagerness, now started as though she had been
stung. " Your regimentals ? " cried she ; " why you can have
them, Timothy ! " Then she stared at him with slowly widen-
ing eyes, as though a wonderful idea was dawning in her mind.
"Shaven and shorn," murmured she, "cleansed and combed
and newly clad "
374 " THE REGIMENTALS" [Dec..
" O God! she's mad!" cried Timothy; "this is the last
blow fear hath turned her wits ! Come, come, dear wife ; let
me lead you up to a quieter place."
" I am not mad ! " cried Margaret, stamping her foot. " Come
you this instant up with me! Master Faal, hold yonder cap-
tain at parley for but a short quarter of an hour, and I will
show you a way out of this danger that you never dreamed of.
Timothy come ! "
In the meantime Captain Dangerford, having led his troops
as near to the mansion as he thought prudent, halted them
and called the sergeant to him. " Hark you, Geoffrey," said
he, " there is little doubt that the ruffians whose smoking camp-
fire we came upon have joined our rascal, and that they all
have sought shelter here. Yon footprints in the clay were made
by a dozen men or more. Do you therefore take this white
scarf and go forward and summon them to surrender, promis-
ing quarter to all save the villain whom we are pursuing."
Tae sergeant took the scarf and, waving it above his head,
rode slowly towards the house. They saw him pause at hailing
distance and heard a shouting as he parleyed with those with-
in. Then, turning about, he cantered back to his company.
" They say, sir," said he, saluting, " that they are a detachment
of Colonial troops under command of Captain Timothy Hone,
of their general's staff, and that you had best not molest them,
else you may look for a desperate resistance ! "
"We are twenty here," said Dangerford, "and must out-
number the fellows two to one. Give me the scarf!" And
the captain himself galloped forward towards the house. "You
within!" cried he, when he had come within call, "dare ye re-
fase entrance to his Mijesty's troops? Open and come forth,
or in' I have to force admittance here none shall ever enter
after me ! "
" By what right, Sir Captain," replied the deep voice of
Faal, "do you seek entrance here?"
"Right?" roared the captain, growing angry; "you frog-
throated villain ! do you speak to me of right ? Know that I
suspect that you have among you there a fugitive spy, his life
forfeit by the laws of war. Give him up, and mayhap I will
deal gently with the rest of you ; but resist me and, curse you,
I '11 set a guard around you here until I can have a gun
brought up to batter the house to bits above your heads!"
"Is he not ready yet?" said Faal in a low voice, turning
from the window. "Bid him hasten; this captain grows impa-
1900.] " T.HE REGIMENTALS" 375
tient. Sir," raising his voice again, "attend a moment, and
our leader will be forth to speak with you."
" Let him be quick, then," said Dangerford, twirling his
mustachios scornfully ; " the giving up of a traitor to justice is
no thing to hold a conference about."
" We have none but honest men here, sir," said Faal ;
" but here comes the captain himself you may treat with
him."
There was a rattle of bolts, the heavy door swung groaning
inward, and brushing his snowy ruffles, as though he had but
just risen from breakfast, Captain Hone, in all the glory of
his new made regimentals buff and blue stepped forth onto
the veranda !
" My eyes ! " thought Dangerford, as he looked at him.
" They say at the mess that these officers of Washington's
troops are as ragged as their men, but this gallant's clothes
look as though he had just stepped from a milliner's window !"
" Sir ! " quoth Timothy, looking him steadily in the eye,
" it is scarcely meet that we should come to fighting ; our
forces are too small for battle, and too equal for capture.
What do you seek ? "
" I have already told your men," replied Dangerford, never
recognizing in this trim officer the draggled and unshaven
wretch of whom he was in search; "I seek a fellow who, hav-
ing been captured and condemned as a spy, got off again by
knocking down a sentinel, and fled away. And I strongly sus-
pect, sir, that you have him with you here ! "
Timothy started in well-assumed surprise. "On my honor
as an officer, sir," said he, " I assure you that there is none in
the house there who has ever been a spy within your lines.
An' you doubt it, I will give you leave to search as you will
only provided that you do no other injury here."
"Yju allow me what I might take without your leave,"
said Dingerford haughtily.
"Would you attack a house with cavalry, sir?" said Timo-
thy, slightly smiling ; " and believe me, we will not wait
ta nely here while you send ^for reinforcements."
Dangerford knit his brows, and appeared to consider. Then,
" Very well ! " said he, " I accept your proposal. Order your
soldiers forth ! "
"Stay, though!" said Timothy. "You swear, upon your
lonor, that neither you, nor your men, shal^ do injury to any
person or thing within, save only him whom you seek; and
376 " THE REGIMENTALS." [Dec.
that failing to find him there, you and they will depart as
you came, leaving all in peace?"
"Yes! yes! yes!" said Dangerford, testily. "Order them
forth!" He waved his arm to his own detachment, to sum-
mon them to approach, and Timothy turned towards the
door again. "Lieutenant Faal!" cried he, "bring forth the
troops ! "
Faal solemnly led forth his tattered crew and halted them
in a row.
The soldier of King George gazed at them open-mouthed.
"What! are these ragged fellows all?" quoth he.
"Nay," said Timothy; "Margaret, come forth with thy
servants ! " She came, her household trooping after.
" This, sir," said Timothy, politely saluting, " is all of the
garrison ! " And the captain, gnawing his mustachios, silently
led his fellows in to search.
They ransacked the house from cellar to roof-tree, until
they were thoroughly assured that not a soul was left within
it. Then, coming up to the little band, Dangerford scanned
every man's features with a keen and suspicious eye. His look
rested last of all on Timothy with a half-disdainful glance,
which suddenly became fixed and scowling. He raised his
hand and half turned to his men.
" Remember your oath, sir ! " hissed Timothy, under his
breath, and the captain started and ground his teeth.
" Curse you !" he growled in an undertone; "you've played
me, I see, for a fool. Are you really a captain at all?"
Timothy bowed suavely. "An* we ever meet again, then, Sir
Captain," said Dangerford sneeringly, " mayhap I will even
the score between us for this cursed crafty trick of yours!"
And leaping to horse again, he dug his beast with the spurs
and led the troops away.
In the hall of a noble house that stands where Timothy's
stood of old there hangs, framed in glass, a suit of colonial
regimentals tattered and torn and stained with wear and age.
They are the same, her children's children say, that fair Dame
Margery made in the drear winter of '76, that changed the
wretched and hunted spy into Captain Timothy Hone of the
Colonial Army of the Revolution.
ST. MARY OF THE ANGELS PORT LINCOLN.
AN AUSTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION.
BEING A PAGE FROM MY DIARY.
BY BARRY AYLMER.
Y small passenger steamer from Adelaide to Port
Lincoln, one of the finest and most beautiful
bays of the world, is a trip of some nine or ten
hours in fair weather, and all round the coast
of South Australia one gets many glorious days
of breeze and sunshine. The approach to Port Lincoln is
lovely. You pass grand headlands, magnificent reefs, and numer-
ous bays. You see the grand Stamford's Hill, now generally
called Monument Hill. Perched on its summit is the Flinders
Monument, a heavy obelisk coated with white marble. It is
in honor of a brave man, a great explorer, who, standing
where the monument now stands, surveyed the glorious port
and was " the first who ever burst into that silent bay." It is
3/8 A IV A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec.,
even the more interesting because one of the noblest women
of our age, Lady Franklin, put it up. Sir John Franklin hats
off to the great Sir John ! had been lieutenant to Flinders,
and therefore Lady Franklin came over from Hobart and
scrambled up the rough hill side to lay the foundation stone of
the monument in honor of her husband's friend and comrade.
Swinging round the end of the pretty Boston Island you
have Boston Bay to your right and Port Lincoln proper to
your left, forming a harbor and port said to be unrivalled in
the world and capable of holding all navies, England's included,
riding at anchor.
Port Lincoln is a sleeping beauty waiting for the enchanted
prince. Some day he must come.
On the hill at the back of the township stands a building
which at first sight may easily be taken for a fort, but is
really a tiny church with a tinier presbytery attached. It is
"St. Mary of the Angels," and the flag flying from a tall pole
is to show that the priest is at home, and consequently that
there will be Mass to-morrow morning. The flag is big and
floats out bravely, showing a white cross on a red ground.
As the little steamer comes along-side the landing place the
priest, my dear old friend, seated in his buggy, and holding in
hand a pair of staunch bush horses, waves to me, and "hump-
ing my swag," as we say in the colonies, I land at once and
in two minutes am seated beside him.
The little horses need no word. They are off at once
through the township and up the steep, rough hill, and in just
so many minutes we are safely at the door of the little
presbytery.
" What do I think of my present mission?" said the hospi-
table priest as we sat together in the veranda after a genial
dinner a leg of mutton, some baked potatoes, bread and a
bottle of wine.
He paused to fill his pipe out of my fresh supply of " Navy
Cut" and to fill my tumbler with sound colonial red wine.
It was an evening in December, and a wild, hot wind had
been blowing during the day. Bat a change was coming up
from the west.
"What do I think of it?'' he continued, looking across the
paddock to his little church, and then down on the little
tovnship that nestled round the lovely biy. "Well, I think I
hive the biggest, the most arduous, and the poorest mission
1900.] A W A US TRALIA N B USH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. 379
A BUSH SETTLER'S HOMESTEAD IN THE FIRST STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT.
in South Australia perhaps in Australia ; it is from somewhere
between Port Augusta to somewhere between Fowler's Bay and
Eucla. I know it is n't infinite, but it's next door to it ; that
is, it's indefinite. I've been exploring it for the last five years.
My instructions were few and simple : ' Go as far as you can
penetrate, and do as much as you can ; and God be with
you ! '
" Port Lincoln here is my official residence ; my actual
residence is a spider buggy, and in a few weeks from now I
shall be knocking about somewhere on Eyre's Peninsula. You
see, as they say in the bush, I always had a wish to ' have a
slant ' at this work over here, and many a time looked out
over Spencer's Gulf with something like longing ; but when I
reached fifty, I sighed and was resigned to settle down easy.
However, the call came, and came in such a way that it was
no hardihood or presumption to take it up. It came as a call
of duty, and, well I was all there.
"When kind friends said 'You are mad,' I said nothing,
33o A v A USTRALIAN Busff PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec.,
but smiled a bit, for I had heard that remark before ; and
when I was told ' You won't stand it a year,' again I said
nothing. But the old Danish viking blood was up. I thought,
1 You '11 see.'
" With the call came the cross. A fortnight before I left
my dear old mission I had the first attack of asthma, and it
came to stay. I knew that I could have caved in ; at least
there was time to do so, and yet I could n't. It would have
looked like ' funk ! '
" Have you any idea what asthma, combined with bron-
chitis means? It is awful when it is there; worse in anticipa-
tion, when you feel it coming and know that for days and
nights you have to struggle for dear life to get only a breath
of air. But as this lovely view and beautiful atmosphere do
not affect the complaint in anyway, I have the less hesitation
in moving out from my home and taking to the bush and its
ways for something like nine months, at longer or shorter in-
tervals through the year.
"Starting, I have, if not the world, at least the west coast,
before me quite enough, as you will see by a glance at the
map. The hills there behind us are soon crossed, and the
pretty islands and reefs are soon left to sleep in the sunshine.
Out over the picturesque hills I drive my buggy and pair of
horses, and then, over a plateau desolate enough, the gloomy
Marble Ranges loom up and the deep blue Coffin's Bay twin-
kles in the distance. Very soon we round the gloomy and
curious range, which looks as if it were all cut out with a
gigantic knife, and pass hill after hill of granite and quartz.
Past the beauty-spot Warrow, with its fine sheep-run, the coun-
try becomes gradually more and more desolate. Our course is
onward past the remnants of the once big Lake Hamilton, be-
tween and over lakes and swamps and sand-hills. There is
with us for ever the roar, but seldom the sight, of the ocean
as it beats against the iron-bound coast or thunders over the
sandy beach. Ugly and miserable is the country, weary are
the miles a hundred and six of them. Then, just as we begin
to feel as if we are buried for ever and ever amongst the
sandhills, and the fate of us, priest, buggy, horses and all, as
well as the miserable little township of Elliston, is sealed,
there is Waterloo Bay. How the breakers rush against the
fantastic cliffs! how they beat against the tall and ragged
rocks, standing like brave sentinels across the entrance ! but
the fort is taken, for over the bar of solid rock, right across
.] A IV A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. 381
FURTHER IMPROVEMENT. THE FARMER HAS GOT HIS HEAD "-ABOVE WATER.
the biy, ru>h the mighty waves. The thunder is deafening,
the sight is dazzling; it is a scene of terrific beauty, but
there is no trade. For miles through the agricultural Colton
district the country is not beautiful, but pleasant ; but it
doesn't last long. Venus Bay is dreary, Never was priceless
jewel seen in so hideous setting. A magnificent sheet of water
of great extent is surrounded with country so dismally ugly as
to defy description. Then a large circle round the frowning
Mount Hall of murderous fame. All the country is very rough
and the limestone seems to be simply stacked. 'Twill take
the starch out of your backbone, and you had better look to
the springs of your buggy whilst crossing it. A little further
on and the country begins to look better, and here and there
you find lovely flits like a cricketing oval, only prettier and
more perfect. There are plenty of wells of generally not bad
water. So you drive on to Streaky Bay, two hundred miles,
and thus far in comparative civilization.
"I go once a year between two and three hundred miles
382 ANT A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec.,
further up the coast, away past Fowler's Bay. So far it is not
so very rough from a bushman's point of view yet it is not
smooth either. Bjt beyond Streaky Bay the fun begins.
General description : No stone, no sheaoak ; very few wells, but
of enormous depth and salt, not salty, water ; scrub mallee,
titree, myall, sanc'alwood, and of course gum-trees ; immense
flats which in good seasons are magnificent. There are also a
large number of splendid tanks which may have water in them,
but also may not. For instance, in the year 1898 they were
nearly every one dried up.
"Oh! the dreary and lonely lives of people in such a coun-
try. Once I came just at dark to an old hut which I thought
would be uninhabited, but I found a young fellow there.
" ' Can I camp with you to-night ? '
" ' Certainly ; I am so glad you came. I am living here by
myself, and my nearest neighbor is twenty miles away.'
"He was a Port Adelaide boy, with no idea of making
himself comfortable even with such poor comforts as may be
contrived in such a place.
"Once I had a sick-call to a place beyond Fowler's. Imag-
ine a sick-call a distance of over four hundred miles through
the country I have tried to give you a glimpse of. But it had
to be attended to. Judge for yourself :
"'Come at once; two children in family dead, wife and re-
maining children dangerously ill ; no doctor, bring drugs.'
"So ran the wire, and, thanks be to God! I didn't let grass
grow under my feet or those of my horses. Off I started, and
drove and drove under a blazing hot sun till I reache'd a
miserable tin shanty, divided into two compartments by bran
bags. There I found a big family in one end, a red-hot stove
for cooking inj the other. They carted water many miles in
an iron tank, just hot enough to be enriched with a wonderful
variety of tropical animal and vegetable life. Result dysentery.
" One instance more of what life in the far west of South
Australia means.
" On such journeys as I am telling of I always take a young
fellow with me for the last two hundred miles. It would not
for many reasons be safe to go alone, chiefly on account of
the danger of a sudden attack of the terrible asthma. We
came one day to an old ruined hut near a couple of tanks.
We intended to, and did camp there. There was a boy draw-
ing water for some horses running in the bush, but he was not
home when we arrived. The water in the biggest tank was
1900.] AN A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. 383
WHERE MASS WAS SAID SHOWING THE PRIEST' s BUGGY.
yellow and thick ; so I told my mate to water the horses out
of the other tank and bring a bucketful to the hut, where I
would have the fire ready for the billy. We hobbled the horses
and put on the billy ; but my mate said : ' I did n't take the
water from the tank you said; there was a dead rabbit in the
first bucket I drew, so I took the water from the big tank.'
" ' All right ; it would n't matter when it was boiled.'
" When it was quite dark we heard the ring of hoofs in
the distance. It was the boy and another young fellow com-
ing home, so we put the billy on and had tea ready for them
when they arrived. After tea my mate told about the rabbit
in the bucket.
"'And what tank did you draw the water for tea from ?'
" ' From the big one.'
"' Oh, thank you! A week ago I pulled two dead dingoes,
a dead snake, and several crows out of that tank.'
" Well, anyhow he could n't laugh at us ; he had had h:"s
tea too.
384 A N A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec.,
" But such is life, and such frequently is the water in the
bush.
" The last trip, I went, after my return from Fowler's, across
from Elliston to Franklin Harbor, rather more than a hun-
dred miles, sixty of which are through desert. From the har-
bor to this is another hundred miles, most of it rough coun-
try, and some thirty miles of white sand. I left Port Lincoln
August 8 and returned November 8 just three months, during
which I travelled about fifteen hundred miles.
" But don't run away with the idea that I am to be pitied.
Indeed I am nothing of the kind, for I love my work. In the
first place, it is n't all hardship. Sometimes you can have a
bit of fun in the bush. Again and again you fall in with some
nice fellows, and all the people are wonderfully kind and hos-
pitable ; and then you learn, and quicker than your new chum
thinks or city dweller can believe, to love the bush. I am
never happier than when I am knocking about in it. Then
think of the glorious work. Think of what it means to bring
light to the poor people who sit in the darkness and solitude.
Think of what it means to make the humblest place, perhaps
a bag tent, a tumble down hut, or a tin shanty, the very tem-
ple of God ! There may be, very likely there is, only one or
two poor fellows assisting at Mass ; but ' Where two or three
are gathered in My Name ! '
"Picture the scene. A tent or a shanty one remove from
a wurlie, but for the time made bright with a pretty travelling
altar, everything complete: gilt crucifix and candlesticks, snowy
linen, a few wild flowers or ferns gathered from close at hand,
and neat silken vestments.
" Oh, the wonderful stillness of the bush !
" The congregation may consist of a family ; the children
have never seen anything 'so grand' before; they stare and
wonder at everything, and are delighted. Yet I have given
them some idea of what it all means, and they are devout as
little angels.
" Or there may be one or two rough fellows who have not
seen a priest for twenty years or more, and were perhaps a
little shy of him at first. But we got over that last night
when we had shared some homely fare, sat pitching and smok-
ing at the campfire, and camped and slept on the same rough
4 shakedown ' for choice titree is better than mallee so this
morning we made our confession. In a few minutes we almost
feel the gracious presence of Him whose delight is to be
i goo.] A tr A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. 385
INTERIOR OF ST. MARY OF THE ANGELS.
among the children of men, and surely if there be degrees in
His delight it must be in favor of such as they. Holy Com-
munion, Mass is over, and then to breakfast a meal very like
last night's supper : we have ' damper,' and 'salt-horse,' or 'tinned
dog,' and ' billy tea.' Flavoring and seasoning all is the sense
of mutual sympathy, faith, and trust spread everywhere amongst
us, and resting deep in the hearts of both young and old. At
last comes the * Good-by, father, and God bless you,' and a
day's journey, sometimes two, to a similar place and similar
scenes.
" Of course this is in the roughest parts of the mission ; in
the more settled districts it is somewhat different. But if you
have any ' frills ' you had better leave them at home, for they
don't agree with the complexion of the Australian bush.
"Is not this work beautiful? and don't you understand
that on occasions such as I have described I feel as much,
nay, more devotion than ever I did in the grandest temple
and the holiest place in the Eternal City ?
VOL. LXXII. 25
386 Atf A USTRALIAN BUSH PRIEST AND HIS MISSION. [Dec.,
" My people are few, and very far between. My expenses
are not slight, and my income well, there is no need of my
taking the vow of poverty. Yet I never want for anything. I
have so far paid twenty shillings in the pound. I am proud
of my generous people.
" Do I ever feel lonely ? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I
should like to have somebody I could talk to about well
about many things, even as we are talking now. Yet, once a
year, you know, I have to go to Adelaide to make my retreat;
and when I have to go, I feel as if I would rather stay where
I am. Of course I am glad that at least once a year I can
receive the Sacrament of Penance ; but apart from that, I have
no inclination to return to civilization."
The oil lamp had given its last flicker, and the beautiful
moonlight was playing on the waters of Port Lincoln Bay as,
with a warm hand-shake and a hearty " Good-night " and a
" God bless you," I turned from the veranda into my little
room to make the notes from which I have transcribed my
friend's narrative of the mission and work of a priest in the
Australian bush.
T
"COUNT THAT DAY LOST"
HIS is the smart of life, the ceaseless round
Of duties done that yield nor sign nor sound,
Whether the act repays the ache it cost
Whether the ended day was lived or lost.
ARTHUR UPSON.
1900.] PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. 387
WHY ARE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES DISLIKED
IN THE FAR EAST?
BY FRANCIS PENMAN (Tokyo, Japan).
*HY are Protestant missionaries so generally dis-
liked in the Far East ? This is a question that
has often been asked, but seldom answered
satisfactorily. One is told that the irreligious
European trader is averse to all religious work,
because it has a tendency sometimes to cause disturbances
among the natives who dislike it, and thus disturb trade. But
that can be no explanation ; for, while the Protestant mission-
ary is certainly disliked, the Catholic missionary is often re-
garded with affection and esteem. The explanation must be
deeper than this. One reason, I think, is that the Protestant
missionary often engages in trade, and thus competes rather
unfairly with the European trader. I say " rather unfairly,"
for the missionary is helped by funds from pious people at
home including sometimes, maybe, friends and relatives of his
business competitors in the Orient who often imagine that he
passes all his life in efforts to reclaim the noble savage from
primeval wilds, suffering no end of discomfort in the process,
while as a matter of fact few merchants can afford to take
such long and frequent vacations as the missionary. I can
give concrete examples of what I mean.
THE BANGKOK COLONY.
In the city of Bangkok there is a large American colony
composed almost entirely of missionaries, ex-missionaries (now
prospering in business), and sons and relations of missionaries.
The members of that colony take frequent trips to the States,
where they get pathetic articles written about the extreme dis-
comfort they have to put up with in order to preach the
Gospel to a doomed people and an unbelieving generation-;
but they manage at the same time to live well and make
" plenty of money." Discontented with the salaries paid by
the Board of Missions, some of them run firms with which
they are not generally supposed to be connected, and I must
388 PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. [Dec.,
say that their keen business instinct is seldom at fault. It
must be confessed that as a rule they lead good, wholesome,
busy lives ; their homes are always comfortable ; their food
plain and substantial ; their children clean, healthy, well
brought up ; and all their surroundings reminiscent of a quiet,
fat " living " in an English village, or a parsonage in a pros-
perous American suburban district. This is all very well, but
one does not see where the self-sacrifice of which they talk so
much comes in ; and instead of finding traces of apostolic
poverty, one sees only a keenness in money getting which might
put the veriest worldling to the blush. There was one Ameri-
can missionary in Bangkok whose haste to get rich outran his
discretion, for he utilized the mission press in order to flood
the market with printed copies of those extremely porno-
graphic romances in the vernacular which are so common in
Siam, and which had up till that time been circulated in MSS.
only. This is an exceptional case, however ; but I may remark
in this connection that an orphanage press under American
control can easily, by virtue of the help it receives from home,
undersell any of the independent printing firms, and does under-
sell them. This state of things causes the average business
man, and especially the business man who is personally worsted
by clerical competition, to dislike the missionaries, to suspect
them of hypocrisy ; and I think it is natural that such should
be the case.
A CEYLON INCIDENT.
Many other causes combine to strengthen this impression.
I shall try to give the reader an idea of them. While visiting
a tea plantation once in Ceylon I found that the attitude of
the superintendent towards the Protestant missionaries was
even more than usually unfavorable, and I asked him for an
explanation.
" I '11 tell you," said he. " I 've five hundred coolies under
me Tamil coolies, not one of them Christian. A missionary
drives over here once a week or so from and asks me for
permission to speak to them on Christianity. I willingly give
permission, and tell the kangany to muster the men. The men
are accordingly mustered, the missionary gets up, talks to them
for half an hour on ' the great truths of religion,' and when he
has done I ask him to stay to tiffin. After tiffin he enters in
his book ' Preached to five hundred Tamils on such-and-such an
estate on such-and-such a date,' adding a lot about the way
1900.] PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. 389
the Spirit seemed to move them, though as a matter of fact
only a few of the men paid any attention to him, and they
laughed at him. The worst of it is, that these reports appear
in missionary papers at home, dressed up in such a manner as
to make one believe that the whole country is on the eve of
becoming Christian. Not only has this method of evangeliza-
tion the disadvantage of gaining no converts, but it has a ten-
dency to make European Christians in these parts believe that
all religion is such clap-trap."
I may add that in the same part of the East the European
and native (Protestant) clergymen come together in conference
in a certain district at least once a year, on which occasions
the Europeans invariably refuse to associate with their colored
Aryan brothers. From personal experience I know that the
opposite is the case among the Catholic clergy. In South
India, too, as in Siam, the American missionaries are noted
for the success with which they conduct their business enter-
prises. In one place they have a very flourishing weaving
concern, where they are able to turn out excellent cloth of its
kind at perfectly ridiculous prices, while the tiles they make
are famous all over the Far East.
IN THE KOREAN PENINSULA.
In Korea the missionaries have also gone in for trade, and
for politics as well, with a thoroughness that has actually made
their name a byword in China and Japan. When, on the oc-
casion of the outbreak of the present disturbances in China, a
" large and respectable body " of Koreans jointly memorialized
their Emperor for permission to " exterminate the Christians "
in their respective districts, some able Japanese newspaper
men proceeded to investigate the state of things in the penin-
sula. The results of those investigations are interesting. The
special correspondent of the Nichi Niche, an excellently edited
Japanese daily, and a ministerial organ to boot, with a large
circulation, said that
"Of all Christian countries, France and the United States
have sent the largest number of missionaries to Korea. Some
of the American missionaries devote themselves exclusively to
the propagation of their religion ; but others and they are
by no means small in number have mixed themselves up in
Korean politics and commerce, and are acting in combination
with a section of the Korean gentry in Soeul. On the other
hand, the French missionaries in the peninsula are making the
390 PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. [Dec.,
spiritual enlightenment of the Koreans the sole object of their
activity and never allow themselves to be involved in political
eddies. Owing to this whole-hearted devotion to their profes-
sion they possess a far larger number of followers than their
American confreres"
Commenting on this, the Japan Times, a semi- official paper
printed in English, delivers itself in almost a menacing man-
ner, as follows :
"As to what these correspondents say about American
missionaries, their propensities for business and for politics,
and so on, we do not know how much truth there is in it.
We know, however, that a few years ago the government at
Washington deemed it advisable to instruct its minister at
Soeul to address a remarkably vigorous and outspoken warn-
ing to the American missionaries, with the object of preventing
them from meddling with Korean politics. They may have
mended their ways since, or they may have again displayed
their weakness for meddling in other people's affairs. If we
can trust the correspondents of the two foremost papers in
Tokyo, it appears that the latter is unfortunately the case, and
that some of them, at least, are once more making trouble-
some busybodies of themselves."
A JAPANESE CAMP-MEETING.
So much for Korea. I shall now deal with the missionary
in Japan ; and shall first present the reader with a paragraph
on this subject from the non-Christian but perfectly courteous
and impartial Japan Times, of August 3 :
" Hiyeizan in Yamashiro," says that paper, " is one of the
favorite summer resorts of foreigners in Japan. Every year
the Doshi-sha" a Protestant institution "gets permission of
the local forestry authorities to use a patch of the government
land north of the mountain above mentioned for the accommo-
dation of the foreign missionaries in the Kansai district.
There, under tents, they spend their summer holidays from
the middle of July to the middle of September in a religious
fashion. It is calculated that 47 British and Americans, and
33 Japanese, made their sojourn on the mountain last summer."
This agreeable two months' vacation, passed " in a religious
fashion," is carried out in other parts of the country at the
same time, but the Japanese organ I have just quoted treats
the matter quite seriously. The Christian European organs in
the local press are not so shy, however. Under the pro-
1900.] PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. 391
nounced heading of " An Annual Humbug," the Eastern World,
a Yokohama paper, speaks strongly on the subject.
" The chosen of the Lord," it says, " have again left the
sinful settlements and the sweltering plains to- take their two
months' annual holiday at Karuizawa, to praise the Lord who
annually helps them to get there, whilst the children of wrath
have to slave at their desks eight, nine, yea, on mail-days
and there is a superabundance of those unholy days even
thirteen and fourteen hours. Now, if this annual humbug in-
tended for consumption at home, where Karuizawa is believed
to be a dreadful wilderness, was only kept quiet, no one would
say a word about it, for judicious humbug has always been a
most powerful factor in the world's progress.
" But no, nothing will serve but there must be reports of
it in a newspaper, so that there be something to show that
looks like work."
There is no need to dwell further on this point, however,
as it has been fully treated of in Mr. Ransome's Japan in
Transition. Mr. Ran some speaks very strongly, it may be re-
marked, against the Protestant missionaries, but of the Catho-
lic missionaries he has nothing but good to say, and in this he
merely voices the opinion of the most thoughtful European
and American residents in the Far East.
The present crisis in China has aroused much discussion in
connection with the wisdom or want of wisdom of mission-
aries, even Lord Salisbury taking part in it. On this matter
I was speaking the other day with one of the keenest Japan-
ese in Tokyo a man who has, like most of his education, no
religion, but whose opinions on all subjects connected with
Japan or China are worth having. " It 's a very remarkable
fact," he said to me, " that we never heard of these anti-
missionary disturbances till the Protestant missionaries came
on the scene. The Catholics were in China three hundred
years ago, and for centuries we find that they were treated
with respect by the common people ; no sooner, however, do
the Protestants arrive on the scene than the trouble begins.
I believe that the cause is this : The Catholic missionaries be-
came Chinamen almost ; they lived among the people for good,
and troubled themselves about nothing save the teaching of
their religion. The Protestant missionary, on the contrary,
brought his wife and children with him, and all his home
prejudices and customs, and this the Chinese resented."
392 PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. (Dec.,
AN INCIDENT THAT ILLUSTRATES.
A concrete example of the difference between Catholic and
non Catholic missions is furnished by an incident that lately
occurred at Ichang, on the Yangtsze. I quote from the Chi-
nese Gazette :
"The captains of the Japanese steamer Taiyuen Marti and
British steamship Changwo, passing the back entrance to
the Customs Godown at Ichang, saw a poor Chinese junk-
tracker in terrible agony, with one of his feet hanging a
bruised and crushed mass of flesh, in an indescribable state of
filth and live maggots.
" Wishing to relieve this terrible state of affairs, they sought
the aid of the customs harbor master and medical officer, im-
ploring them for the sake of humanity to have the man placed
on a stretcher and sent to the hospital.
" The man was duly sent to the Scottish Mission Hospital
a note having been sent first by the harbor master to ask if
the doctor in charge would receive the man, permission having
been given in writing. But after the doctor in charge had ex-
amined the man's leg and partially dressed the wound, he (the
doctor) called on the harbor master at his residence and re-
quested that the man be immediately removed, as fever had
set in and the leg required immediate amputation, and, in the
doctor's own words, was the ' most awful case he had ever
seen, a mass of corruption and maggots ' ; and more than this,
he had been strongly advised by his mission not to take this
case in, as in the case of the man dying, which was very prob-
able in three or four days, it might cause a rumpus (sic) and
be a trouble ,to the good of the mission. In fact, this was not
the class of patient the hospital was for.
" The man was removed from the hospital and placed on
the beach to die by degrees. Again, money was paid to the
priests of a temple (heathen) close by, and again he was re-
moved to at any rate die in peace on some straw out of the
sun. That night the French Sisters, unasked, had the man
brought into the convent, put him into a separate room, washed
his body and skilfully dressed the awful wounds, a labor of love
for a poor Chinaman and done by women.
" In short, the man was recovering under the gentle care
of the sisters when last hear of ; and the whole foreign popu
lation of Ichang, those on steamers trading to the port as well
as those residing in it, those of the Catholic religion as well as
those of the Protestant religion, and those of no religion at all,
1900.] PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. 393
were so touched by the kindly act that they collected on the
spot a subscription for the convent, and presented it along with
a fine testimonial bearing the appropriate citation : ' Inas-
much as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren,
ye have done it unto Me.' '
The Gazette winds up this report by remarking that " the
Scottish Mission at Ichang consists of three magnificent houses
in well laid-out grounds, which cost 1,000 each on an average.
Each of the houses only contains one missionary and his
family, and the pay of each missionary is 200 to 300 a year,
with extras. ... In fact, these missionaries are better off
than men in the Civil Service in China, and live on the fat of
the land."
AN UNFORTUNATE TELEGRAM.
I may remark, in conclusion, that the appeal published by
the New York World just when the difficulties in the Chinese
capital had become acute, from a missionary correspondent in
Peking (" Arouse the Christian world immediately to our peril !
Should this arrive too late, avenge us ! "), called forth, in spite
of the real danger in which the missionaries were for a time
placed, nothing but jeers from the European press in the Far
East. The Japan Herald says that the expressions I have just
quoted "are indeed astonishing expressions to come from per-
sons who pretend to have consecrated themselves to the religion
of love and self-sacrifice. . . . Would Livingstone, Xavier,
or Ignatius Loyola have appended their signatures to such an
unfortunately-worded petition ? Hardly. There is nothing in
it whatever to differentiate its authors from the ruck of
ordinary humanity. A parcel of concession-hunters might with
equal probability, and with greater propriety, have given it
forth to the world. We do not mean to assert that all non-
conformist missionaries are like the foregoing. We sincerely
trust not ; but it does seem impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the majority are not consistently inspired by the loftiest
motives, and that, if compelled to live on the salaries allotted to
the French Catholic priests, to wear the latter's distinctive
dress, and if condemned like them to celibacy, there would
soon be perceptible a distinct falling-off in the number of those
domesticated gentlemen who are at present so eager to
' Christianize and civilize ' the unhappy heathen. We are not
among those who can see any extraordinary sacrifice involved
in mere residence abroad, and when it is remembered that in
nine cases out of ten the kind of American nonconformist
394 PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. [Dec.,
missionary who comes to this country, or who visits China,
could not expect to do half as well from a pecuniary stand-
point if he stayed in America, the extent of his self-abnegation
approaches perilously near the vanishing point."
The Kobe Chronicle, commenting on the same appeal, says :
"That is the spirit in which missionary propaganda has been
carried on in China for the last thirty years, and it is not sur-
prising that it should have gradually aroused the hatred of the
people and be responsible in large measure for the explosion
which threatens to wreck the Empire."
EVIL OF POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS.
The remark may hardly arise out of the subject in hand,
but the writer cannot forbear remarking at this stage that in
his opinion one of the greatest influences at work to prevent
the spread of Catholicity in Asia in modern times has been the in-
stitution of extra-territoriality and the invariably selfish and politic
but often indiscreet manner in which European rulers backed
up Catholic missionaries or avenged their deaths. As one
reads the history of missionary endeavor for the last thirty or
forty years, he is struck again and again by the fact that the
native authorities who happened to have Christian clergymen
in their districts were always apparently thinking of the consul
or the admiral who was behind these missionaries, and of the
Christian armies and gunboats that were behind the admiral
and consul. Things could scarcely, of course, have been other-
wise ; no Christian nation could allow its subjects to be
massacred without avenging them, and I would not have it
remain quiescent in the case of missionaries. I merely state
what I consider to be a fact which accounts for much.
THE HARD-HEADED NEWSPAPER WORLD IN THE FAR EAST.
I quote largely in the above paper, it will be noticed, from
the Far Eastern press; but I do so with an object. The Far
Eastern press represents the views of the foreign residents in
the Far East much more faithfully, I think, than the English
press represents the views of Englishmen, or the American
press the views of Americans, and that for several reasons,
one of which is that the editor of a Japan or China daily is
sometimes personally acquainted with all his local subscribers,
and in continual " touch " with all of them.
Now, no community in any part of the world is, I think,
so little liable to be affected by sentiment as a Far Eastern
" foreign " community. It may be because they live among
1900.] PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN THE FAR EAST. 395
an inferior race that this takes place, or it may be be-
cause they are removed from home ties and home influences,
that many of them know nothing of the softening and uplift-
ing influence of wife and child, and that most of them are
exposed to temptations they would not be exposed to at
home ; anyhow the matter is one that I cannot go into at
present ; but the fact remains that they become more logical,
cold-blooded, keen, cynical, and less liable to be swayed by
sentiment than any class of people at home. A prominent
Far Eastern lawyer once told me that the sentimental appeals
that would carry an English jury off its twenty-four feet would
simply be smiled at in an Oriental court-house or consular
court, and I am sure that the famous court-house scene in
Pickwick, or anything remotely like it, could never have oc-
curred in a foreign court-house " east of Suez."
This frame of mind, not bad in itself, is accompanied in
many cases by a hardening of the moral fibre and a serious
degeneration in many other ways, but it is pre-eminently a
frame of mind in which old mists and prejudices are cleared
away and early bigotries and superstitions are dissipated faith
often, unfortunately, going as well so that many a man is
thus enabled to see clearly on subjects where, at home, he
was blind. The only Orangeman from the North of Ireland
that I have ever known to be converted, was converted in
India ; had he remained at home I think he would never have
seen the light ; and in all parts of the Far East foreigners are
continually being received into the true fold. In Japan, with-
in the space of about a year, Professor Chamberlain, one of
the greatest living authorities on things Japanese ; Dr. Von
Koeber, of the Imperial University, and the Baroness D'Ane-
than, wife of Baron D'Anethan, dean of the diplomatic body
in Tokyo, and sister of Rider Haggard the novelist, have all
been received into the church.
This keen, logical, matter-of-fact community which I have
attempted to describe, and the press which so accurately repre-
sents it, is not then in favor of the Protestant missionaries,
and is as a rule in favor of Catholic missionaries, despite the
fact that the press and community are themselves mainly Prot-
estant, and that, if certain well-known theories were true, it
would be Catholicism, "the gorgeous superstition of Rome,"
to use the words of Macaulay, that would be laughed at by
such a community, and Protestantism, which owes nothing, we
are told, to mere sentiment or imagination, that would be lauded.
396 THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. [Dec.,
THE PITMAN'S ROSARY.
BY C. S. HOWE.
RE a coomes," said one of a group of pitmen
who had gathered at the shaft in readiness for
the cage to take them down the yawning
depths of the coal mine. " 'E doant 'urry 'isself,
do 'e ? "
" 'E '11 make a deal more haste afore the day 's hout," said
another man, who by his size and aggressive manner seemed
to be the leader of the gang. " If 'e doant win this 'ere bet
for me my name ain't Dan'l Pollard. " Lor' 'ow 'e '11 run when
'e 'ears the bang go. Wish I moight see 'im, I do ; no chance
for me ; 'e '11 be at the cage-side afore / git hout of the
sidin'.
" Motnd 'ow you 'andle that there stuff, Dan; 't ain't quite
so 'armless as flour an' water."
" Yew need n't go doon unless ye loike," rejoined the bully
with a scowl. " What are ye afeared on, eh ? Daunger !
Where's the daunger? Git along out wi' ye, Jim Bates;
there's toime to take care on yerself ; we're not doon there
yet."
"What's up now?" asked a tall, gaunt-figured young
miner, who had come up in time to overhear the last words.
*' Nothin' at all," replied Dan, scowling even heavier than
before, " only Jim 's rather narvous this mornin'. And what 's
the matter wi' yew, that you 've kep' us all waitin' ? Been a
mumblin' over them beads o' your'n ? Countin' yer prayers!
'Ow many on 'em must ye say to the minute, hay? Yah!
Git in ; make haste do, ye hidjot ! "
Dan, who had illustrated his speech with a number of hide-
ous adjectives, as was his wont even in commonest conversa-
tion, spat viciously, as though to show his sickening contempt
for the subject of his gross banter; and the deep shaft of the
pit echoed the coarse laughter which the men, backing up the
rough sally, indulged in at Denis Brierly's expense. The noise
drowned his attempted retort, though he, like most others,
could scarcely distinguish between offence or fun in Dan's
speech at any time, and the bully's habitual coarse bravado
1900.] THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. 397
was generally taken in the better sense, as colliers understand
it; their humorous instinct being sometimes as grim as their
dark and dangerous calling. Two words only, and these had
not been used, no pitman could have allowed to pass unchal-
lenged. These two words were " sneak " and " coward."
Not that these opprobrious words had not reached Denis's
ears in the course of the last few weeks. His mates had a
grudge against him. For several Sundays had he been missing
from the coarse orgies with which their wont was to celebrate
the first day of the week. Some one had seen him going to
and fro the distant village of Easington. Some one else had
spied an odd-looking set of dark brown beads, connected to-
gether by a steel chain with a cross at the end of it, dangling
from his pocket; and at last the truth crept out Denis Brier-
ly had turned Car-tho-lic /
At least, that is what his pitmates said. In reality he had
always been a child of the church, having been baptized into
it in his infancy by his Irish mother's care. Some rudiments
of the Faith he had also gleaned from her teaching, though it
was but little she could do for him, as she died before he was
eight years old. His English father dying shortly afterwards,
Denis had grown up as best he might following his ancestral
calling, first as pit-boy, and then pitman, as a matter of
course, for of choice he had scarcely any. To all appearance
he was almost as much of a heathen except in name as
most of those around him ; but his faith, though dormant, was
not lost, and wanted but occasion to call it forth. A chance
meeting with an Irish Driest, to whom the lad, when ques-
tioned, did not deny his birthright, brought about his recon-
cilement to the church of his baptism, as also a striking refor-
mation in his character. It was the latter his comrades objected
to, but they held the cause responsible ; and to taunt him out
of that they spared him no ignominious epithet that their bru-
talized speech could devise. He had formerly been somewhat
of a favorite ; he was now the butt of the gang.
Once at the bottom of the shaft he set off to his place of
work, which he was glad to know was rather apart from a set
who were bent on provocation. He had fought one or two of
them already, and was willing to fight the lot, could he but
win ultimate peace by doing so ; but of that there seemed no
chance whatever. Some thoughts he had had of enlisting for
a soldier, or of trying to get work in another colliery, but he
was averse to do anything that looked like " running away."
398 THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. [Dec.,
Strong in him was the racial instinct to stand up to any man,
for any good fighting cause ; and when in all his life had he
a better one than now? In his heart he did not believe they
thought him what they called him, and time or chance would
prove the falsehood of their speech. The chances for a col-
lier to prove his courage are, alas ! all too frequent, and
Denis knew his own might come at any hour on any day.
Little, however, did he think how very near it was at hand!
An hour or two had passed when Denis, who was trying to
drown his unpleasant thoughts in hard work, heard a noise so
distinctly different from ordinary sounds that he left off ply-
ing his pick to listen. He was about to resume his monoton-
ous task when another sound caught his ears the quick tramp
of hurrying feet going in one direction at the very top of their
speed. Flinging down his tools he rushed to join the flight,
the meaning of which he guessed too well ; nor was there any
need to ask the first man he met as he turned out of his
siding into the main gallery ; a single rapid exchange of glances
telling him that silence, next to speed, was the best policy.
Denis plied his long limbs well, for life especially now
that it was threatened was sweet to him in spite of troubles.
Some of the colliers who ran by his side were as grimly silent
as himself, but as he neared the shaft, where by reason of his
superior swiftness he was one of the first arrivals, he over-
heard a smothered guffaw. This was but the prelude to a
perfect howl of derision which, commencing from one or two
who were standing by the cage, was taken up by others who
were coming along. He stopped and looked round at each
grinning face in amazement. His own nickname reached him
as, coupled with much filthy jargon, it was flung from side to
side. What did it all mean at such a moment ? Was this a
tragedy or a farce?
Before he could put this question into words the answer to
it was thundered into his ears by a terrible sound that, this
time, left no doubt as to its meaning as it roared through the
long, winding galleries and cavernous depths of the mine. The
broad grins vanished from the dark faces of the miners as,
terror-struck, they rushed pell-mell towards the cage to escape,
if so they might, the deadly Fire Blast which, having broken
loose, was bearing down upon them with lightning-like speed.
In less time than telling takes, the lift was full of desperate
men, every inch of foothold taken up ; the chains of the lower-
1900.] THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. 399
ing gear, everything, in fact, that hands and feet struggling
for dear life could press into service. In the frantic crush for
place it had not been noticed that Denis had taken no part in
it, but had stood quietly outside while the rest were crowding
in. The last to come running up was big Dan Pollard, whose
heavy build had told against him and kept him in the rear.
It is scant justice to the collier to say that not to save his
own life will he carelessly leave a mate to perish, but whether
the signal had been given too soon, or the urgent need had
been apprehended from above, it happened that when the two
men who were still outside the cage faced each other, it was
already on the upward move !
To reach it by a vigorous leap would have been no diffi-
cult matter for Denis's long, muscular limbs, the less so that
many eager hands were outstretched to help. With Dan, how-
ever, it was very different. In trying to make the jump he
would have failed had not Denis seized him just beneath the
knees and by main force shoved him within reach of the pit-
men's iron grip. This, and a desperate but useless attempt to
save himself by springing after the upgoing lift, was all the
work of a few moments. In another, the Blast had swept by
on its death-dealing path where no loiterer may hope to escape
its fury. That so many should have emerged alive from such
a veritable death-trap was considered almost a miracle, for
when the roll-call was made of those who had been known to
have gone down the mine that morning all answered to their
names but one !
" There 's somethun' fallen down," said one of the men who
were lifting the charred remains of their late comrade into the
lift.
" It's the pore chap's prayin' beads," added another. " Pick
'em up, Dan, will yer ? "
Dan Pollard, at whose feet the rosary had fallen, stooped
and picked up the object of his late contempt with a respect-
ful care that, for him, was almost reverential.
" 'E thought a lot on it," he said in a husky voice as he
turned the rosary over in his great, grimy hands. " P'raps
there 's more in it arter all than we knows on."
" Maybe there 's sum-un who 'd loike it for a keepsake ;
sum-un who knows what 's for."
" Maybe there is ; / dunno. If there ain't no one as warnts
it, though, I 've a moind to keep it myself."
400 THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. [Dec.,
" Why, what use on 'arth is it to yew ? "
Dan made no reply, and the cage slowly moved upwards
with its mournful load. He was very miserable, as well he
might be, for no one knew better than himself, though
others were in the secret, that he was guilty of the catas-
trophe that had brought about poor Denis Brierly's untimely
death.
There had been divergence of opinion between him and
some of the men as to whether Denis's religion had tainted his
courage or not, the result of which had been a foolish plot to
test it, upon which both sides had freely betted. Dangerous,
even more than foolish, was the plan that Dan invented in the
hope to win his wager. Even the miners the most reckless of
men owned to thinking it hazardous ; but Dan, as he usually
did, had his own way. The false alarm followed by the stam-
pede of each and all, notwithstanding that most of them thought
there was no actual danger all too surely took place, but the
noise made to bring about a seeming explosion had most proba-
bly brought down the real one, and Denis, instead of having
been the first to secure his own personal safety as Dan had
sworn he would was lying dead at his feet, his victim in a
double sense. He was alive now only by reason that Denis
died.
Dan envied the disfigured corpse. He knew it to be a hero's.
Fearless himself, he worshipped courage. " I only wish it wor
me hinstead o' 'im a lyin' there," he muttered ; and his mates,
though they scarcely heard what he said, understood what he
meant.
He was striding home alone after the funeral, his thoughts
full of the impressive sight, but also exceedingly bitter. Inde-
cision added to his misery. He wanted to make such repara-
tion as he could by openly owning his share in the fatal mis-
chief that had brought about the tragedy, but to do this would
inculpate his companions, to which they would not consent,
and he could not betray them. Could he take the whole blame
upon himself he would do it gladly, but this did not seem pos-
sible when there were so many in the same boat ; they must
swim or sink together.
A placard on a wall caught his sight. It was quite fresh,
having been " posted " while he was away at the distant ceme-
tery, or he must have seen it before. He stopped and stared,
then read it slowly from beginning to end. It meant much to
him.
1900.] THE PITMAN'S ROSARY. 401
It was an order from the War Office calling out the First
Class Army Reserves for active service in the field.
Dan Pollard was a Reserve!
" The wound is not dangerous. A narrow shave, though.
But for this it must have been mortal."
It was after the disastrous fight at Colenso, where the
Catholic chaplain came up just as the surgeon had taken a
brown rosary from the breast pocket of a" big linesman who
was lying prone upon the ground. He had, however, recovered
consciousness, and his eyes followed the rosary as it passed
from the doctor's into the priest's hands.
"Your rosary has been the means of saving your life, my
lad," said the priest kindly. "The bullet which struck you
was diverted from its course by this good little string of
beads."
"Saved me loife, d'ye say? I knowed a pore chap as lost
1 is along o' that an' me. It ought to a bin all t 'other way,
but them 's a wonderful set o' beads."
" I should like to hear all about them," said the father as
he replaced the rosary, " but you are in no danger now and I
must go to the dying."
" No, there 's nought much amiss wi' me. I 'II coome along
an' 'elp lift some on 'em."
But Dan, in trying to raise himself, fell back heavily. He
was faint from loss of blood. He managed, however, to call
out as the priest was moving away :
" I'd loike to tell ye all about it afore my turn coomes, if
ye 'II remember."
" You may be sure I won't forget."
Dan's " turn " came on the blood-stained road to Lady-
smith, but not before the story of the rosary and much more
had been told !
VOL. LXXII. 26
THE services rendered by Dr. Martineau in de-
fence and proof of those truths which are the
necessary basis of all religious belief make any
biography and account of his life and works not
merely interesting but important. His Study of
Religion is one of the greatest works of the century. Its vin-
dication of the objective validity of the argument for the
existence of God as against the mechanical and empirical
philosophers of England on the one hand, and the Idealists of
Germany and their followers in both countries on the other, is,
notwithstanding some points deserving criticism, of inestimable
value, as also is the criticism of Utilitarianism. The very
weakness of his own position as that of one seeking to solve
all problems by unaided reason, without the guidance of any
divinely appointed external authority in either church or Bible,
rendered it incumbent upon him to solve philosophical
objections to the fundamental bases of all religion on purely
philosophical grounds. Whatever Dr. Martineau did was done
with thoroughness. To those who are acquainted with his
writings this is saying very little. Although he is outside the
church, and outside of all the bodies which make any claim to
be orthodox nay, although he is outside of the orthodox of
his own body his reverence for God, his devout worship and
love of him, his loyalty to the voice of conscience, cannot but
excite our admiration. His intellectual powers, the beauty
of his style, the eloquence to which he often rises, are not in-
ferior to those higher qualities. The fact that between six
and seven hundred scholars and thinkers of every nation
united to present an address to him on his eighty-third birth-
day is a testimony to the effect his writings have produced
upon those who are accounted the leaders of thought. This
address was to thank him for the help which he had given to
those who " combine love of truth with the Christian life," and
for his great services in the Philosophy of Religion. Even
1 900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 403
those who were unable to sign this address, as they were not
friends of religion but opponents, joined in the expression of
their sympathy.
The example of Dr. Martineau's life of thought is a fresh
demonstration of the necessity of there being a living authority
to defend, maintain, safeguard the truth. Certainly very few
men are endowed with intellectual powers equal to his, or with
a more tender conscience, to which, so far as human judgment
goes, a complete obedience was paid. The expressions which
he gives to his reverence and love for God are not to be
rivalled in literature, nor is there any reason to think that
these expressions are mere rhetoric, but rather there is every
reason to think that they are but feeble expressions of his
interior life a life carried into everyday practice. But for
want of an authority to guide him, divinely appointed and
constituted, such as the Catholic Church affords, while his
philosophical career was upwards and drawing ever nearer to
the truth, his theological career carried him further and
further away. He started, so far as we can learn from this
volume, as an Arian, and before his life was over our Lord,
although recognized by him as his teacher, exemplar, guide,
brother, friend, was rejected as his Lord and Saviour ; he
would not even allow these appellations to appear in prayers
The Holy Scripture he never seems, even at first, to have ac-
cepted as the word of God infallibly inspired ; but his course
here, too, seems to have been downward, so that he came to
look upon even the Gospels as merely human documents, con-
taining many ajid. important errors. On the other hand, he
believed in miracles, at least those of Christ ; his characteriza-
tion of sin, its intrinsic malice and evil, were in marked con-
trast to the Liberal views now so common. Nor is he a
Universalist ; he does not believe that saint and sinner will
begin again on equal terms in another life. Future punish-
ment he teaches, a punishment of which death will reveal even
greater and greater potentialities. Mr. Hutton, of the Spectator,
his friend, testifies that Dr. Martineau inspired him with a fear
of hell, a thing which the Calvinists had failed to do. But his
rejection, or perhaps we should say his ignorance, of a divine
authority, left him, powerful, earnest, highly gifted though he
was, liable to changes indefinitely varied. And if the minds
on the summit, such as his, are so placed, what about the
multitude which has to labor and toil, and which has but little
intellectual power or opportunity to use it? Dr. Martineau
404 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
holds that they must look for guidance to the //zY<?, and learn
of them the way to serve God : in such a contradiction is he
involved; for he also teaches as fundamental that all exterral
authority, that of the church and that of the Bible, is impos-
sible.
Much more might be said about Dr. Martineau and his
works. A study of them by those competent to undertake it
will have at least these two good effects : one of finding
weapons against the unbelieving scientific thought represented
by Huxley, Tyndall, and to a certain extent by Spencer, and
the subjective philosophy generally; the other the getting a
clearer understanding of the exact stand-point and aims of that
body of religious thinkers which is represented by the Higher
Critics. With all his merits there are so many painful things
in his works that the perusal of them fills us with deep grati-
tude for the guidance which the church affords, and shows yet
once more the moral necessity of a guide.
Mr. Jackson has done his part well.* It is not, of course,
the final or complete biography which will doubtless sooner or
later be published ; there is none of the correspondence which
is now looked upon as essential for the revelation of a man's
life. It is, in fact, rather a study and an account of his works
than a biography ; but this is given with great lucidity and a
clear comprehension. Great respect, too, is shown towards the
views which he, in common with Dr. Martineau, rejects.
" The fortunes of the House of Egremont had their first
great bloom through the agency of a platter of beans ; and
through a platter of beans more than a hundred years later the
elder branch was ousted from one of the greatest estates in Eng-
land, became wanderers and gentlemen adventurers throughout
Europe, fought in quarrels not their own, served sovereigns
of foreign countries, knew the dazzling heights of glory, and
fell into the mire of penury and disrepute."
With this spirited sentence Miss Molly Elliot Seawell opens
her new book, The House of Egremont ; f for in this novel the
reader is not plunged into a mire of dialogue and left to wade
his way out as best he can. Miss Seawell has the happy knack
of acquainting us with the dramatis persona of her story, so that
from cover to cover the fortunes and fate of the Egremonts
prove absorbingly interesting.
* /antes Martineau: a Biography and a Study. By A. W. Jackson, A.M. Boston:
Little, Brown & Co.
t The House of Egremont. By Molly Elliot Seawell. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 405
We first meet the hero Roger Egremont during his neg-
lected childhood ; later, when, with the independence char-
acteristic of the Egremonts, he threw the platter of beans in
the face of William of Orange, he is imprisoned in Newgate.
Released from prison he escapes to France, where he joins the
suite of the exiled James II. of England. Here, at St. Ger-
maine, we are introduced to a number of fascinating characters
which stand out with life-like distinctness. Old Madame de
Beaumanoir, with her keen wit and sharp originality, is her-
self enough to extort laughter from the most blast. Michelle
is a heroine who excites our admiration and our sympathy.
The Duke of Berwick, natural son of James II., is one of the
finest characters in the book. Louis XIV. hovers like a
shadow but a very splendid one in the background. We
catch but a stray glimpse of him now and then.
Of the English characters the most interesting is Bess
Lukens she of frank, honest nature and compelling beauty.
There is Richard Egremont, lovingly called " Dicky," the young
Jesuit who dies on the scaffold for his king and his religion.
Along with a rare, sweet individuality, Dicky Egremont has
the stuff out of which martyrs are made.
In the delineation of James II. Miss Seawell shows her
usual independence of thought. The man who has come down
to us in popular history as a villain of the deepest dye is shown
as he really was honest, narrow, brave, incapable as a ruler,
but himself a victim of the fiercest bigotry shown in his gen-
eration.
To the young student of history this delineation will present
an interesting line of thought and may result in profitable re-
search, for, of course, Miss Seawell has back of her authorities,
in the shape of modern and critical histories, upon which she
bases her view of James II. Those who have formed their
opinions from the old-fashioned school histories will find it
hard to swallow the draught Miss Seawell offers them. Some
one has said there is always something above the common in
the book that challenges the intelligence and compels the
mind to take up the gauntlet. This is surely true of The
House of Egremont, and the discussion which must follow its
appearance cannot but be of the keenest interest.
The real villain of the book is Hugo Stein, illegitimate son
of John Egremont and half brother to Roger. He obtains, by
crooked means, complete possession of the grand and lordly
estate of Egremont, and proves himself a scoundrel in every
406 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
respect. Meanwhile Roger makes himself exceedingly popular
in France. He has many adventures, but he remains through
all his vicissitudes a brave soldier and a true gentleman. He
is a thoroughly human man which means that Thackeray's re-
proach upon the heroes of novels is not always just. For it
was the creator of Colonel Newcome who complained : " Since
Fielding drew Tom Jones, no novelist has dared to draw a
man"
Miss Seawell's clear, incisive style is already well known,
and in the present instance is especially vivid. There is not a
dull page in The House of Egremont.
\
Ismay Oliver was the original name of the subject of the
book called Our Mother.* Among the reasons that caused her
story to be written are these : that it might be a source of
comfort and encouragement to converts, and that it might
furnish a few lights to those whose religious vocation brought
upon them numerous trials and repeated rejections.
The daughter of an Anglican minister, Miss Oliver's first
change of religion was a conversion to Methodism. Later she
was led into the Catholic Church. A long series of painful
struggles finally resulted in the founding of the English branch
of the Apostolic Sisters, whose " rule is based on that of St.
Augustine. The end peculiar to this congregation is to help
forward the conversion of England by means of the Catholic
education of the middle class on modern lines, and by the
propagation of devotion to the Holy Souls. This devotion
forms an easy stepping-stone to the faith for non- Catholics."
In the Middle West there used to be a tradition that in
order to get the whole truth from a man of certain parts of
Kentucky it was well to demand his oath; not that honor was
lacking in those sections of the State, but, owing to the per-
fervid imaginations of the warm-blooded people, their exag-
gerated accounts of things were just as liable to overshoot the
exact point of verity as their famous Winchesters were sure to
pierce a mark at its very dot. That this old fiction-making
propensity yet survives, though happily manifesting itself in
more edifying manner, this year's literary record amply testi-
fies ; James Lane Allen's Reign of Law is one witness, the
novels of Robert Burns Wilson and John Fox add others,
while John Uri Lloyd, a Kentuckian merely by adoption, has
* Our Mother. By Frances I. Kershaw. New York : Benziger Brothers.
i poo.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 407
been proving through his story, Stringtown-on-the-Pike* that
the fabricating spirit is infectious and that he has been inocu-
lated with it. But paradoxical as it may seem, this story-teller
has told the truth as must appear to the Kentuckians who
will recognize in the novel many incidents their own family
annals contain. This virtue of verisimilitude to history, though
it recommends the book to those who know whereof Mr. Lloyd
Speaks, must prove a fault in the eyes of others who will deem
it too provincial to be of broad interest. One must quarrel
with the author also for not making more of the chief thread
of his plot, which he has so tangled and intertwined with
others that only at the story's end does it unravel itself smooth
and evident. By the same sin falls Mr. Lloyd in his charac-
terization, where he subordinates elements capable of interest-
ing development to others practically insignificant. For instance,
Cupe, rare old relic of slavery days, is the most ubiquitous
dramatis persona, and whereas, with his fanciful superstitions
and their eerie materializations, and in his character of fidelity
and that dignity the Southern aristocracy reflected on its ser-
vants, he is diverting, the story would assuredly hold longer
and keener interest had the author sapiently cast him more in
shadow by throwing brighter light on Sammy Drew, Susie the
" honey-gearl," and the Red-Headed Boy. As evidence of the
book's excellent " local atmosphere," it fairly bristles with those
highly romantic but woefully barbaric feuds of which the
present political conflicts in the dark and sanguinary ground
offer horrifying survivals all too numerous.
It wHl interest many to know that the final scene of
Stringtown-on-the-Pike is laid in that venerable convent of
" Nazareth," in Kentucky, whose picturesque beauty has so
frequently passed into poetry and romance. The book is ap-
propriately illustrated by Corinne Caldwell Trimble's sketch of
Susie, and Mrs. Lloyd's Kentucky photographic scenes.
In the deluge of petty publications that is upon us Dr.
Mabie's volume, Essays on Books and Culture^ reprinted by
Dodd, Mead & Co., is a strong anchor to fasten faith and taste
to those immortal standards of great literature and genuine
culture firmly set by the genius of Shakspere, Dante, Goethe,
and the Scriptural writers. Other books, the scholarly essayist
maintains, will afford valuable information ; others still, aesthetic
* Stringtoum-on-the-Pike. By John Uri Lloyd. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
t Essays on Books and Culture. By Hamilton Wright Mabie. New York : Dodd, Mead
&Co.
408 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
pleasure ; but the master-spirits alone can bestow that precious
triple gift of artistic gratification, intellectual enlightenment,
spiritual enrichment which true culture embodies and gloriously
combines. To those who desire such a gift the present volume
is addressed to those who, with a student's perplexities or a
bibliophile's ardors, know not to which of the multitudinous
and newly-springing fountains they must turn for the waters of
life. To the fountain-heads, pleads Dr. Mabie in every essay ;
for they alone have the full, authentic interpretation of human
life, the supreme record of the races' most searching thought,
their deepest feeling, broadest experience, and most strenuous
activity. So stimulating is the little book's eloquence about
books, so full of promise for expansion of grasp on the scheme
of things, for emancipation from trammels of environment and
its fatal sequence provincialism, one lays the essays aside well-
nigh persuaded that from faithful reading of the great books
genius itself may evolve. This optimistic persuasion comes
upon one from Dr. Mabie's own vital personality which ani-
mates his essays. He brings to the study of literature a critic's
far-reaching insight, a lover's sympathetic appreciation, but,
best of all, a spiritual vein like that he eulogizes in others :
" a vein of Idealism which grows out of a vision of things in
their large relations out of a view of men ample enough to
discern not only what they are at this stage of development,
but what they may become when the development is com-
pleted." This gift of idealism makes Dr. Mabie's outlook not
only ample but finely sensitive to the subtle and sublime signi-
ficance of the Scriptures and the Divina Commedia, which
makes them truly peerless literature and, like all noble art
and genuine culture, is religion's handmaid.
Marion Harland has so long been a name known and loved
in many a household that a book so signed readily finds a
public awaiting it with welcomes. A doubly keen interest has
hung upon the appearance of Marion Harland's recent volume,
Dr. Dale* which bears, besides, as its collaborator the name of
her son, Albert Payson Terhune, who, however, scarcely needs
his mother's chaperonage to introduce him into literary circles,
where he is already known by his books, Syria from the Saddle,
Columbia Stories, and his many clever magazine contributions.
Dr. Dale bears the mark of a masculine touch in the virile
* Dr. Dale. By Marion Harland and Albert Payson Terhune. New York : Dodd,
Mead & Co.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 409
characterization of the book's heroes, Dr. Dale, John Bell, and
Ralph Folger, while the heroines, Myrtle Bell and Ruth Folger,
seem creations of the graceful pen that wrote Where Ghosts
Walk and the Literary Hearthstones. Myrtle Bell might have
been a companion of Marion Harland's own girlhood; she
bears about her a fragrance which, unfortunately, seems to be
fading from latter-day belles and heroines the fragrance of
grace, womanly sweetness and charm, that make the lines pre-
luding her appearance ring doubly true :
" With breath of thyme and bees that hum
Across the years you seem to come."
The story is told in an excellent, straightforward manner,
wherein the respective grace and strength of the collaborators'
style are well blent. The plot is laid in a town of oil-wells a
town pulsing with the interesting life which usually abides in
such places, where humanity in the rough congregates and in-
evitably gives examples of picturesque character and dramatic
incident. Welsh, Sandy McAlpin, the Meagleys, and Mrs.
Bowersox illustrate such character. The breaking of the dam,
the reopening of the great oil-well, Dale's trial scene and his
attempted confession, supply the incidents. Both characters
and incidents are developed in an artistic manner which clamps
the attention till their very ultimate evolution.
The setting of the story in the Pennsylvania oil-regions is
revealed by the provincialism of the typical character and by
happy touches of local color. The authors have resisted the
temptation that wrecks much recent American literature the
temptation to employ dialect and local atmosphere for their
own sake rather than as backgrounds for the human actors
whose story is to be told.
We have again a contribution to our store of religious
books for children, and note with pleasure that it comes from
the same quarter whence several very acceptable volumes have
issued already. Mother Mary Salome's book * is written in
the bright, straightforward, interesting fashion that will attract
both children and those whose duty it is to impart religious
instruction to the litle ones. It is a publication at once
handsome, instructive, and devotional.
Readers familiar with the details of Ruskin's life will recog-
* The Life of our Lord. Written for Little Ones. By Mother Mary Salome, of the Bar
Convent, York. New York : Benziger Bros.
4io TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
nize a familiar name in Francesca Alexander. In her latest
publication,* too, they will see further justification of the high
opinion entertained of her by that master of English prose.
It consists mainly of a collection of rhymed legends gathered
by the author from the lips of the old country people in the
neighborhood of Florence, a house well known as the resort
of a literary circle of high distinction. Other parts of the
book are made up of stories drawn from the literature of the
country, and turned into rhyme by Miss Alexander's graceful
pen. They are all, it may be said, simple and beautiful, and
most of them religious in the best sense of the word.
The struggle of the rising author, the fate of the success-
ful one at the hands of those modern Philistines the pub-
lishers, are themes for ceaseless jeremiads ; but there is another
side to the story as lugubrious as that popularly known the
violence done the much-abused publishers by those whose work
they present to the public. If a typographical error mars a
page of the author's precious thought wrath and vengeance
forthwith possess him, and (though faulty editing is not to be
condoned) he recks not of the trouble and difficulty for which
his own carelessly prepared manuscripts may be responsible.
The pamphlet,f compiled by Mr. William Stone Booth, of the
Macmillan Company, contains some concise suggestions the fol-
lowing of which will save both publisher and author much
agony, effort, time, and expense. Its chapters deal with the
preparation of manuscripts, the securing of copyrights, and
new rules for spelling, punctuation, and style.
A book on The Things beyond the Tomb \ is a striking illus-
tration of the well known tendency among Anglicans towards
Catholic thinking and feeling on religious subjects. We can
hardly avoid a slight feeling of annoyance at the use and
prominence of the word " Catholic " in the sub-title, but with
that exception we may easily sympathize with the book and
hope that it will be the means of drawing many people further
away from purely Protestant doctrine concerning heaven, purga-
tory, and hell. It is almost pitiful to see an earnest, honest
man placed in the author's position. He is in possession of
* The Hidden Servants. By Francesca Alexander. Boston : Little, Brown & Co.
t Notes for the Guidance of Authors. Compiled by William Stone Booth. New York :
The Macmillan Company.
J T^i? Things beyond the Tomb. In a Catholic Light. By Rev. T. H. Passmore, M.A;
New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 411
what he knows to be a broader, more nearly Catholic view of
the " Four Last Things," and yet he finds himself obliged to
set forth his convictions hesitatingly, sometimes almost apolo-
getically, having the consciousness that he must incur the
opposition of many members of his own church. He urges
prayer for the dead, but he is obliged to preface his exhorta-
tion with a long proof that the practice is permissible and
praiseworthy, and he finds himself at some pains to explain
why explicit prayers for the dead are not to be found in the
" Book of Common Prayer." He feels that he " ought not to
have to waste paper in defending so simple and obvious a
thing" as this, the principal advantage of the communion
of saints, and yet he is obliged to waste words upon it,
where a Catholic or, as the author would insist, a Roman
Catholic writer would feel himself perfectly secure in pre-
suming on the faith and sympathy of his readers. So too
concerning purgatory. It is sad to see one who loves the
Catholic teaching calming his conscience by whittling away
from it the idea of the " Treasury of Merits," and by dis-
tinguishing so cautiously between " Catholic doctrine " and " the
popular teaching of the subject " among Roman Catholics, and
finally proposing little more than a tentative, somewhat minim-
ized explanation of the doctrine so well known and loved
among us. Still, as we have admitted, this little treatise may
do not a little good among those for whom it was written.
Catholics do not need it and would hardly care to read it,
unless for the purpose of seeing how much Catholic phrase-
ology and Catholic ideas are in vogue among those who would
so like to 'be possessed of Catholic certainty and security in
matters of dogma.
Father Sheehan's book of poems* will prove a boon to the
lover of beautiful language expressing sublime thoughts. An
astonishing wealth of words is at the command of this singer,
and his harp rings out in chords sure to awaken real emotion
in the listener. Further than this, he draws his theme from
the real fountain of mystic truth, and the spirit of deep re-
ligious faith is throbbing his soul visibly as he sings. It is
evident that true poetic inspiration has been accorded him,
and moreover he voices his message in phrases of rare beauty.
The lines that treat of faith in the invisible love existing be-
tween God and man should speak to the inmost heart of the
* Cithara Mea : Poems. By Rev. P. A. Sheehan. Boston : Marlier & Co.
412 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
best of our generation, and the reading of death's lessons is
at once comforting and sublime. The one blemish prominent
in this sweet garland of verse is the painfully unpleasant one
of irregular that is, unmetrical lines. Possibly most of
these are within the limits of legitimate license, but they form
a serious defect in a work otherwise so enticingly beautiful.
It was at the request of the Executive Committee of the
Catholic Association that the Abb6 Laumonier's Guide du
Pelerin h Rome has been translated into English.* The gene-
ral praise accorded the original will be echoed, no doubt, in
the case of this clever adaptation. The volume is neat, porta-
ble, and thorough. Its use will enable the visitor to thread
the labyrinthine Roman streets with the smallest possible ex-
penditure of questions.
From the popular Polish novelist comes a beautiful little
prose poem,f charmingly edited and published. The transla-
tion, done by Jeremiah Curtin, is of the style we have learned
to look for from his gifted pen. The volume cannot be said
to possess any striking merit in so far as thought is con-
cerned, but it certainly does appeal, and appeal most success-
fully, to the artistic sense.
In more respects than one Robert Orange \ is a rather re-
markable story something like what George Eliot might have
written had she absorbed the religious belief which inspired
this author. If there is a serious fault in the book, it lies in
the obscurity that clouds certain of the incidents and some
of the sentences. This aside, the volume is a piece of work
that ranks well in serious contemporary fiction. The style is
good, the language careful, the sentiment always high and al-
ways true. The plot, well conceived and executed, develops
several scenes where the writer puts to good use her ability for
dealing with intense dramatic situations and without being
violent.
Frequently the story is laid aside and the author, quite in
George Eliot's style, pursues her course of philosophizing
through several pages. These parts of the book deserve a
* The Pilgrim's Guide to Rome. Translated from the work of M. 1'Abbe Laumonier.
Adapted for the use of English-speaking Pilgrims by Charles J. Munich. New York, Cin-
cinnati, and Chicago : Benziger Bros.
t The Judgment of Peter and Paul on Olympus. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Boston :
Little, Brown & Co.
\ Robert Orange. By John Oliver Hobbes. New York : Frederick A. Stokes Company.
i QOO.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 413
great deal more attention than the average reader will devote
to them. They give us the result of much sane and sym-
pathetic study of great moral issues that disturb thinking
souls, possessed at once of deep sentiment and deep piety.
"The two things which affect a career most profoundly are
religion, or the lack of it, and marriage or not marrying."
These words, perhaps, give the key to the author's point of
view. She is led to express herself on asceticism in its re-
lationship to human affection and strong passion, in a strain
quite unusual. One feels refreshed at seeing a writer not
merely wholesome, but truly a Catholic, treating in so in-
teresting a way of fashionable society, and its amusements
and occupations. Of romance, too, there is no lack, for court-
ship, matrimony, divorce, and intrigue make up the movement
of the story ; yet one can say that all are considered sensibly
and healthily, as well as openly a verdict not won or even
desired by every writer of novels nowadays. The two or three
misprints in the volume will no doubt be remedied in the next
edition.
Baby Goose : His Adventures? is the title of a very beauti-
ful and clever book for little children, and suggests all the
charm of the Christmas gift book. It is in large album shape,
and every one of the ninety-six pages is a picture in itself, with
the text of the story put in fancifully in hand lettering. Over
twelve different colors and a number of extra tints have been
used through the book with most attractive results. The
stories are delightfully amusing and quaint. The work of
children's book making becomes more painstaking every year,
and shows the art of the illustrator and lithographer to more
advantage, perhaps, than the serious literature of their elders.
Were A Woman of Yesterday f more skilfully handled and
its details more artistically finished, we might safely have
called it a great book. As it is, we cannot but consider it to
some extent remarkable. One of its author's prominent charac-
teristics is a wonderfully active sympathy that takes hold of
and develops half a dozen different types with the very per-
fection of friendly appreciation. First we are sure she is a
" strictly blue " Puritan, and then we find her an evident dis-
ciple of compromise and a reformer of pure Calvinism. Later
we become convinced by turns that she is cleverly defending
* Baby Goose: His Adventures. By Fannie E. Ostrander. Illustrated by R. W.
Hirchert. Chicago : Laird & Lee.
t A Woman of Yesterday. By Caroline Mason. New York : Doubleday, Page & Co.
414 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
the less intense religious spiiit of the milder sects, the wide
liberty of modern humanism, the dreams of the socialist, and
the ascetical renunciation of the Catholic saint. It is through
realms as different as these that the lot of the heroine leads
us, and never can we detect in the writer anything contrary
to the fair and dispassionate portrayal of influences with which
she is dealing at the moment.
Anna Mallison is an earnest young woman whose first
" religious conviction " comes rather late, but gives her the
sense of a missionary vocation to the heathen. Keith Burgess
is another novice missionary. He finds that God has evidently
predestined his own marriage with Anna, and the union takes
place. It results in both of them being forced to exchange
their missionary voyage for a comfortable home and social en-
joyments. The more liberal theological views that gradually
possess them find a strange culmination in the acceptance of
a socialistic programme and their entrance into a little com-
munity started by John Gregory, social reformer. In Burgess's
death and the relationship of Anna and John Gregory we find
the background for a strong piece of character-sketching, and
the author rises to the occasion excellently well.
" Renunciation " is the theme of the book. How does re-
nunciation bear upon Calvinism, and Calvinism upon it? What
is its claim upon the world of wealth and fashion whose mem-
bers live in luxury while their brethren starve ? Does not
personal strength and heroic endeavor sometimes mask a hid-
den selfishness that puts virtue in terrible jeopardy ? These
questions the author suggests, and then allows the reader to
consider the instances recorded and form a judgment for him-
self. If he has perception, that judgment will read something
like this: "Renounce and be perfect."
The book will scarcely be a popular one. It will inspire
only those who understand its subtle lesson, that high-minded
purity of motive is a thing hard to secure, and obtainable only
when humility is a condition and divine grace a means of
striving. For such as can understand this measureless truth,
reading the volume will provide a spur to high endeavor.
Among the latest biographies is that of Theodore Parker,
by John White Chadwick.* While it cannot be said to be
timely in view of any revival of Parker or his religious
opinions, it may prove to be of interest to those conversant
* Theodore Parker; Preacher and Reformer By John White Chadwick. New York :
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1900.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 415
with the various phases of Unitarian development, growth, and
disintegration. The author does not pretend to treat exhaust-
ively of his subject, but hopes " to make Parker a reality for a
generation of readers born since he died, to many of whom he
is little known or mis known." The result is an interesting
book, written in really beautiful style, and. one that we think
answers the purpose of the author.
There is, doubtless, much to admire in the character of
Theodore Parker. His amiability, sincerity, hatred of sham,
and untiring zeal and courage in the face of obstacles cannot-
but impress one. His theology, however, contains little to
commend itself to the earnest truth-seeker. His father before
him had denied the Trinity, Atonement, Eternal Hell, and the
"more striking miracles of either Testament," and perhaps it
is not to be wondered at that this belief, or lack of belief,
should influence the son. But Theodore Parker went even
further: his spirit of rigid inquiry carried him on until the
orthodox and traditional theology was almost entirely re-
pudiated.
The author notes how Parker's boyish remonstrance against
water on his face upon the occasion of his baptism has been
regarded as a prophetic intimation of his mature distaste for
all <v conventional forms." To call Baptism and other rites
" conventional forms " is too mild ; they are more, and the
distaste for them in reality strikes deeply into the ground-
work of religion. This " mature distaste " was another instance
of the rationalizing spirit a spirit which, if carried into the
domains of morality, would work destruction as deplorable as
that worked in religion.
How much he knew of Catholicism we are not told. He
read St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and Tertullian, and disliked
them. He likewise read Averroes, but that he knew anything
of St. Thomas is not mentioned.
The book will be of interest to the Catholic as exemplify-
ing how far a man can wander from truth while trusting to
the powers of unaided reason.
4t6 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.,
I. AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS.*
These two dignified volumes are evidently the fruit of much
painstaking research. The twilight history of America has fre.
quently been written on the theory plan ; that is, some enterprising
mind has created an hypothesis from a few facts, and has set out
to search for other .facts to confirm his preconceived theory. In
many instances, where facts did not fit the hypothesis, they are
conveniently lost sight of, or an interpretation is given to them
which twists them from their real sense. The history of the
Aztecs, or of the Mound-builders, or of the Cave-dwellers, or
even of the Norsemen and other pre-Columbian discoverers, has
been treated for the most part in this unscientific way.
De Roo seems to have worked on another plan. While
having a fund of historical knowledge that forms the best
equipment for a historian, he has sought out avenues of infor-
mation which have hitherto been closed to the antiquarian.
Within comparatively recent years have the Vatican Archives
been thrown open to scholars. De Roo has been delving
among these old documents, and has secured information which
throws a flood of light on the history of America before Columbus.
The publication of these documents in the Appendix will
constitute a very important contribution to the science of
American History. It is this fact that gives value to these
volumes. We shall return to this matter later and avail ourselves
of some of the valuable information presented.
2. SPIRITUAL LIFE AND PRAYER.f
In several respects this is a very noteworthy book. Its
dominating note and special excellence consists in the deriva-
tion of the teaching concerning the spiritual 1 life from sources
which are open to all, and which form also the sources of
Catholic dogma and practice. There are in the church, with
her full approval, different schools of spirituality, each with its
own principles, methods, and controlling ideas. God has raised
up these teachers, and the religious orders and communities
which are often their outcome, to supply the needs of the
church as those needs have arisen.
* History of America before Columbus, according to Documents and approved Authors.
By P. De Roo, Member of the Archaeological Club of the Land Van Waes and of the
United States Catholic Historical Society ; Honorary Member of the American Catholic
Historical Society of Philadelphia. Vol. I. : American Aborigines ; Vol. II. : European
Immigrants. Philadelphia : J. B. Lippincott Company.
t The Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition.
Translated from the French by the Benedictines of Stanbrook. London and Leamington :
Art and Book Company.
IQOO.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 417
The spirit of this volume its atmosphere, so to speak is,
on the contrary, as wide as the church itself. Its teaching
seems to well forth spontaneously from Holy Scripture, from
the highest and holiest expression of the church's mind her
Liturgies ; and from the most authentic and most ancient ex-
positors of the spiritual life those who have received the
approbation of the church from the beginning. It is a teach-
ing which ante-dates the rise of Protestantism, and which con-
sequently is not moulded by fear of it. " It contains nothing
new: the author's ambition is to be wholly traditional and
ancient." Nor does it keep back anything which is the super-
natural birthright of Christians. In contradistinction to some
writers, permeated with the idea that all who are not in the
cloister are sunk in sin, and stand in need of nothing else ex-
cept the fear of punishment, and that all popular teaching is
to be moulded on this hypothesis, the author brings out and
emphasizes the teaching of Holy Scripture as interpreted by
the Fathers, to the effect that the supreme or transforming
union of the soul with God is possible even in this life, the
experimental perception of him is granted to those who have
been faithful to the impulses of grace, and that this is a goal
practically to be aimed at, not merely by a few chosen souls,
but by all Christians in virtue of their baptism.
" No state seems to have been more fully recognized by
the Fathers than that of the perfect union which is achieved
in the highest contemplation ; and in reading their writings we
cannot help remarking the simplicity with which they treat it.
They acknowledge its sublimity, describe its marks, encourage
the leading to it, seem to think it frequent, and simply look
upon it as the full development of the Christian life. By their
vast faith and depth of doctrine they seem to have kept the
people of their day free from those personal pretensions and
that ignorant presumption which have since engendered so
many errors and obliged spiritual writers, when treating of
those matters, to speak with great reserve. While we are in
our present condition of wayfarers, there are certainly snares
on all sides, and the spiritual life has its perils ; but by dint
of showing only the snares, the ambushes, and the pitfalls,
souls are kept at a distance who would have risen very high,
and would have rendered great glory to God, while perhaps
the opposite reflection is lost sight of, namely, that pusillanim-
ity has its dangers, as well as presumption " (pp. 3067).
The above extract gives a fair idea of the spirit in which
VOL. LXXII. 27
4i 8 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Dec.
the work is written. Sentimentality and mere emotional feel-
ing have no place in it. It lays down exact, simple, and clear
principles, and lays them down so clearly and simply that the
willing reader is enabled to discern and apply them to con-
duct so far, that is, as this can be done by a book. While
it enlarges and ennobles the possibilities placed before every
man even here, it gives a higher aim and a wider field, and
greater inducements to lead the spiritual life.
Another characteristic is what we may call its magisterial
character, based upon the study and experience of life as well
as of books. It is not written by a novice or an enthusiast,
but by one who has seen life fully and seen it whole.
For instance, in speaking of those who reach the highest
possible heights attainable in this life, the author reminds the
reader of the revealed doctrine, that even the just man sins
seven times a day, applies even to them. Again, after point-
ing out the familiar truths that sorrow and suffering must ever
exist, and that those seeking after holiness are even drawn to
them, being desirous of filling up that " which is wanting,"
the author adds a caution as to the place which suffering
should hold, especially needful in these days when pessimism
is so largely affected :
" It is useless and even dangerous, as all illusions are, to
seek suffering for suffering's sake. This is a tendency much
to be regretted in our sickly age. Never has suffering been
more extolled and sought after; yet valor is by no means a
characteristic of our times. Under this fair exterior much
cowardice and hysteria lie hidden. Duty- doing is made to give
way to suffering, whereas every kind of suffering is not either
necessarily holy or conducive to holiness. Suffering has but a
relative and borrowed goodness ; it is a means, not an end.
. . . Merit does not lie in suffering, although suffering is
often an occasion of merit. Suffering must be united with
love, otherwise its place is in those dark regions where the
spirit of evil dwells. Our principal aim in this world must be
to seek the sovereign Good."
We have said enough to direct the attention of those in-
terested in the literature of the spiritual life to this work as
one of special value and importance. While it gives sufficient
and reliable guidance, so that no one loyally listening to its
teaching can go astray, it yet leaves ample room for the co-
operation of each individual with God's special designs in
regard to himself.
THE decision of the elections places in the
hands of the Republican party the settlement of
many delicate questions concerning the rights and
prerogatives of the church in our new possessions. The natural
sense of justice of the Administration is to be depended on
unless certain powerful influences deflect it from the right path.
The overwhelming majorities attained by the Republicans will
make these " influences " more than ordinarily brazen in their
demands. The Treaty of Paris does protect the church in its
rights, but the terms of treaties have been loosely interpreted
and their clauses have been allowed to fall into desuetude.
For months before the election non-Catholic religious jour-
nals openly advocated the expulsion of the Friars from the
Philippines and the sequestration of their lands. Now that the
election is settled for four years they will begin again. It is
only a step from the advocacy of a purpose to its accomplish-
ment when the power is in one's hands. The following inci-
dent is reported by the New York papers ; it may be only a
flash of sentiment, but it indicates a state of mind that is
ominous :
" At the session of the General Missionary Committee of
the Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Cranston, of Portland,
Ore., who returned from Manila only a short time ago, spoke
upon the advisability of including the Philippine archipelago in
the district of Eastern Asia. It was noticed that he pro-
nounced Philippines with a long ' i ' in the last syllable. Dr.
James M. Buckley, of this city, took exception to this.
" ' The usual pronunciation,' he said, ' is Philip-peen, I be-
lieve ; not Philip pyne.'
" ' Oh, yes,' Bishop Cranston replied, laughingly, ' that's the
way the Romanists pronounce it, I know. But we want to re-
move every vestige of Rome from the islands, and we might
as well change the pronunciation of the name. I, for one, shall
call it Philippyne.' "
The effort to remove every vestige of Rome from the Philip-
pines will not be awaited with silent inactivity.
420 EDITORIAL NOTES. [Dec.,
The settlement of the vexed question of church pro-
perty in Cuba is due. Already has it been delayed too long.
For the last few months silence in regard to this question was
golden. It is now time to lay the whole question before the
public. There is in dispute property amounting to many mil-
lions. As to its title of ownership, the Commission of impartial
judges appointed by the Governor-General has reported that it
belongs to the church. The revenues from this property,
amounting now to over $600,000, have been held up by the
American government. It was on these revenues that the
clergy and many of the charitable institutions depended for the
necessities of life. Of course we cannot expect the American
government to subsidize the church, as the former Spanish
government did, but when the orphans and the needy are cry-
ing for the necessities of life it is not too much to expect a
speedy settlement.
The article published in this issue on the TEMPORAL
POWER OF THE POPE is inspired from the Vatican, and it not
only represents the latest sentiments of the Holy Father on
the question of his independence and temporal sovereignty, but
affirms the fact that the Roman Question is an international
one of living interest. It claims the attention of the statesmen
of English-speaking peoples.
The Catholic Church is a factor in every government that
must be reckoned with. It cannot be crowded to the wall or
buried out of sight. It has in its superior organization and its
magnificent dogmatic system, as well as in its remedies for the
great social problems, a power that Christian states need to
perpetuate their wholesome activities. To exercise this power
aright the church must be free and unhampered. The Ameri-
can people may well consider the Roman Question a living
issue. It never will be settled until it is settled on the lines
laid down by the Holy Father.
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 421
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
THE Catholic Church always fosters the true and noble in literature and
warns the faithful against those pernicious books which tend to destroy
morality. Men and women, as well as children, are often impressed with what
they see in print. The books they read are as oracles to them ; the characters
that figure in the printed page are heroes and heroines, friends and models ;
while the author himself becomes an authority whose opinions are never ques-
tioned, and whose statements, of whatever kind, are accepted as substantiated
truth.
In the way of painting and architecture our faith has made its impression
here and there, but in the way of literature it has made its impression every-
where. Through this art has God's grace come richly to many souls. Litera-
ture in itself and in its use is the art of arts. No art can reach us so widely
and speak with such variety as this.
Hence the wisdom of putting the right sort of literature into the hands of
young people when they begin to read, and the importance of providing them
with what is pure and elevating, while gratifying their taste for reading.
A bad book is one of the worst things in the world, and the reading of
such books has been the means of the disgrace and ruin of multitudes of young
people. Parents and teachers cannot exercise too great a care over their chil-
dren and pupils in this respect, and thereby preserve them from contamination
by these vile and insidious productions.
Mary Agnes Tincker wrote these words in praise of good books : The world
has no such society as the cultivated mind can fill its house with, and there are
no receptions so splendid as those of the imagination. Bores never come,
tattlers and enemies never are admitted, late hours never weary, and the wine
never inebriates. And better yet, those who are invited are always present and
ready to stay. How the possessors of such a society laugh at the societies of
the outer world.
* * *
The Irish Bishops have issued an important pastoral letter to their people,
in which they teach many significant lessons for the welfare of their country.
A special warning is given against the spread of irreligious and immoral litera-
ture. It is stated that a " sad change seems to have come over public
opinion on this point. No subject now is too sacred to be made the matter of
popular discussion in magazines and newspapers the mysteries of faith, the
solemn truths on which man rests his eternal hopes, are tossed about with as
little reverence or reserve as if they were some topics of the most trivial im-
portance, and we fear that sometimes these things leave their poison in the
minds of Catholics who read them. ' Lead us not into temptation ' holds in
this as in all other occasions of sin, and the Catholic who, out of mere wanton-
ness or curiosity, reads such writings, loves the danger, and it is no wonder if
he should perish therein. The ordinary man of the world without any special
training in such subjects, without any opportunity or intention of following up
the questions in discussion to the end is no match for writers who are often
422 'I HE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec.,
specialists of great ability and knowledge, but who by some perversity use
their powers against God's holy faith ; and, at the very least, it is inexcusable
rashness for such a man to expose himself to the danger of being unsettled in
his belief by the impressions which they make upon him.
"Avoid such writings, then, dearly beloved brethren ; thank God for the
gift of faith, and guard and cherish it as your most sacred possession.
" Worse, perhaps, and more fatal to many souls is the immoral literature
which is poured, almost in floods, over the country. We believe that one should
go back to the old pagan times to find anything equal to it in corruption, and it
would be a wrong to the great classical writers of antiquity to compare them
with a certain important school of English fiction in these days. And what is
more deplorable is, that many Catholics who deem themselves loyal members
of the church allow themselves the utmost liberty in reading such things. Let
a book only be extensively spoken of; then, no matter how impure and how
suggestive of evil it may be, no matter how gross and indecent may be the
phases of human life with which it deals, if only it is fashionable, numbers of
people seem to think that they are free to read it. Even women Catholic
women take this license, and will sit hour by hour over a book which no
earthly consideration would induce them to read aloud in the presence of any
one man or woman for whom they had a particle of respect. Surely such
reading must fill the imagination with images of evil that in the end wijl cor-
rupt their very souls.
" In this matter we Catholics have a high standard of morals, and we
should never regulate our conduct by any other. For all Catholics, but es-
pecially for women, there is ever set before their eyes, by our Holy Church, an
image that should raise them above foulness of this kind, and make it, in any
form, repulsive to them. Mary Immaculate, the Virgin Mother, is their ideal
and their pattern, and we can hardly conceive any one least of all a woman in
whose heart that spotless image is enshrined finding pleasure in the literature
to which we refer.
" And all that we have said of these works of fiction, which are written for
the leisured classes, holds, with still greater force, with regard to the grosser
and more vulgar forms in which the same topics are presented to the people
at large. We believe that immense quantities of these vile publications, to-
gether with most indecent and lascivous pictures, which are shown by certain
traders in their shops, are brought into this country from England. It should
be the duty of parish priests, by combined and persistent action, to put a stop
to this unholy trade, and to denounce in the clearest and plainest terms the
utter sinfulness of all participation in it.
" A positive remedy for this crying evil is to find for the people a literature
which will beat the same time healthy and interesting, and it is for this purpose,
mainly, that the Catholic Truth Society has been established. We commend it
to the patronage and support of our clergy and people. It has given an earnest
already of what it can do, but with the full strength of Catholic Ireland to sus-
tain it, it would be impossible to measure the services which it may yet render
to letters and religion among us."
* * *
A library association has been formed in Ottawa, Canada, by the graduates
of the Rideau Street Convent, and in connection with it an address to these
ladies was made by Dr. McCabe, principal of the Normal School, recently, in
1900.] THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. 423
the music hall of the convent. In the course of his address Dr. McCabe paid
the convent the high compliment of saying that the literary course taught there
was equal to any taught in the universities. He also said that he hoped that
some of the lectures on the winter programme would be delivered by literary
members of the association. The object of the library association is to keep
the former pupils in touch with the literary work of the convent, and also to
assist them in keeping up to the mark their own knowledge and apprecia-
tion of good literature. The association will have a library in the convent to
which each member will be expected to contribute one volume a year. There
will be monthly meetings and a series of lectures, the first of which will be de-
livered by Professor Horrigan. Mrs. J. Macdonald was elected president of the
association; Miss Agnes Davis, secretary; and Mrs. St. Laurent and Mrs.
Stanton, librarians. The Mother-general of the Grey Nuns was among those
present to hear Principal McCabe's interesting introductory address.
* * *
The Jesuit Relations and allied documents, published by the Burrows
Brothers Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, will shortly be completed. It is a work of
great importance in all public libraries, and of inestimable value to all inter-
ested in the mission work of the Catholic Church'in America among the native
tribes. It is gratifying to know that only a few sets of this monumental his-
tory remain for sale. Wealthy Catholics should need no urging to subscribe for
such a worthy object.
* * *
The Atlantic Monthly for November contained an article showing consider-
able knowledge of child-life, on the subject of Reading for Boys and Girls. It
was written by Everett T. Tomlinson, who admits that he was at one time the
principal of a large high-school in which both boys and girls were pupils. He
notes the fact, which each one can verify by past experience, that "memory,
unlike all other good things, seems to be at its best soon after it is born, al-
though for some reason, which no one but the theologian is able to explain, the
evil is retained somewhat more easily than the good. Fancy is at work pre-
paring the way for the imagination, the emotional life is stronger than the will,
and the moral faculties are vivid, though undisciplined and misleading. The
youthful mind is not analytic, is receptive rather than perceptive, and seeks the
reasonable more than the process of reasoning." The writer also calls atten-
tion to a modern phenomenon, that girls read many books written specially for
boys dealing with outdoor sports and incidents associated with athletic sports.
They like books that narrate the experience of school life, and appeal to their
love of action.
* * *
We are much pleased to learn from Miss Emma Collingwood that the
Catholic Woman's Literary Club of Meadville, Pa., was organized in 1897 by
the Rev. James J. Dunn, pastor of St. Bridget's Church. The membership was
limited to forty, and no difficulty has been found in keeping that number on the
roll. The meetings are held alternate Tuesdays from September to June at the
homes of the members, an arrangement found to work exceedingly well, pre-
venting any expense for hall, light, or fire, and bringing in a social feature that
has proved a strong factor in the success of the club. No refreshments are
served at these meetings, as a rule was made to that effect. The study for the
424 THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION. [Dec., 1900.]
past two years was Church History; Wedewer's Outlines of Church History was
selected for a class-book, and Darras's History for preparation of essays A
paper was also given each evening on some subject chosen from the American
Catholic Quarterly Review. The third year Bible History was taken up, begin-
ning with the Old Testament from the Creation to the time of King David. In
addition to two essays on subjects connected with the Bible History a paper
was given on My Favorite Author, which proved so interesting that it will
be continued next year.
The programme for the term September, 1900, to June, 1901, is as follows:
Roll-call, answered by quotations from the Gospel according to St. Mark.
Reading of Reeves's Bible History.
Reading of paper on some character or event connected with chapters read
in Bible History.
Discussion of paper.
Reading of a portion of Murray's Popular History of the Catholic Church
in the United States.
Paper on My Favorite Author, or A Famous Woman.
The Question Box.
Current events in the Catholic world.
Business session closed with singing of a hymn. If the evening is not too
far advanced, a short social session is held.
The first difficulty met with in the work was the unwillingness of the mem-
bers to take part in the discussions ; this difficulty has been overcome as the
members grew accustomed to the work. The second difficulty has been and
still is the procuring of books suitable for the work. For instance, in taking up
Bible History it may be said with truth that there are no Catholic books on the
Bible suitable for the laity; they are prepared either for the clergy and are too
learned, or for the use of schools, and are couched in too childish language,
and the details that older people would prefer to read about are passed over en-
tirely. To get this knowledge out of the Bible itself is very difficult, and
would require more time and study than the average club-member can give.
Socially, the club has been a perfect success, and in the three years past
the harmony of the meetings has never been disturbed by the slightest unpleas-
antness. The closing of the third year's work was celebrated by a banquet, at
which the members and invited guests numbered over seventy. Toasts were
given and responded to by the Rev. Fathers Dunn, Wiersbruski, and Dugan ; by
Miss Emma Collingwood, president of the club ; Mrs. F. Prenatt, vice-president ;
the toast-mistress, Miss Margaret Meade, introducing each toast with a few
very happy and appropriate remarks. A fine musical programme was given by
several members of the club, and the evening closed by the guests expressing
kindly wishes for the continued prosperity of the Catholic Woman's Literary
Club of Meadville. M. C. M.
LIST BLESSING THE WORLD flT THE BEGINNING OF THE XX CENTURY
Mttb tbe (Breetinos of tfe'W^w^eMrpf '
Ube Eoitors of tbe Catbolic Morlo
I
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LXXII. JANUARY, 1901. No. 430.
Xeo $111/6 fIDessage to tbe Swentietb Century:
Cbe greatest misfortune is never to Dave known 3esus
Cbrist. Cbrist is tbe fountain bead of all good* mankind
can no more be saved witbout his power than it can be re=
deemed without his mercy.
When Jesus Christ is absent human reason rails, being be=
reft of its chief protection and ligbt : and toe txry end is
lost sigbt of for which, under 6od's providence, human so=
cietp Das been built up.
Co reject Dogma is simplp to denp Christianity. It is
evident tbat tbcp wbose intellects reject tbe poke of Cbrist
are obstinatelp striving against God. having shaken off
God's autboritp, tbep are bp no means freer, for tbep will
fall beneath some buman swap.
6od alone is life, fill otber beings partake of life, but
are not life. Cbrist, from all eternity and bp his verp na=
ture, is "tbe ife," just as he is "tbe trutb," because he
is God of God. If anp one abide not in me, be shall be
cast forth as a brancb, and sball witber, and tbep shall
gather him up and cast him into tbe fire, and be burnetb
(3obn xv. 6).
Once remove all impediments and allow tbe spirit of
Cbrist to revive and grow in a nation, and tbat nation sball
be bealed.
Cbe world bas beard enougb of tbe so=called " rigbts of
man/' et it bear sometbing of tbe rigbts of God.
tbe common welfare urgently demands a return to him
from wbom we sbouid never bave gone astrap ; to him wbo
is tbe Wap, tbe Crutb, and tbe ife, and tbis on tbe part
not onlp of individuals but of society as a whole.
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK, 1900.
VOL. LXXII. 28
426 THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII. [Jan.,
THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII.
BY REV. A. P. DOYLE, CS.P.
have placed as the opening chapter of THE
CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE the ringing words
of the great Leo announcing Jesus Christ as the
master of hearts and the healer of the nations, and
bidding all men to look to Him for salvation.
The great master mind of the Vatican sees with more than
prophetic eye the years that are to come. Whatever of diffi-
culties there may be retarding the triumph of the truth, what-
ever mists of the morn may gather about the pathway of progress,
still there is one figure that looms up compelling our attention,
away from whom we shall stray only to our hurt, and back to
whom we must always turn for wisdom, solace, and guidance.
HE is JESUS CHRIST, the Day Star from on high.
This is Leo's message to the Twentieth Century. The great
saint in Rome has been in touch with the hidden things of
God for the greater part of the century agone. There are con-
centrated in his person the experiences of men and things during
this age, the most wonderful the world has known. He is the
wise man, the seer, and the prophet, and with his hand drawing
aside the veil of eternity he looks back to speak to the world.
It is related that the great orator of the Cheyennes on a
famous occasion, describing the black robe in his own poetic
language, said : " In the land of the Cheyennes there is a
mountain higher than all the mountains around him. All the
Cheyennes know that mountain ; even our forefathers knew
him. When children we ran around wheresoever we wanted.
We were never afraid to lose our way so long as we could see
that mountain, which would show us home again. When
grown up we followed the buffalo and the elk ; we cared not
where we pursued the running deer so long as the mountain
was in sight, for we knew he was ever a safe guide, and never
failed in his duty. When men we fought the Sioux, the Crows,
and the Pale Faces. We went after [the enemy though the
way ran high up and low down. Our hearts trembled not on
account of the road, for as long as we could see the moun-
tain we felt sure of finding our home again. When far away
our hearts leaped for joy on seeing him, because he told us
our home came nearer. During the winter the snow covered
1901.] THE ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF LEO XIII. 427
all the earth with a mantle of white. We could no longer tell
him from other mountains except by his height, which told us he
was the mountain. Sometimes dark clouds gathered above. They
hid his head from our sight and out from them flew fiery darts,
boring holes in his sides. The thunder shook him from head to
foot, but the storm passed away, and the mountain stood for ever."
In a larger and deeper sense this mountain is JESUS CHRIST
filling the earth with his massive grandeur. His figure towers
above all other personages of history. His feet are planted on
the eternal bases. Around about his head have been gathered the
storms and contentions of the ages, but he changes never. He
is yesterday, to-day, the same for ever. His teaching is as un-
changeable as the granite rocks, and yet his heart is as tender as
a mother's. No matter how far men have wandered away in pur-
suit of the truth, no matter how devious have been their paths in
vice, yet one look at this towering figure has brought them back
to their home. On the eternal bosom of the mountain nations
have fed their children and peoples have builded their roof-tree?,
and out from the divine heart "that had compassion on the
multitudes" they have drawn the sustenance to feed their hun-
gry souls and to satisfy the craving of their higher nature.
To the heathen who sit in darkness and the shadow of
death as well as to the cultured pagan among the civilized
nations Leo says that " the greatest misfortune is never to have
known Jesus Christ." To the religious teachers of the world who
preach their own little selves and not the words of Christ he says :
" Mankind can no more be saved without his power than it
can be redeemed without his mercy " ; to the philosopher and
the agnostic scientists who think to solve the deep problems
of earth as well as the high things of heaven by their own un-
aided reason : " When Jesus Christ is absent human reason
fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light."
To the men of Israel who would have no creeds and want
no religion with exact dogmatic teaching, he affirms that " To
reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity." To the states-
men who banish far from the schools all knowledge of God,
and who would rule their rebellious people by a rod of iron
and keep in subjection the proletariat by the policeman's club,
he says: "Once remove all impediments and allow the spirit of
Christ to revive and grow in a nation, and that nation shall be
healed." To the socialists who clamor for the destruction of
thrones and the disestablishment of social organization, he says:
" The world has heard enough of the so called 'rights of man.'
Let it hear something of the rights of God. To the man who
seeks to cultivate the higher life he repeats the words of Christ :
" If any one abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch,
and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into
the fire, and he burneth." And to all men he says : " The com-
mon welfare urgently demands a return to Him from whom we
should never have gone astray ; to Him who is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life ; and this on the part not only of indivi-
duals but of society as a whole."
423 Sr. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. [Jan.,
SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN
LIFE.
BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P.
" Be ye imitators of me, as I also am of Christ." /. Cor. iv. ib.
:F indeed every human soul is an image of the
Infinite God, it is true also that in some re-
spects no image is quite like any of the others.
From Mary Immaculate down to the last and
least in God's great calendar each individual
presents a new reflection of the Infinite Holiness shining in
upon him, and saint differs from saint in sanctity as star from
star in glory. A gracious dispensation it is too ; for thus
among the endlessly varied types of holiness each epoch, each
class, each person may discover a model possessed of peculiar
attractions. Nor does the cultivation of a special devotion to
this or that saint in any way imply a departure from the
spirit of A Kempis, or a sin against the teaching of the church.
Rather we may say, that a particular affection for some one
saint is a first instinct with fervent Catholics. Experience,
moreover, proves the legitimacy of this impulse, since we all
find valuable aids to progress in the fostering of a special love
toward those particular men and women whose characteristics
or histories possess peculiar personal charm for us.
SAINT PAUL A TYPE FOR THE PRESENT DAY.
Among the saints most fascinating to the age and country
in which we live, a certain pre-eminence must be accorded to
the man whose conversion is commemorated by the church on
the twenty-fifth day of the month of January. Often enough
during the nineteenth century nor will it be otherwise in the
twentieth Saint Paul has been depicted as an attractive ideal
of sanctity, as an embodiment of the characteristics which
appeal most powerfully to the noblest instincts of the modern
mind. In other words, we are brought to believe that if our
civilization is to be crowned with the glory of holiness, it
must be done by souls formed on the type of him whom Saint
Augustine named "the great Apostle" men of high ideals,
1901.] ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 429
void of selfishness, submissive to authority, filled with the
spirit of prayer, consumed with zeal for God's glory, counting
all else as loss beside the excellent knowledge of Christ, and
yet withal impulsive, energetic, practical, intolerant of defeat,
determined, tireless, broad-minded, independent, free-spirited,
progressive. Not a few thinkers, deeply concerned with the
development of religious life in our generation, affirm that the
type of manhood representing what is best among us will be
led to attain the summit of divine love only when the lessons
taught by Saint Paul have been faithfully learned ! We, then,
who are eager for the building up of Christ's Kingdom must
carefully study this remarkable saint, and realize what is im-
plied in the great sanctity of a man whose characteristics were
refined, developed, and consecrated by grace, but whose pow-
erful personality seemed least subdued when by his own testi-
mony he was living no longer his own life, but the life of the
Christ within him.
PAUL'S MODERNITY.
This special affection which our contemporaries cherish for
Saint Paul is based in great measure upon their strong sense
of fellow-feeling with him. True, an outline of the early
Roman Empire constructed with a view to demonstrating its re-
semblance to our own society might reveal as many difficul-
ties as proofs for the thesis. But putting aside the question
of a close analogy of this sort, we can affirm at least that the
historic Paul of the first century strikingly resembles the ideal
Christian of the twentieth. Exchange Hellenistic Greek for
English, and his dress for ours ; forget that we worship in
magnificent temples and with a splendid ritual, whereas Paul
adored Christ in the humble upper chambers of Troas and
Ephesus, that we are born in the presence of a mighty organ-
ization which he helped to create, that we inherit a perfected
liturgy and ceremonial whereof only the simple beginnings were
known to him, that larger worlds than his age dreamed of now
reverence the religion at whose cradle he watched ; disregard
this surface-contrast, and it becomes evident that as the faith
he preached is one with that which we profess, so are the
traits predominant in him one with those which we consider
to be the essential requirements of a true Christian character.
Thus strong is the kinship between the oldest church and the
youngest, thus tightly welded the chain binding the ancient
Asiatics and the races that crowd upon this new continent,
430 57'. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE, [Jan.,
thus similar the ideal of Paul and of America. For what our
energetic people need, and what they thoroughly appreciate
when obtained, is a teacher who counsels them to consecrate,
without destroying, liberty and activity, and who shows them
by personal example how in a busy, hurrying life to remain
mindful that in the inner sanctuary of their souls dwells the
living God, whose temple, not made by hands, their bodies are.
PROBLEMS OF PRACTICAL LIVING.
As in theology, so too in real life, the workings of grace
give rise to most intricate problems. When to pray, and when
to act? what share of our success to attribute to divine in-
fluence, and what to our own eternal vigilance? when to
trust Providence, and when to exert our best personal energy?
which human inclinations to suppress, and which to foster
and supernaturalize ? these are questions continually torment-
ing the earnest seeker after holiness. In choosing a vocation
should we follow our natural attrait as a God-given sign, or
ignore it from dread of lurking selfishness ? Should we some-
times stand out against the counsel of others, or always hum-
bly yield? Should we maintain principle rigidly, or become
adaptable, be strong or gentle, fjetermined or winning?
Should we renounce or tenderly care for father and mother,
sisters and brothers, invite criticism or disregard it, secure
ourselves from the danger of excessive affection within an im-
penetrable reserve or strive to charm all men by sweetness ?
Such problems constantly confront every one undertaking
to lead an intelligently devout life. The ability to solve them
is an uncommon gift; yet without a theory of action, both
true and practicable, no man can become what God destines
him to be. The matter, moreover, possesses a special interest
for those whose minds are vigorous and inquisitive, whose
natural powers are strongly developed, whose intellectual hon-
esty is of a high degree, and who will not rest content with
evasive statements or accept an inconsistent theory.
A PERFECTLY HARMONIOUS PERSONALITY.
Men of this stamp turn quite naturally to Saint Paul. The
great doctor of grace, he likewise exhibits a perfectly harmon-
ious personality. From him we learn a spiritual doctrine un-
speakably sublime, and yet in thorough accord with human
nature. His life is an object-lesson of equal perfection. If
one wishes to plan a campaign against the enemies inner and
1901.] ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 431
outer, swarming the passage from the lowest to the highest
point of spiritual ascent, then he may well seek guidance from
the man who, beginning as a blasphemer and a ravager of the
church, became later the bondsman of Christ, an Apostle, an
ecstatic ; who was blessed with visions and revelations, momen-
tarily snatched up into Paradise while yet alive, and finally
crowned with the shining halo of martyrdom. What an
arduous life and what a marvellous growth ! The humble
weaver of black goat's-hair 1 is transformed into a leader of the
most glorious march of conquest recorded in history. Drilled
only in the science of a decaying Pharisaism, he flashes over
the world the unquenchable light of a teaching never equalled
for depth or sublimity ; and though once scorned or ignored
by the schools clustered on the banks of the swift-flowing
Cydnus, he is now addressed as Mister by the mightiest intel-
lects of the human race. If he was obscured by a host more
eminent than himself during life, yet he has been sought out by
the most famous scholars of Christendom, hastening eagerly to
drink at the exhiustless fountains of divine wisdom discover-
able in his writings writings, some one has said, penned not
with ink but rather with the spirit of the living God. The
conquered subjects of Alexander and Napoleon were few com-
pared to the numbers that have trooped after the banner raised
by Paul. The organization of imperial Rome seems weak be-
side the institution he set out to spread among the nations.
Homer's immortality and Plato's cannot be called enduring if
contrasted with his.
An effect so mighty argues no ordinary cause. But, some
one says, in all this how slight was Paul's influence, and how
great the action of God! Here, .indeed, a vital point is
touched upon. How little was due to Paul ? how much to
God ? What was effected by divine grace, and what depended
on the man's co operation ? These questions, to be sure, never
will find an answer. But seeing the course of his labors and
their results, we do perceive one thing to be certain : that
Saint Paul had fathomed the mystery puzzling us, that he had
learned when to act and when to let God act, that he knew
how to discern the time of speech and the time of silence, the
moment of battle and the day of rest. This, then, at least we
may be sure of, that he can throw light upon dark places in
our path. So we look to him to learn the way of waging
warfare victoriously. He will teach us how to fight, yet not as
those that beat the air.
432 ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. [Jan.,
THE REVELATION OF HIS INNER LIFE.
Few men have given to the world so frank and complete a
self-revelation as the great Apostle. The Acts narrate his
achievements, the Epistles reveal his inner life. Truly his
confessions contrast strikingly with the morbid egoism of those
degenerate minds whose nicely-prepared confidences are so
often and so obtrusively thrust upon us. These self-disclosures
are unaffected. They come warm from the heart. Hence,
Paul's sayings are sometimes hard to be understood ; but, on
the other hand, they repay study far better than the lines
of the deepest poets. As we read, the many-sided genius of
the man gradually discovers itself, and once we have found out
his meaning the writer meets us face to face, and we listen to
what may be called a familiar monologue on that most absorb-
ing of all topics, human relationship with God. Then, too,
as he is opening up great spiritual vistas for us we catch
a glimpse now and again of secret depths in his soul, some
word or phrase throwing strong sudden light upon his own
character and revealing the wonderful workings of divine grace
within the fiery spirit of this most ardent of the saints.
What do we discover to be the hidden root of his glorious
growth ? Can we give concrete expression to our estimate of
him? can we analyze his peculiar excellence? Often men
have said that the love of Jesus Christ was the root-idea of
Paul's theology and the inspiration of his sanctity. But how
did it come about that he loved the Saviour thus fervently?
Is it possible for us to delve deep enough to see why Christ's
love took so strong a hold upon his inmost being and con-
trolled his life so absolutely? If we can do this, no doubt the
result will teach us lessons of strange power, will reveal in
their simplicity the essential principles of spiritual perfection,
will help to settle many of the problems clamoring to us for
solution.
MASTER OF THE TRUE RELATION OF GRACE AND NATURE.
Be it said, then, that the very bone and marrow of Saint
Paul's spiritual being was his clear perception of, and perfect
conformity to, the movement of God within his soul. His
specialty, if we may so call it, was the true relation of grace
and nature, the harmonious working of the divine operations
in the supernatural and the human order, the concurrence of
the Infinite Will and the finite will, the interaction of Almighty
1901.] ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 433
God and Saul of Tarsus. To him Jesus Christ was God in
the flesh, perfection realized, divinity manifested. The humanity
of Jesus bridged over the chasm between heaven and earth,
between God and not-God. Therefore every fibre of Paul's
being reached forth to grasp the Word Incarnate, clung fast
to Christ, grew into Him, "dissolved " as far as might be into
oneness with Him, so that Paul became God's by becoming
Christ's, and realized himself to be the temple of God's spirit
through his strong sense of Christ's abiding presence in his
soul. Jesus Christ became all to him, because for him the
Incarnation was more than a notion ; it was a great, palpable,
throbbing reality, stamping itself upon his mind, searing into
his heart, never absent from him after once it had seized and
conquered him in that supreme moment of his life when the
terrible splendor of God darkened the blaze of the Syrian
noon day and struck him blinded to the ground. The memory
of that brief instant could not be effaced, its lesson could
never be forgotten. Paul then learned who the Lord was,
and all his future had to be set true in the light of the newly-
realized fact of God's Infinity. To this task, then, he set
himself ; and he accomplished it.
GOD AND SELF.
There are, writes Newman, but two luminously self-evident
beings, myself and my Creator. The words vividly express
the fundamental truth of religion. Saint Paul can be read
aright only when we understand that realization of this great
axiom was the supreme motive-power of his life. In this we
possess the key alike to his conduct and his doctrine, and
mindful of it, we find that the study of his words and actions
throws a wonderful light on the first principles of that sacred
thing, religion.
Creation, human nature, man's destiny, the law of perfec-
tion, every fact and every maxim of the spiritual life are to be
explained in the light of this fundamental dogma : God and I
exist. Absolutely speaking, no other fact is essential for the
fulfilment of human destiny, no other truth necessary to be
known. " God and I alone in the world," said the old mystic,
thus expressing the sum of spiritual science and laying down
the supreme law of life. God and I were alone at that first
instant when my soul sprang forth from the spontaneously
fruitful bosom of Divinity. God and I are ever alone in those
secret depths of my being wherein no creature can enter, and
434 ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE, [Jan.,
especially alone at that last moment when the darkness of
death is encompassing me. Through all eternity God and I
shall dwell together, as if alone, contemplating each other with
endearing eyes, both radiant with love, He effecting and I re-
ceiving, He giving and I returning, God holding me and I
possessing God.
These truths teach us life's meaning. God and Self, the two
necessary conditions of eternal felicity, intimate the rule of a
perfect earthly existence. To interpret every fact in life we
need consider only Him, in whom we live and move and have
our being. Beside Him what does man possess upon earth, or
desire in eternity? In heaven all activity will be centred upon
God, out of our vision of Him will spring our very love for our
dear ones, our very knowledge of fragmentary truths. It should
not be otherwise upon earth. Here, too, whatever is not
directed to God is naught ; every act that does not begin with,
depend upon, and end in Him is less than nothing ; every
creature loved outside of Him a false god. True, Pantheism
is an error. Creatures are essentially distinct from God. But
to the man who would be perfect, they must all become as noth-
ing. In God and for God he must know, love, act. What God
wills he must will. Such is the norm of perfect life.
GRASP OF THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.
A lower depth than this we cannot attain even in the soul of
Siint Paul. Here we touch upon the principle which is the
first and last of his spiritual doctrine. Study of him convinces
us that his sanctity sprang from his knowing perfectly the
rights of God and man, and giving to each his own. Saint
Paul's teaching and conduct alike emphasize the necessity of
pleasing God by means of a complete and absolute self-sur-
render, which is possible to man only in regard to God and
which alone is capable of satisfying the Creator's claims upon
his creatures. Devotion of this sort is the quintessence of
religion ; it is vital, personal, perfect worship. It is the
religion of the heart, the adoration in spirit and truth dear to
GDd, and the one thing so needful that without it not even
Almighty Power can perfect a human soul.
To declare this spirit characteristic of Saint Paul of course
does not imply it to be his peculiar possession. Some share in
it is an indispensable condition of all real religion. It is as
widespread, therefore, as religion itself, being the common prin-
ciple identifying the true children of God's Kingdom wherever
1901.] 5r. PA UL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 435
and under whatever circumstances they may be found. But
Saint Paul's grasp of the principle and its consequences is
something extraordinary and proper to himself. And his teach-
ing upon it is unequivocal and final. No one can read the Epis-
tles without being struck by their writer's strong sense of
Divine dominion and human stewardship. No one can come
from meditating upon them and still retain the illusion that
there is a substitute for personal devotion and absolute self-
surrender. The disciple of St. Paul learns very quickly that
his life is not his own, that to God's free gift he owes all, that
he has been bought, redeemed, freed, made alive, sanctified by
his Master. Subtract these truths from St. Paul's teaching, and
you substitute nerveless platitudes for the sublimest doctrine
human lips have ever uttered. Retain them, and you have it
in perfection. It is these which explain his habitual temper of
mind and his tone of speech, these which show us why, for-
getting the things behind and ever stretching forward to God,
he counted all else as loss, and regarded it as filth, prizing
creatures only in and for his love of their Maker.
FREE WILL OF MAN.
Now, what is peculiar about earthly life is human capacity
for voluntary deviation from the norm. Man is only a crea-
ture to be sure, but still his activity differs in kind from that
of sunlight and ocean-tide and planet-orbit. His highest privi-
lege, the one which characterizes him as man, is individual
freedom. By means of this he becomes an independent agent, a
centre of activity, and in a sense is liberated from God's control.
In giving man free will the Creator, as it were, rules off a cer-
tain sphere and makes the individual master thereof, constitut-
ing him God of that little world, and releasing him from the
sway of every external power, even the Divine. In that do-
main the individual is supreme. Though unable to escape from
God's sight, he can rebel, he can thwart God's wishes, he can
frustrate God's plans, he can accomplish what God does not
will and check what he does will. Man becomes perfect, there-
fore, by remaining faithful to the office of delegate, and never
trying to assume independence ; by contenting himself with
repeating God's command, thus restoring to God the dominion
over the region entrusted to the human will. When man acts
in' this way, then, and only then, can he say with meaning:
God and I alone in the world. There is no acceptable sub-
mission short of self-annihilation. The perfect human song
436 ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. [Jan.,
must be a harmony wherein the creature takes and holds the
note struck by the Divine Singer, since intercourse between
God and man implies a relation of the All to one who is more
than nothing only in virtue of existence communicated by the
All.
It is evident, then, that the bond of perfection must be the
unifying principle, love. Thus only can the law be fulfilled.
Love which is blind to all except the beloved and which
utterly annihilates selfhood is, therefore, the one needful gift,
greater than prophecy, tongues, miracles, martyrdom, hope, or
faith.
A LIVING MODEL OF HIS TEACHING.
Such is the conclusion deduced by Saint Paul from the
great truths of man's divine origin and destiny. He voices his
teaching in words of unmistakable import. Further, he gives
us a living example of perfect conformity to the principles he
proclaims. Clearly, love is the ruling motive of his career.
It begins to be so at that critical instant when the sight of the
Lord's uncovered glory sends the fierce spoiler cowering to the
earth. It ceases to be so only at that last moment when a
Roman sword, gleaming in the sunlight of an Italian June, leaves
the martyr's headless body prone upon the Ostian Way. Quid
vis me facere ? is his constant thought. It is the supreme
question. The answer to it, in so far as known, forms Paul's
single rule of life. Always it is God's to choose and Paul's
to obey. The Lord wills; Paul acts acts with a readiness
that makes his deeds seem spontaneous and a cheerfulness
that argues the choice to be his own. So indeed it is his
own choice, for love with its wonderful transforming power
has made his will one with the will of God, has fired heart
v
and brain with unquenchable fervor, has mastered intellect,
and will, and instinct, and brought every human power into
sweet captivity.
Reducing all duties to the pleasant one of loving seems
like laying out a royal road to perfection. But the direction
to love is an easy one to follow, just as De Sales's maxim,
Ask nothing, refuse nothing, is a simple rule of mortification.
Delusion occurs when a thing is seen as through a glass
darkly. To fulfil the law by loving is easy only when we
have learned to love easily. This will be the case in Heaven,
where God is seen face to face, where Truth is clear as noon-
day light, and Goodness is revealed in all its loveliness. But
1 90i.] Sr. PA UL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 437
the very significance of life as a time of trial implies that we
are now wandering about a world of half-truths, blind to the
meaning of God, and constantly mistaking shadows and images
for realities. Often our God-given freedom avails only for our
own hurt. We lose our life in attempting to save it. And
yet naturally we incline toward trying to save it. To annihi-
late self on faith is no welcome task. A life-long struggle often
precedes its ultimate accomplishment. Constant repetitions of
misfortunes due to selfishness barely suffice to convince us that
God is all and we are nothing. Through these devious ways
the teaching of Saint Paul will guide us, and if we hear a cry
of anguish from the midst of his prolonged torments, The evil
that I will not that I do ! who shall deliver me from this body
of death? we catch also the echo of his paean of victory fore-
telling the final triumph : I have fought the good fight, I
have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
SURGING OF THE LOVE OF GOD WITHIN HIM.
Readily we perceive that the victory of grace in Saint
Paul's soul could not have been easily won. Only the power
of a mighty and extraordinary love subdues and controls
natures like his. This is why his affection for Christ really
did play the all-important role in his spiritual development.
His love for Jesus Christ can be described by no word short
of passionate ; it was an absorbing devotion, possibly without
equal in the history of Christian saints. As a friend, as a
brother, as a spouse, Christ had inflamed his soul with love.
For Christ's sake he would readily become a fool, an out-
cast, an anathema. In Christ and Him crucified is found the
sum and substance of Saint Paul's writing as of his preach-
ing, the same yesterday, and to-day, and always. For through
Christ, God's image took 'complete possession of him and
made the fulfilment of the Divine Will the sole desirable good
in life, Christ winning Paul's love solely because He was the
revelation in human form of the God never seen by eye or
conceived by thought of man. To Paul Jesus was no mere
ideal of humanity, no simple type of human perfection. In
him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead corporally. The mighty
tide of love that swept through Paul's soul at the thought of
his Beloved, surging high at the very mention of Christ's
name, was, then, incomparably greater than any affection one
human being could have inspired in another; it was a love of
transcendent depth and purity ; it was unique because its
438 ST. PA UL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. [Jan.,
object was Divine, because the Beloved was one with the In-
finite Being whose uncovered face was to transform Paul into
His own ineffable image. As far as was possible for man this
saint had realized the significance of the Incarnation, and had
found in the Word made Flesh a magic influence to raise his
own soul out of the depths and set it beyond the reach of
temptations to infidelity. It was the vision of Jesus, then,
that fixed him fast in that essential and unchangeable rela-
tionship which he knew must obtain between God and a per-
fect man.
REASONS FOR THE MODERN CULT OF SAINT PAUL.
Such a lesson does Saint Paul teach us. We have noted
already that it possesses a powerful influence over our age.
Reasons are easily discoverable. The very simplicity and di-
rectness of Paul's spiritual scheme recommend it strongly to a
generation like ours. He never is betrayed into exaggeration
of accidentals at the cost of essentials, he insists on no partial
views, he does not attempt to substitute temporal for eternal
interests. This is the type of religious teacher that is most
willingly listened to nowadays. It is not because our contem-
poraries lack generosity that they take to Saint Paul as a
model. No one would ever dream of expecting a compromise
from him. Men go to him because they really want the meat
and kernel of spiritual truth, because they seek its essence
rather than its accompaniments, its soul and not its trappings.
Men go to him because if there is a higher and purer spiritual
doctrine than that of Saint Paul it has not yet been revealed.
THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE SAINT.
Further power over our age is gained by Saint Paul in
consequence of the perfect fulness and symmetry of his man-
hood. A people whose spiritual ideal is an integral one will
think of a saint's nature as well as of his graces, and will
trust a little to their own human instincts in choosing a
model of sanctity. What saint, then, in a day like ours, will
elicit sympathy more quickly than this great Apostle, who, as
Chrysostom tells us, "though he was Paul, was also a man"?
Men feel instinctively that their loving God perfectly can-
not imply their ceasing to be what God made them ; and they
find in Paul a comforting instance of splendid sanctity built
upon a well developed nature ; of a man obedient to God not
as an unreasoning infant might be, but by means of an indi-
1901.] Sr. PAUL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. 439
vidual intelligence and a strong will, in full play, giving glory
in the highest to God our Lord. His ideal encourages creative
vigilance and personal initiative ; it leaves intact the freedom
wherewith we have been made free, and approves of the
liberty of the children of God ; it bids us respect not the
person of men, and submit only to the powers ordained of
God. Yet and Paul is the guarantee our submission need be
no less perfect for being united to a sense of the sacredness of
individuality, and shaped according to the dictates of personal
conscience. Minimizers of either truth or service will find no
sanction of their ungenerous spirit in the life or the teaching
of Saint Paul.
Another reason of his charm is that he preaches to every
one the possibility of approaching closer to God. Innocent
and penitent, they that are afar off and they that are nigh, all
hear from him of high privileges reserved for them, gifts of
intimate friendship with Jesus Christ, and great graces in
prayer accorded even to sinners, " of whom I am the chief."
Here is a preacher who brings God nearer to men by awaken-
ing within them a desire for, and a belief in, the possibility of
that ineffable relationship which the Creator delights to bestow
upon the children of men. You are Christ's and Christ is
God's, Paul declares to us ; his yoke is sweet, his service
reasonable, his love broad as heaven. So is the soul taught to
keep its gaze fastened upon Jesus "the Author and perfecter
of our faith," that it may 'continue steadfast to the end, by
hope persevering, and by that love which is the greatest of
gifts and the more excellent way finally entering into union
with God Himself.
THE APOSTLE OF INTERNAL RELIGION.
That men are responsive to Saint Paul's doctrine is but
another evidence of the human soul's " innate Christianity."
It argues the inevitable final triumph of the Church founded
to propagate that doctrine, and hindered from spreading chiefly
through the failure of some minds to appreciate the true mean-
ing of Catholicism, which to be loved needs only to be seen
in naked sublimity. For most religious characters outside the
body of the church, the stone of stumbling is a dire miscon-
ception of Catholic teaching upon the principles of vital re-
ligion as if the church could have any other aim than to lead
souls closer and closer to God ! But men stare and hesitate
when told the truth, and they are ready to contradict Newman
44Q ST. PA UL THE APOSTLE AND OUR MODERN LIFE. [Jan.
when he declares that " the Catholic Church allows no image
of any sort, material or immaterial ; no dogmatic symbol, no
rite, no sacrament, no saint, not even the Blessed Virgin her-
self, to come between the soul and its Creator." Yet the
Catholic knows this to be not only a fact, but an absolute
necessity.
What if the church is an external institution ? She declares
herself to have been established as a means for furthering the
reign of God in human souls. By her own profession she is
the road to a goal, the means to an end. If she insists on the
necessity of Sacraments, it is because these are God's ordinary
channels for the communication of grace to men. In fact,
though an external and visible society, the church ranks her
invisible element, internal religion, as all-essential; interior life
is declared to surpass in value and necessity both defined dog-
mas and prescribed customs. Paul's ideal is hers ; oblation of self
to God is the perfect worship. Newman does not exaggerate one
whit in saying that Catholicism, as understood by its own ad-
herents, as interpreted by officially-approved teachers, like Saint
Alphonsus and Saint Ignatius, " interposes no cloud between
the creature and the Object of his faith and love. ... It
is face to face, 'solus cum solo' in all matters between man
and his God. He alone creates; He alone has redeemed;
before His awful eyes we go in death ; in the vision of Him
is our eternal beatitude."
The church's worship of St. Paul might in itself then suffice
to clear her of the suspicion of formalism. On her altars the
very Apostle and Doctor of internal religion is venerated with
a peculiarly high honor. She points him out that her children
may imitate him ; she turns triumphantly to her accusers and
asks: Is not this a man given up heart and soul to interior
worship, a propagandist with neither selfishness nor narrowness,
a preacher intent on the love of God and the pure Gospel of
Christ? Who else ever insisted so strongly on the vanity of
mere externalism, or spoke more fervently on the beauty of the
Kingdom of God within the human soul, or taught more
explicitly the doctrine of the indwelling Holy Spirit, or demon-
strated better by word and deed that the saint's ideal is to
serve God with a simple, unswerving fidelity incapable of being
improved upon were a man and his Maker in very truth alone
in the world?
A QUEENLIER HEART NEVER THROBBED MORE TRUE,
'MONO GALLOWAY'S ROCKS AND RILLS,
AND A QUEENLIER FOOT NEVER DASHED THE DEW
FROM THE HEATH OF THE GALLOWAY HILLS."
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
BY AGNES C. STOKER.
HE German tourist in planning his summer's
holiday speaks of taking an ausflug that is,
literally, a flight out from every day surround,
ings into a new region where every influence
shall tend to re-create, not merely the outer
man but his inner self as well.
VOL. LXXII. 29
44 2 SWEETHEART ABBEY. [Jan.,
On such a flight the reader is invited away to bonnie
Scotland, a land far removed by its entire contrast to the
physical and mental atmosphere of our own country. Instead
of planning the orthodox " grand tour," made post-haste
through a dozen counties, embracing so many ascents and
descents, coaching and steamer trips, as render wearisome their
mere perusal, let us content ourselves with exploring the un-
familiar bit of Galloway, in south-western Scotland, set down
on the maps as Kirkcudbright,* taking, moreover, as objective
point an abbey ruin whose very name is unknown to the
majority of American travellers.
Although so strangely unnoticed by mercurial guides and
railroad folders, Sweetheart Abbey, near the historic town of
Dumfries, repays examination in as bountiful measure as does
any one of its famed elder sisters, Holyrood, Dryburgh, or fair
Melrose itself. Certainly, no other Scotch abbey dominates a
locality so rich in historic and legendary associations of the
highest interest, is surrounded by more enchanting scenery, or
is reached by a route so characteristically Scottish in all its
features.
The main road leading from Dumfries to New Abbey, the
wee village claiming Sweetheart, eight miles away to the south,
lies for some distance between luxuriant hawthorn hedges, but
changes its character with the ascent of Whinny Hill, a stiff
eminence of about two hundred feet, and becomes from thence
on of a decidedly " up-hill and down dale " description. As
the view opens more extensively, all the exquisite accompani-
ments of the scene stamp themselves indelibly upon the
traveller's memory, while the very air, full of scent and sun-
shine and delicious country sounds, seems tremulous with ex-
pectation.
With the ascent gained, the scale of loveliness reaches its
culmination. In the near foreground waving corn-fields form a
charming ^setting for busy gleaners at work ; far below, steeped
in golden haze, meadows and pasture-lands stretch far away
into the distance, their velvety, undulating stretches dotted
here and there by tiny hamlets and solitary homes, while be-
fore us rises Criffel, most beautiful of Scottish hills, a miracle
of loveliness, mantled with heather, its summit wrapped in
silvery mist. Glimpses of the distant Solway winding south-
* Kirkcudbright's name is associated with that of the Northumbrian saint, Cuthbert, and
in local parlance is pronounced " Kircoobrie."
190 1.]
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
443
MAIN STREET OF NEW ABBEY.
ward to the sea, with yet more distant views of the English
hills, complete the entrancing vision :
" Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill ;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will ;
Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart is lying still." *
All too soon New Abbey's immediate approach is reached
Shambellie Avenue its giant limes and beeches meeting far
overhead with the effect of cathedral arches, and forming so
" noble a brotherhood of venerable trees " as one seldom sees.
Here at last, through this veil of green, a glimpse is vouch-
safed us of the hidden treasure we have come so far to seek
the ruins of Dulce Cor, Sweetheart Abbey. Shambellie
Avenue passed, with quickened steps we cross the little stream,
or burn, known as the " Abbey plow," and in a moment are
in New Abbey village its first house, which is also the village
post-office, hawthorn-hedged and literally rose embowered. A
* Sonnet written on Westminster Bridge, Wordsworth.
444
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
[Jan.,
few steps further we enter the village square, bordered by
three or four rambling inns, more picturesque than comforta-
ble, and a shop or two of the most primitive description.
Here in the village gathering-place bare-legged lads and lassies
are merrily drawing water from a " spoot," while a group of
their elders regard the strangers with friendly curiosity, and
offer a hearty " Gude day." The square opens into the long
and winding village street the only one. First comes a double
line of graystone and whitewashed cottages, the majority of
the latter thatch roofed, with roses, crimson and white, climb-
ing over every one, and blue smoke-wreaths issuing from their
low chimneys. Then an abrupt turn 'brings us to the ruined
abbey, rising midway as if breathing its benediction over all.
A step on and the village manse is passed ; then stretches of
corn fields and green meadows to the right ; a church or two ;
the Catholic chapel and its adjoining rectory, with such a
garden as only loving, never-ceasing care can create ; the village
school, one or two houses more straggling off uncertainly, and
that is all behold New Abbey !
Sweetheart Abbey, the village's cherished treasure, is
sometimes called " an abbey without a history " ; but, although
many details of its long career are lost, enough is known to
awaken deep interest in this youngest and loveliest of Scottish
RUINS OF DULCE COR SWEETHEART ABBEY.
.]
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
445
JW< //,v,. m IT"/.//* /*'*'
.Su.n.inii en in Jtuniij KOftf&rva tibt
FOUNDED IN MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND, JOHN BALIOL.
abbeys. Dulce Cor was founded in 1284* by Devorgilla,
Countess of Galloway, a descendant of King David of Scotland,
in memory of her husband, John Baliol. Wyntoun, the famous
prior of Lochleven, says of this devoted woman :
and another writer declares that
* Ross.
446 SWEETHEART ABBEY. [Jan.,
"A queenlier heart never throbbed more true,
'Mong Galloway's rocks and rills,
And a queenlier foot never dashed the dew
From the heath of the Galloway hills."
Certainly Devorgilla's personal holiness and beneficent, far-
reaching charity entitle her to a position in Scotland's annals
beside that of the nation's apostolic queen, St. Margaret of
blessed memory. Both, in their different and exalted stations,
so consecrated wealth and opportunities that literally at their
bidding the desert places were transformed into the garden of
the Lord ; therefore " their righteousness endureth for ever,
and their horn shall be exalted with honor." Among Devor-
gilla's public gifts were the erection of a massive bridge over
the river Nith, at Dumfries, still used by foot passengers, and
numerous foundations, religious and educational in character.
Of these by far the most important the Cistercian Monastery
of Sweetheart, near Dumfries, and Baliol College, at Oxford
were raised in memory of their foundress' husband, John
Baliol.* The former was also known as the " New Abbey," in
contradistinction to an earlier foundation, Dundrennan, or the
" Old Abbey." Here in Sweetheart's shrine, in the most ex-
quisite and lasting memorial human love could frame, Devor-
gilla caused her husband's sweet heart to be interred before the
high altar, and here at last, after many years of patient wait-
ing, Death crowned this perfect union before God, and the
dust of husband and wife commingled.
" In the Abbey of Sweetheart low lies Devorgill,
But her memory comes through the Past's door,
Like Spring's young flowers to the sunlit sod
The Ladye who gave all her days to the poor,
And her prayer-hallowed nights unto God."f
As to the abbey ruins beautiful in their desolation, the
scars wrought by time, and yet more merciless man, hidden by
the mantling ivy their exceeding loveliness is beyond expres-
sion, symbolizing as it does, to all who will but read their
message, man's faith in the unfailing promises of God, and his
adoration of the " Eternal Beauty, ever ancient and ever
new."*
* The arms of Devorgilla and John Baliol are together impaled upon the college shield.
t Ross. % St. Augustine.
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
447
Little is known of the abbey's record previous to the six-
teenth century, for when the so-called Reformation suppressed
this quiet abode of holiness and learning its archives were de-
stroyed. Side-lights, however, of great value are cast upon its
history during and immediately subsequent to that time of deso-
lation. They come to us through papers still preserved by several
staunch old families among the Catholic nobility and gentry of
ABBEY RUINS BEAUTIFUL IN THEIR DESOLATION.
the neighborhood. One of the most cherished possessions of
the present Lord Herries is the deed of gift whereby the little
island in Loch Kindar, part of the abbey's property,* is trans-
ferred by Gilbert Brown, Sweetheart's last abbot, to the then
Lord Herries, in recognition of that nobleman's brave refusal
to obey the Privy Council's demand that he destroy the abbey.
The quaint old document reads strangely to our modern ears,
and is as follows :
" Dated at the Abbey of Sweetheart, 2;th August, 1577, of
the ' yle of Loch Kindelocht, with all the fowlis that sail abyde
* In the days of the abbey's prosperity its lands were very extensive. Some authorities
estimate that the monastery buildings were capable of accommodating over five hundred
monks, but this is doubtless an exaggeration.
448 SWEETHEART ABBEY. [Jan.,
and big thair ' and the fishing of the said Loch, reserving the
kirk and kirk yard to the parish to which it appertanis."
When the abbey was "annexed," in 1587, Abbot Brown
was, with many others, charged by act of Parliament to leave
the country on pain of death. In spite, however, of the decrees
of Presbytery, Synod, General Assembly, and Privy Council, he
lingered on near Dumfries till 1605, shielded by so many ad-
herents that the enraged authorities looked upon the country
thereabouts as "a peculiar nest of Papists." He then went to
Paris, and appears to have died there, in 1612, in great desti-
tution.
The Maxwell-Withams, of Kirkconnell, another devoted old
Catholic family, have in their possession two letters of mourn-
ful interest. One is from King James I. of England to the
Anglican bishop of Edinburgh, ordering him to proceed to
New Abbey to there destroy all statues and images, to carry off
all the church vestments and other furniture, all books, papers,
and other documents, and have them burned by the public
hangman at the Market Cross of Dumfries. The bishop's re-
ply details the due fulfilment of his commission, but fails to
specify whether the holocaust took place at the Market Cross,
as decreed. Tradition has it that the site of this barbarous deed
was on Corbelly Hill, Maxwelltown, where a beautiful Benedic-
tine Convent now stands in reparation for the sacrilege. The
Maxwell-Withams also possess records of the disposition of the
abbey and its lands by the crown, the greater portion being
bestowed on Sir R. Spottiswood, of Spottiswood, a valiant
knight, who had gained favor by destroying many churches
and monasteries.* Since then the abbey lands have been
divided and sub-divided, and the abbey itself has passed through
many hands, treated generally with absolute neglect, and even
serving at times as a quarry for the building of farm-houses
and stone walls. The present owner, one rejoices to know, re-
gards -his exquisite possession with veneration, and has restored
portions of the ruins with skill and judgment.
From the investigation of such historical records as are ob-
tainable we may pass to the consideration of the abbey ruins
themselves. Thus we shall find that the ruined conventual
church, cruciform in structure, which alone remains of the
original abbey buildings, consists of a six-bayed nave, a tran-
* These extracts from the Herri es and Maxwell-Witham records are taken verbatim from
the admirable Historical Guide to Sweetheart Abbey, by W. G. Primrose, Esq., of Primrose
Lodge, New Abbey, published by Messrs. J. Maxwell & Son, Dumfries.
1901.] SWEETHEART ABBEY. 449
sept, an aisleless choir, and a central saddle-back tower. Its
predominating architectural forms Early English combined
with Second-Pointed or Decorated are characterized by ex-
treme grace and solemn dignity ; the warm coloring of the red
sandstone of which the building is constructed, the richness of
the window-traceries, and the noble proportions of the great
saddle-back tower, being perhaps the ruins' most impressive
features.
Should, however, days and weeks be spent in endeavoring
to trace the abbey's history and in studying its technicalities
of architecture, still but a slight acquaintance can thus be
gained with Sweetheart's mere exterior. To learn its spirit,
its inner life, we must live within the abbey's very shadow,
and patiently wait for the revelations these crumbling walls
will surely grant to us. Standing among its silent ruins, with
the daisy-sprinkled sward under foot and heaven's blue show-
ing through the roofless arches overhead, whether viewed in
the delicious freshness of early morning, by the magic of twi-
light, or when flooded by moonlight whatever the hour, with
unspeakable power imagination calls before one visions of the
past. We hear only the twittering of swallows overhead, or
their drowsy call to sleep and silence ; or the night-wind stirs
through the mantling ivy, and rustles the sentinel ash-trees ;
but their half-heard melody fades away, and instead there rises
on our souls the strains of Gregorian Chant, glorious beyond
expression, and presently there passes before us a never-ending
procession of the white-robed Cistercian brethren, who here
for centuries lived and loved and labored. When one con-
siders all that was gathered here as a rich oblation to God,
the incalculable toil represented by the carvings adorning arch
and capital, the treasures of art here collected, the ascending
incense of contrition and adoration which here never ceased
pleading before Almighty God for those forgetful of him ;
when, above all, we recall the countless celebrations of the
Holy Sacrifice which here were offered, small wonder does it
seem that in Sweetheart's fane, ruined though it be, the most
thoughtless heart is profoundly moved. And for reverent
Catholics, indeed for all Christians within and without the
Household of the Faith, merely to glance at this lovely vision
is to hear its tender message, "Sursum corda," and to answer
with overflowing hearts, " Habemus ad Dominum."
If the consideration of Sweetheart's ruins leads one to con-
templation, so too the thought of all once accomplished within
450
SWEETHEART ABBEY.
[Jan.,
COUNTLESS CELEBRATIONS OF THE HOLY SACRIFICE HERE WERE OFFERED.
its walls inspires one to action. What influence for good must
have gone forth from the abbey's scriptorium alone! All visi-
ble signs of the literary labors there consummated have van-
ished. The world would say, They have left no trace. Rather
are they written as deeply in human learning of the best and
noblest as the lessons Sweetheart's spirit has taught from the
beginning are engraven in human souls, not, indeed, for time
alone but for all eternity : " ' Mind not the things which are
below ' ; mind thou thy soul and God."
The settled peace the old ruins fairly radiate seems also to
have descended upon the tiny homes clustering in its shadow,
and upon every feature of the life here. Step for a moment
from the abbey ruins into the surrounding even more silent
world of death in life, the peaceful God's Acre. Amid its
blessed stillness the tumult of the world and one's own % soul
dies away, and our Father's gracious promises come upon one
with deepened power and consolation. " Benedictus qui venit
in nomine Domini ! " Even Death ! We breathe the words
solemnly, reverently, and turn away giving thanks for this last
precious remembrance of
1901.] SWEETHEART ABBEY. 451
" The broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rip-
pling tides, and trees and flowers and grass,
And the low hum of living breeze ; and in the midst
God's beautiful, eternal right hand,
Thee, holiest minister of Heaven
Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death!"*
Not long ago it was the present chronicler's great privilege
to be present in St. Mary's Chapel hardly a stone's throw
from Dulce Cor and there assist at the first High Mass cele-
brated in New Abbey village since the monks were driven
from Sweetheart over three centuries ago. A thought of that
memorable occasion may fittingly serve as farewell to the old
abbey. For months before the appointed day priest and
people united in depriving themselves in every possible way,
CHILDREN OF THE ABBEY.
that St. Mary's bare little chapel might be transformed into a
beautiful dwelling place for our Emmanuel Lord. While the
work was under way daily Mass was offered in private chapels
of the outlying neighborhood, or in the study of the rectory,
the literally " two or three gathered together in His Name "
experiencing in so lowly a perpetuation of the Great Sacrifice
emotions unspeakable.
* Whitman's " Death's Valley."
452 SWEETHEART ABBEY. [Jan.,
The day at last arrived when the results of all this patient
waiting and self-denial are to be revealed, finds not only every
Catholic of high and low degree for many miles about gath-
ered within the chapel gates, but also members of the Estab-
lished Kirk. These latter, staunch disapprovers of "Papistry"
on general principle though they be, yet seem as eager as any
of St. Mary's people for a greeting from the happiest partici-
pants in the day's celebration New Abbey's two beloved
priests, who, with several brethren in the priesthood, escort
his Grace the Bishop of Dumfries within the rectory. Well
may New Abbey's faithful Shepherds rejoice and their people
rise up and call them blessed ! One, silvery-haired, bowed by
age and infirmities, for thirty years or more has fathered this
scattered flock in storm and sunshine ; his labors have pre-
pared the way for this day of gladness. To his companion
has descended the burden of St. Mary's beloved pastorate, a
burden as regretfully relinquished as it has been reverently,
eagerly received. Once within the chapel doors a transforma-
tion indeed awaits us. St. Mary's bare walls are delicately
tinted, exquisite statues of the Sacred Heart and Mary Im-
maculate stand on either side, the altar is ablaze with lights
and half hidden by Ascension lilies, while from a fine copy of
the Sistine Madonna over the tabernacle our Mother herself
looks down in benediction. As the Holy Sacrifice proceeds
lords and ladies, farmers and shepherds, and we strangers from
across the sea, unite in intercession that Sweetheart's silent
pleading may avail, not alone for this wee village, but that
throughout the length and breadth of all Scotland the people
may again be united, according to the Master's own bidding
one flock, one fold, and one Shepherd in Christ our Lord.
1 90 1.] THE TIDES. 453
THE TIDES.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
[HEN of a summer's day we visit the sea-side and
there, lying on the beach, we watch the billows
rolling nearer and nearer to us, how many of
us ask ourselves, " What makes the rising tide
approach so steadily ? " The little house of
sand which we built a few minutes ago is already swallowed
up by the waves. What force is it that is swaying the ocean
to and fro, from ebb to flood and from flood again to ebb?
And if perchance we know the answer, and tell some fisherman
near by that it is the moon that is drawing the water nearer
and nearer to us the moon, which is 240,000 miles away he
may very likely give us a pitying look and wonder what
asylum we have escaped from. Yet we have only told him
what is the truth ; although we might have added, to be strictly
correct, that the sun, 92,780,000 miles away, is also at work
pulling at the water, and that the sun acts on the ocean ac-
cording to the same laws as the moon. But as its action is
much less intense (it is somewhat less than half that of our
satellite) we shall not in this brief article on the tides consider
the solar tide generating force.
The force, then, which generates the tides is mainly the
attraction of the moon. But how, it may be asked, can lunar
attraction affect an ocean resting on the earth ? How can it
bring about changes in the sea-level so that twice in twenty-
four hours there is high and low water, the interval between
high tides being on the average fifty minutes later on each
successive day ? Well, let us first observe that every particle
of the sea and land is not equally acted on by the moon. If
this were not the case, if the force of attraction were equally
exerted on every particle of land and sea, the whole mass
would move harmoniously together ; no water would be dis-
placed relative to the land. But the pull of our satellite is
not quite equal on ever/ particle of land and water. And
here bear in mind that it is not the straight up or down pull,
it is not the vertical attraction of the moon which is efficient
in causing the sea to rise ; for the vertical part of the tide-
454 THE TIDES. [Jan.,
generating force is too weak to overcome gravity ; gravity
acts in a vertical direction ; the water must stay in contact
with the earth. The force of the moon's attraction is mani-
fested when it is exerted, not vertically but horizontally. It is
the force acting along the level; the horizontal force of the
moon's pull ; the force acting along the earth's surface in the
direction of the point which faces full towards the moon, over
which the moon is. directly hanging, that disturbs the water.
We need not, therefore, consider the straight up or down pull
of our satellite. But in order that we may better understand
how the moon's attraction does affect the ocean, we must re-
member that our globe is a spherical mass of which three-
quarters is surrounded by a liquid envelope, and that one-half
of this mass is always successively turned towards the moon,
and that the water on the side nearest to our satellite is more
forcibly drawn towards it than the centre of the earth is. For
not only is the water nearer to the attracting body, but being
a liquid it is also free to move, and it may heap itself up
under the force of the moon's attraction despite the rotation
of the earth. There is, moreover, a high tide not only on the
side of the globe which is turned towards the moon, but also
on the side which is turned away from it. And this is not
inconsistent with the moon's attraction when we reflect that
the solid crust is pulled by the moon more forcibly than the
water is pulled on the side turned away; and on this further
side of the globe the heaping up of the sea, the high tide, is
to be explained by the fact that the solid crust has, as it
were, left the liquid behind it. What is called Spring tide (the
exceptionally high water which occurs twice in 29^ days, at
new and full moon) is when the tide-generating forces of the
moon and of the sun come together; and the tides may be
viewed as enormous waves. Here we quote from Professor
Stanley Jevons' The Principles of Science, vol. ii. p. 98: "One
wave is produced by the attraction of the moon and another
by the attraction of the sun, and the question arises whether
when these waves coincide as at the time of Spring tides, the
joint wave will be simply the sum of the separate waves."
There is also a very low tide known as Neap tide, and this
is the lunar tide minus the solar tide.
Now, surely when we reflect on what the tide really is
the never-ceasing movement of flood and ebb we cannot but
be impressed with its mighty power; nor is it unreasonable
to believe that the tides may in some future day do the
Igor.] THE TIDES. 455
world's mechanical work when all the coal mines are ex-
hausted.
But having said this much about the moon's attraction, sup-
pose our simple fisherman were to say : " Well, it 's still a
puzzle to me. I can't pull a fish in without a line ; wish I
could. Yet here you 're telling me that the moon, 240,000
miles off, can pull the water towards it."
Well, our answer might perhaps not make our friend much
the wiser were we to say that with the march of science we are
able to-day to show that the tides are a necessary consequence
of the gravitational attx-action of the sun and moon, and that
this attraction follows from Newton's piinciple of gravitation.
And just think what would happen without gravitation. With-
out it every living creature on earth would go flying off into
space. But what is gravity ? To quote again from Jevons'
The Principles of Science, vol. ii. p. 141 : " The force of gravity
is in some respects an almost incomprehensible existence, but
in other respects entirely conformable to experience. We can
distinctly observe that the force is proportional to mass, and
that it acts in entire independence of the other matter which
may be present or intervening."
Now, what can be more puzzling than an absolutely instan-
taneous force which acts with perfect indifference to all interven-
ing obstacles ? To gravity all media are non-existent. There-
fore we may confess that the fisherman knows as much about
this mysterious force as we know.
But now let us dwell on the effect which millions and
millions of tons of water, disturbed by lunar attraction, may
have upon the movement of our globe. High authorities tell
us that the swaying of such a vast volume of water in oceans
of the average depth of ours tends to retard the rotation of
the earth. For when the waters, so to speak, rub against the
bottom, the effect of this fluid friction is in fact to throw the
protuberances, the mounds of water, the swelling of the sea,
as we may term the tides, backward in a direction opposed to
the earth's rotation. And, moreover, this tidal action on the
earth reacting on our satellite, which is held to us by the
attraction of gravity, causes her to move in a gradually increas-
ing spiral orbit further and further away. On this subject.
Professor G. H. Darwin, son of the great naturalist, tells us in
his very interesting work, The Tides, that from the earliest
records of eclipses in Greek and Assyrian history, we may be
sure that the retardation of the earth's rotation and the re-
456 THE TIDES. [Jan.,
cession of the moon have been at any rate extremely slow.
But he goes on to say:* "It does not, however, follow from
this that the changes have always been equally slow; indeed,
it may be shown that the efficiency of tidal friction in-
creases with great rapidity as we bring the tide-generating
satellite nearer to the planet." And another authority, speaking
of tidal action on the earth reacting on the moon, saysrf
" The tidal deformation of the water exercises the same influ-
ence on the moon as if she were attracted not precisely in a
line towards the earth's centre, but in a line slanting very
slightly, relative to her motion, in the direction forwards. The
moon, then, continually experiences a force forward in her
orbit by reaction from the waters of the sea. Now, it might
be supposed for a moment that a force acting forward would
quicken the moon's motion ; but, on the contrary, the action
of the force is to retard her motion. It is a curious fact,
easily explained, that a force continually acting forward with
the moon's motion will tend, in the long run, to make the
moon's motion slower, and increase her distance from the earth."
And a few pages further on he adds : " The earth is filled
with evidences that it has not been going on for ever in the
present state, and that there is a progress of events towards a
state infinitely different from the present."
But it is in Professor G. H. Darwin's work, The Tides, that
the tides and their far-reaching effects are the most fully treated.
His theory traces the moon's history back to her birth when,
after her probable formation from fragments which had become
detached from our globe, she almost grazed the earth as she
revolved, and he believes that at that remote epoch our earth
must have raised on her semi-fluid satellite enormous tides of
molten lava. Then, transporting us to the indefinite future,
Professor Darwin briefly dwells on what we may conjecture to
be the ultimate effects of lunar and solar tidal friction upon
the earth, and by interaction upon the moon, should there still
be oceans left on our globe.
But without going further on this point let us say that the
moon in this far-off future day will be moving with a shorter
period ; she will be slowly coming nearer and nearer to us
again ; and in the end our worn and weary satellite will fall
back into the earth which gave her birth.
Here we might close our remarks on the tides. Yet we
* G. H. Darwin : The Tides, and kindred Phenomena in the Solar System, p. 273.
t Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Lectures and Addresses, p. 33.
1901.] THE TIDES. 457
cannot refrain from adding a few more words to say that
astronomers believe that tidal friction is an efficient cause of
change in stars infinitely remote from our solar system. It
seems scarcely credible when we consider the double stars,
the binary systems of the universe, of which nearly one thou-
sand have been discovered, that two globes should in so many
instances have accidentally come so close one to the other out
of boundless space. Nor can the double stars have always
moved as they are moving to-day ; and Professor G. H. Dar-
win says on this interesting subject:* "The only efficient in-
teraction between a pair of celestial bodies, which is known
hitherto, is a tidal one, and the friction of the oscillations in-
troduces a cause of change in the system. Tidal friction tends
to increase the eccentricity of the orbit in which two bodies
revolve about one another, and its efficiency is much increased
when the pair are not very unequal in mass and when each is
perturbed by the tides due to the other. The fact that the
orbits of the majority of the known pairs are very eccentric
affords a reason for accepting the tidal explanation."
When, therefore, we make our next visit to the sea-side let
us reflect on what the tide really is ; think what a mighty
power it is ; and let us remember, too, that astronomers believe
that tidal friction affects not only our planet and its moon,
but that it has been an efficient cause of change in the double
stars, the very nearest of which (so far as is known at present),
Alpha Centauri, is so distant that its light, travelling at the
rate of 186,300 miles a second, takes 4^ years to reach us.
Make, then, no vain attempt to stop the waves from de-
stroying your tiny house of sand on the beach. In the
steadily approaching tide you are beholding only one of the
numberless phenomena which God has given man a mind to
study and to explain.
*The Tides, p. 343.
VOL. LXXII. 30
458
THE BURIED CASKET.
[Jan.,
THE BURIED CASKET.
BY ETHEL NAST.
TOOK a small package of papers from my
satchel, and fumbled through them until I found
a stained and yellow envelope.
My wife eagerly followed my movements,
and, as I extracted the enclosed slip of paper,
she put her arm through mine and with bated breath we read
the contents. The handwriting was cramped and unsteady,
but plainly decipherable. It ran thus :
" The casket is at Bethlehem, Palestine, in the Franciscan
monastery; in the right wall of the corridor leading into the
Church of St. Catherine, three blocks of stone from the pave-
ment and ten from the entrance to the church. The block
behind which the casket lies has a dark streak running di-
agonally across its surface."
That was all. We had read these lines until we knew them
by heart and could repeat them in any order, with full ex-
planations on the shading and curve of every character; and
yet we were rereading them with the eager interest of a month
ago, when they had stamped themselves into our brains for
the first time.
A few moments later we were startled by a rap at the
door, announcing the Brother who was to accompany us on
our mission.
I slipped the paper into my breast pocket, and after a few
hurried preparations we followed him along the winding cor-
ridors, through the monastery gate, and out into the narrow
streets.
We had reached Jerusalem late the preceding evening, and
in the bustle and confusion of arrival had received only a
vague impression of our surroundings. The crowded lanes
seemed no less tortuous in the day-time, but their twilight
mystery was dispelled ; and the sunbeams, lighting the gloom
in the vaulted passages, made a slip on the miry pavement a
less hazardous thing than it had seemed in the darkness.
We noted these facts, and a few others, as we gave fleet-
ing glances down the cross streets or up at the latticed case-
190 1.] THE BURIED CASKET, 459
ments, but we were principally absorbed in covering as
quickly as possible the ground that lay between us and the
Jaffa Gate.
We suddenly found ourselves in a square filled with a
jostling crowd of men, women, and children. The blaze of
light and color was a dazzling contrast to the white-walled
passages through which we had come, and we stopped for a
moment to watch the kaleidoscopic effects of the turbaned
figures and veiled women grouped around the market stalls.
We fell in with the line that was surging towards the Jaffa
Gate and slowly worked our way outside the city walls. There
we had no difficulty in finding a carriage, which we engaged
to take us to Bethlehem.
The road was fairly good, and disclosed an ever varying
vista, as it wound along the hill sides and amid the valleys. I
was too absorbed to feel the impress of the historic landscape,
and was only startled out of my lethargy as we passed the
lonely tree on which Judas hanged himself, and the well where
the Magi saw again the glimmer of the guiding star. At the
extremity of a lonely plain, by the roadside, lay the Tomb of
Rachel, and on the hill beyond, the village of Bethlehem,
crowning the terraced slopes.
We were soon rattling over the cobbles of a steep, nar-
row street which emerged into the market place encircled
by white-domed houses and the dark pile of the Latin
monastery.
We were here given comfortable quarters in the section
reserved for pilgrims, and, on disposing of our belongings, I
requested to see the superior.
After a seemingly interminable delay I was summoned to
a small ante-room on the ground floor. Its only furnishings
were a table and four plain deal chairs, and a crucifix that
hung on the white-washed walls. I had not waited more than
a moment when the door opened and a Franciscan monk ap-
peared. I felt instinctively that he was the one I sought, and
I rose to meet him.
"Father John?" I questioned.
He assented, and asked in English how he could serve me.
I started at hearing my own tongue, having naturally ex-
pected to be obliged to carry on the interview in French.
" That simplifies matters, since you speak English," I ex-
claimed, and started at once to explain my mission. " I have
a very strange request to make," I said hesitatingly. He
460 THE BURIED CASKET. [Jan.,
nodded, and we seated ourselves on either side of the table.
" I have come to Palestine expressly for it," I continued, feel-
ing for the envelope in my coat pocket. " There is a casket
buried in the wall of one of the corridors of the monastery
which I wish to recover."
When I had prepared this statement, I naturally had not
expected it to be received with unquestioning credulity. I
had intended backing it at once with convincing proofs that
could leave no doubt of its truth. But when I had said these
words all further utterance was checked and I remained silent
and motionless, their fantastic clang ringing in my ears and
my eyes riveted on the face before me.
Father John had been sitting with his arms crossed before
him and his gaze bent on the floor. As I spoke his eyes met
mine in questioning scrutiny, then wandered to the wall behind
me. There was no notable change in his courteous attention,
but I felt as though he were only waiting for me to finish to
bow me with regrets out of the room.
" The circumstances by which I came by this information
leave no doubt of its credibility," I said at last, drawing the
paper from the envelope. " This paper was given me by my
father-in-law on his death-bed, when he was already in the
throes of his last agony. He gave me to understand it was
of vital importance, and, on my assurance that I would recover
the casket, he died, gasping with his last breath, " Now I can
go in peace."
I handed the paper across the table. Father John took it,
but at the first glance looked up quickly and said : " Your
father-in-law's name was "
" Charles Warwick," I responded, gratified at the note of
interest in his voice.
The eyes that were looking into mine contracted as though
in intense pain. The calm serenity of his features hardened
into an expression of suffering. I made an involuntary move-
ment to go to his assistance, but settled back in my chair as
he said quietly, " I will consider what is to be done in the
matter." He then rose, and though I noticed that his tall
form swayed and that he reached out to the table to steady
himself, there was nothing for me to do but express my
thanks and leave the room.
I rejoined my wife, who was impatiently awaiting my re-
turn, and with one of the Brothers, who was detailed to
accompany us, we started for the Chapel of the Nativity.
190 r.] THE BURIED CASKET. 461
After winding in and out of a labyrinth of passages we came
to a spacious corridor.
" Is that the entrance to the Church of St. Catherine ? " I
asked, indicating the portal at the farther end.
" Yes," the brother answered, and proceeded towards it.
I lingered behind and counted the blocks of stone until I
came to the tenth. I could not suppress an exclamation of
surprise, in spite of my assurance of finding what I sought.
There was the dark streak running diagonally across its sur-
face ! I should have preferred remaining there the rest of the
day, with my eyes fastened on that fateful block of stone ;
but, to avoid giving rise to suspicions, I followed my wife and
the Brother, who had entered the church.
There was little of interest to detain us there, so we pro-
ceeded through a low door into the ancient basilica, built by
the Emperor Constantine over the Grotto of the Nativity, and
descended at once into the crypt.
There all was darkness but for the orbit of light that radi-
ated from the place where our Lord was born. We sank on
our knees around the star in the pavement that indicated the
spot, and for the time being all else was forgotten but the
Babe of Bethlehem on that first Christmas night.
When we arose our eyes had become accustomed to the
obscurity, and we were able to discern our surroundings. The
grotto was low, and deepened here and there into alcoves,
in one of which was the altar where the Magi knelt, and a
shrine where the manger lay. ,
I was attracted to the figure of a monk kneeling in one of
the furthermost recesses. There was something familiar in the
spare, gaunt form ; but the cowl was drawn over his head, and
from my position I could not see his features. His hands were
slightly advanced, and clasped with such rigid force that they
seemed to crush each other.
I advanced to where the rays from the lamps shed a glim-
mer of light on his upturned face. His eyes were closed, but
there was no mistaking those emaciated features. Their look
of suffering was gone, and in its stead shone the radiance of
unutterable peace.
I turned away noiselessly, almost fearfully, as though my
carnal eyes had pried unlawfully upon the beatitude of the
blessed.
After dinner we waited about, hoping some word from
Father John would come to put an end to our uncertainty ;
462 THE BURIED CASKET. [Jan.,
but, as the hours dragged on without allaying our suspense,
we took a stroll around the village and down into the valley
where the shepherds were tending their flocks when the angels
brought them the good tidings.
There was something strangely quieting in the atmosphere
of the sacred locality that soothed our feverish impatience and
attuned our souls to far higher aspirations than the recovery of
the fateful casket.
We returned to the monastery in time for supper, and im-
mediately afterwards Father John joined us in the refectory.
I introduced him to my wife, and he stayed and chatted with
us with genial good humor. He seemed to take especial plea-
sure in my wife's account of our home and our personal inter-
ests in general, and I began to fear he had forgotten all about
our interview of the morning.
As the chapel bell sounded he rose and, turning to me, said :
"I have made arrangements to have the stone removed; join
me in the church at nine o'clock." Then to my wife he added :
"You may await our return here." With a courteous inclina-
tion he was gone.
We passed the intervening time exhausting the field of
speculation in regard to the casket, and at the stroke of nine
I met Father John at the church door. He was accompanied
by two Brothers, each of whom carried a number of tools.
After securing ourselves from any possible intrusion, we
proceeded at once to the stone indicated on the paper. The
Brothers declined * my proffered assistance, and immediately
commenced boring and cutting. Father John supervised the
work, giving a word of direction from time to time ; apart from
that, nothing was said.
The lantern cast a dim, uncertain light that barely outlined
the forms of the saints in the niches and the faces gleaming
out of the painted canvases. And the shadows of cowled
figures bent and swayed to the accompaniment of the clinking
of the iron on the stone. The hours dragged on to midnight,
and, as the last stroke sounded, we brought our united efforts
to dislodge the block. I thrust my hand into the aperture and
an electric thrill tingled through my veins as it came in con-
tact with a cold metallic object. A moment afterwards I drew
forth a small iron casket, covered with dust and rust.
My eyes met Father John's with a look of triumph, that
immediately softened into gratitude as i noted his worn, hag-
gard appearance.
.] THE BURIED CASKET. 463
" Go to the refectory," he said ; " I will join you there as
soon as possible."
I insisted upon remaining and helping repair the damage,
but he was inflexible ; so I sped, as though on wings, to re-
join my wife. The room was empty and the candles burned
low in their sockets. My curiosity would admit of no delay,
so I turned the key that was in the lock and raised the lid.
The first thing I saw was an envelope inscribed : " Receipts
for payment of debt to Falkstone and Co." Under this lay a
blank envelope and beneath a morocco jewel case. In fever-
ish haste I opened it and held my breath in astonishment on
beholding the contents. In the folds of tufted satin lay a
necklace of pearls of unusual size and dazzling brilliancy. At-
tached to the clasp was a card with the words :
"I destine this necklace and heirloom for the bride of my
second and youngest son, Francis.
(Signed) MARIE ADELE WARWICK."
I involuntarily opened the blank envelope in hopes of find-
ing a clew to the mystery and drew forth several closely writ-
ten sheets. This is what I read :
" I, the undersigned, Charles Warwick, swear the following
to be true.
" My father was senior partner of the banking house of
Warwick, Falkstone & Co. At his death I was cashier, and
my younger brother, Francis, assistant cashier of the bank.
We were the sole surviving members of the family. I had
been married three years, and lived in unstinted luxury, hav-
ing grown up in the belief that I would inherit a fortune. At
my father's death the estate was discovered to be burdened
with 1 debts and was divided among the creditors. My salary
could not begin to meet the demands of my extravagant
mode of life, so I resorted to speculation. In a succession of
unfortunate deals I lost $50,000. To meet my obligations I
took the money from the bank, expecting to repay it at once on
the strength of having the inside on a sure deal. The deal fell
through, and at the same time the examination of the accounts
fell due, and I saw myself exposed to discovery and dishonor.
" On the eye of the examination, after two weeks of terri-
ble suspense, the horrors of my position reached a climax and
I saw no escape but death. The pistol was already pressed
against my temple ; the same instant it was snatched from my
grasp, and I cowered on the floor in a paroxysm of despair at
464 THE BURIED CASKET. [Jan.,
the feet of my brother Francis. He was the soul of honor,
and I know not how I had the courage to tell him of my
shame ; but, when the whole wretched truth was out, I col-
lapsed into a listless apathy, while he thought and planned
what was to be done.
" Of a sudden the stillness struck me as oppressive. I
looked up and cried out with dread foreboding at what I saw.
Francis was standing, bowed and trembling, with his hands
clasping his temples as though in a frenzy.
" ' My God,' he groaned, ' spare me this ! '
" The agony in his voice put the last screw to my torture.
"'Have pity on me,' I cried; ' I alone am dishonored!'
" The effect of my words was instantaneous ; he became calm
at once.
" ' There isn't a moment to be lost,' he said hurriedly.
' Give me what money you have. Offer the pearl necklace in
part payment, and swear to me that you will never rest until
you repay every cent.'
"'What do you mean?' I gasped.
" I mean that I am the defaulter ; that I must fly to escape
imprisonment. Plead with the directors to keep my dishonor
secret, in memory of my father's name. Give them to under-
stand that you will take the burden of my debt on your
shoulders, and that you will repay every farthing.'
"'Are you mad?' I cried. 'You shall not wreck your life
for me.'
" ' There is not question of you or me,' he said solemnly.
' Your wife and child must be spared. No one will suffer
through my dishonor.'
" So it was he carried his point and fled. His flight was
taken as proof positive of his guilt. My utter mental and
physical collapse, together with the memory of my father's
long and honorable career, moved the directors to keep the
crime secret. From that day I directed every effort to cancel
the debt.
" My suspense concerning my brother's fate made my life a
torture. Two years from that fateful night I received the first
news of his whereabouts. He was in the Holy Land and had
become a Franciscan monk. Our constant correspondence from
that time on gave me the needful strength to bear up under
the weight of remorse that crushed me. In consequence of
his express wishes I kept the secret of his fate inviolate. He
desired to be dead to the world, and in time was so regarded.
1901.] THE BURIED CASKET. 465
" When the last payment of the debt was made I undertook
the journey to Palestine to see him. He was then the superior
at Bethlehem, and a model of sanctity and learning throughout
the country. The moment I laid eyes on him the last load of
remorse was lifted from me. I knew then that my crime had
been expiated and his sacrifice crowned.
" Five years have passed since then and I have returned to
Bethlehem for the second time. The dread of carrying my
secret with me to the grave continually haunts me. My
brother will not consent to its being divulged, so, unknown to
him, I have resolved to take the following means of guarding
it and leaving its oblivion, or disclosure, to the designs of
Providence.
" They are repairing the wall of the corridor leading into the
Church of St. Catherine. Yesterday I discovered a cavity where
I could readily insert a casket without danger of discovery, as
the wall will be finished to morrow. With this statement I will
place the receipts for the payments of the debt ; and the pearl
necklace, my brother's inheritance, which he will not accept
and which I dare not touch.
(Signed) " CHARLES WARWICK."
How many times I reread this statement I do not know,
but I looked up with a start when Father John stood be-
side me at last and took the paper from my nerveless grasp.
I watched him with breathless interest as his glance sped from
line to line, but watched in vain for the quiver of a muscle,
or the slightest index of any emotion. When he finished he
folded it and the next instant held it in the candle flame. I
sprang forward, but dared not force the barrier of his out-
stretched arm. A moment afterwards there was nothing left
but a heap of blackened ashes.
We both started as my wife came into the room, exclaim-
ing in disappointment at having overslept herself. The mo-
rocco case riveted her attention at once.
" Jewels ! " she exclaimed. Then she read the card and the
inscribed envelope.
" Poor father ! " she said sadly. " It is a very sad family
secret," she added, turning to Father John. " My father's
younger brother was a defaulter and fled to escape imprison-
ment. The dishonor nearly killed my father and wrecked his
life."
466 THE BURIED CASKET. fjan.,
I could have sunk through the floor in shame at these
words, and stole a glance at Father John, thinking that now
or never his eyes would flash with the pent-up emotions of
outraged honor; but whatever light was in them I could not
see, for they were bent studiously on the floor.
" You may judge how deeply it affected him," she con-
tinued, while I was racking my brain to end the painful situa-
tion. " He was haunted by it on his death-bed ; and to think
of his having buried these associations of his brother in this
out-of-the way place! I would be afraid to wear the necklace,"
she added, pushing it away shudderingly. " There is no tell-
ing what other crimes he may have committed, or what terri-
ble death was his punishment."
"Judgment is the Lord's, my child," came the mild re-
sponse. " Accept the necklace. I will answer for it, that it
will bring you no harm." He took it in his hands and han-
dled it caressingly.
" It was destined for his bride, father," I said with a chok-
ing sensation in my throat. " It shall not be desecrated by
being worn by any one."
He held the necklace a moment longer, then handed it to
my wife, saying, as a smile parted his lips, " Give it to the
Church, the Bride of Christ, in expiation for your uncle's
crimes."
The next morning we stood at the monastery gate waiting
for Father John to bid him farewell. All was in readiness for
departure ; my wife guarded the morocco case, and the rest
of our belongings were tucked away under the carriage seat.
Our Arab driver cracked his whip and shouted lustily at the
loiterers who had collected to see us off.
Father John came at last, and after a few affectionate
words of parting, blessed us. A moment later we were in our
seats and looking for the last time upon that gaunt figure in
the coarse brown habit, with tonsured head and sandalled feet.
Then we were off, across the square and down the narrow
street. As I turned for a parting glance the light had faded
from' the portal, and all I saw was a receding form disappear
in the cloister.
1901.]
THE Two WA YS.
467
ci>e cwo
Che sin is sweet, perhaps, but oD tbe pain
thai wakens in the beart wben all is done !
Simple toe wap where toil's footprints run,
But bard, bow bard, to eome back borne again.
We learn so soon to follow in tbe train
Of tbose wbo travel sinward ; etxrc one
Can find tbe road to Jollp ; once begun,
Row easp is tbe patb bow broad and plain !
But busb ! Co turn back wben tbe web grows strong-
Co free tbe beart entrapped in manp a snare !
Row far it is back to tbe purer air.
Simple tbe journep to tbe gates of Wrong,
Pet wben we would return, in deep despair,
Cbe wap is steep, and dark, and uerp long !
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE.
468
"DOGMA AND DOGMATISM.
[Jan.,
DOGMA AND DOGMATISM.
BY E. F. G.
now appears that the Congress of Priests which
took place at Bourges on the tenth of October
last was something more than a mere reunion ;
it was an event in the history of French Catho-
licism.* All the world over readers are eagerly
devouring the reports of the speeches and resolutions which
issued from that assemblage. The present writer would com-
ment upon one pronouncement full of significance for those
who are familiar with the great religious issues now absorbing
the attention of the intelligent world both .in Europe and
America. We refer to the emphatic declaration on the part
of this representative body that the Pope and the Bishops are
to be recognized as official guides in the domain of religion,
and in consequence that " no coterie, party, or organ " shall be
allowed to control Catholic opinion.f
We perceive at once the cause and the significance of this
very positive declaration of independence in matters of opinion :
it results from the prevalence of dogmatizing tendencies among
Catholics of a certain class ; it indicates that the French clergy
detect the danger and realize the necessity of providing against
it. The conviction that this issue is an important one prevails
in more places than in France alone. Thoughtful minds in
Germany, England, and America have been roused by the
warning that Catholicism's conquest of the world depends on
its representatives making clear distinction between dogma
and dogmatism, consecrating the one and repudiating the other.
It is coming to be recognized that there is something almost
repulsive to the intellectual temper outside the church in the no-
tion of a dogmatic religion, and that it is precisely a distortion
of this aspect of Catholicism which is repelling many minds more
Catholic in their very dislike of dogmatism and their profound
sense of the insufficiency of the human reason than some of
those whose narrow and intolerant orthodoxy they resent.
There is but one way to meet this difficulty fairly. We must
be as frank in acknowledging faults on our own side as we are
* Revue du Clergf Fran fat's, Oct. 15, p. 440. t L' Univers, September 19, 1900.
1901.] DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. 469
in pointing out those on the other ; and as generous in ad-
mitting the merits and excellences of the modern spirit as we
are energetic in protesting against its excesses.
AUTHORIZED DOGMA AND UNAUTHORIZED DOGMATISM.
While we are strong in upholding the claims of divinely
revealed dogma and in condemning unqualified license of doubt
and opinion, let us be no less firm in denouncing the spirit of
self-confident, unauthorized dogmatism, and in commending
what might perhaps paradoxically be termed a certain Chris-
tian "agnosticism," a modesty and diffidence of judgment
which becomes the advanced age in which we live, an age
which has put away the crude mind of boyhood and has been
taught by bitter experience to distrust itself. For such a
moderate and prudent distrust is as favorable a disposition
for faith as a dogmatizing spirit is an unfavorable one. And
although much which passes to-day for toleration and charity
in regard to diversities of opinion is only indifference to truth,
or a conviction of the unattainableness of absolute and final
truth in any matter, yet it would be unjust to our age, and
hardly loyal to the overruling providence of God which per-
mits evil in the interests of good, to deny the fact that many
minds outside the church are learning the lesson which the
failure of rationalism and science to supply for religion is
teaching them. Private judgment and private dogmatism, which
carried their forefathers out of the church, are working their own
cure, and as the fever burns itself out it leaves the mind puri-
fied of the poison of narrow Self-sufficiency, and disposed to
rest once more in simple faith. Doubtless, in numberless cases a
fatal weakness has been induced and helpless scepticism is the
result. Still, the tendency of the movement is as much to-
wards faith as that of the dogmatizing spirit is away from
faith. It is not wonderful, then, that those sincere and hum-
bled minds outside the church who know her only as repre-
sented by her professed adversaries or by her least representa-
tive exponents, and who in consequence make no distinction
between the authorized dogma of our religion and the unau-
thorized dogmatism of certain of its professors, should feel
that there is more faith in their own doubt than in the creed
of many a Christian. Not, indeed, that there is ; but that
their diffidence is more akin to the spirit of faith than the
self-confidence of many who actually possess the faith, and
forget that it is the gift of God. We do not say this of all
470 DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. [Jan.,
non-Catholics, or of the majority, but of many ; of those who
think deeply and sincerely, and whose thought the majority
misapprehend and pervert.
THE FEW ARE LEADERS THE MANY ARE LED.
Let us be clear on this point : that all great intellectual or
spiritual progress, real or apparent, is the work of the few.
Those who think, and who lead thought, are necessarily the
few. The great multitudes are led ; they either do not think
or only think that they think. They follow altogether blindly,
or at most try to understand something of the general gist of
movements. They pick up phrases and catch words, which
they interpret or misinterpret according to their particular
variety and degree of stupidity. Nor, when we consider the
ever-growing amount of information which has to be assimilated
in order to satisfy the requirements of modern education, leav-
ing the mind ever less leisure for thought, does it seem likely
that this evil will be remedied, or rather that it will be
aggravated as time goes on and thought becomes more and
more the monopoly of a limited number? Yet, on many ques-
tions concerning the conduct of life and those the most pro-
foundly difficult the majority is by no means disposed to
observe a neutrality corresponding to its ignorance and inca-
pacity. It must be always a zealous partisan. In some sense
properly so, for every man has a right to know the things
that belong to his peace, and which concern the government
of his life. Still, whether or not those who rightly take sides
thereby acquire a right of leadership is another question.
Wherever there is diversity of opinion on the great practi-
cal problems of life among those who lead, naturally enough
there will be a large following of those who are simply led,
and whose comprehension of the real point at issue is the
smallest possible ; but the overreadiness of such to push them-
selves forward on all occasions as the representatives and ex-
ponents of their cause will bring that cause into much discredit,
and make mutual understanding and reconciliation impossible
between conflicting parties.
METHODS OF APOLOGETICS.
Let us consider the question of Apologetical methods.
Would it not be a great calamity were we to judge of the
tone and temper of the Catholic religion by that of certain of
her exponents ? We might as well have expected the Saracens
190 1.] DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. 471
to gather the Spirit of Christ and his Gospel from the average
Crusader in the field of battle. The accredited doctors of
the church are few and far between. It might be said truly
that Catholicity is as imperfectly realized in the majority
of Catholics as Christianity in the majority of Christians.
For both are ideals. Of course, as far as orthodoxy goes, all
Catholics are equal ; but orthodoxy is merely the framework
or skeleton of the Catholic mind, which skeleton may be
clothed with an infinite variety of forms, attractive or repul-
sive. We should expect, therefore, to find a large majority
in whom the ideal is but very imperfectly realized. We
have said that being the religion of the multitudes, Chris-
tianity is necessarily a religion adapted to the needs of the
majority; and that if the philosophical and cultured few
receive it at all, they must throw in their lot with the many,
and receive it as little children. But if dogmatism is always
justifiable on the part of the Omniscient God, it is not
always justifiable on the part of dim sighted and fallible man.
Doubtless it is fitting that beginners in every department of
knowledge should receive dogmatically from others what has
been already verified by the experience and reflection of race ;
and what they may verify for themselves hereafter, if so dis-
posed. Yet outside this sphere of legitimate dogmatism the
region of free thought stretches far and wide, and here no
man has authority to deny to his neighbor that " libertas in
dubiis " which he claims for himself.
i
THE CROWD IS INTOLERANT.
But the lower down we go in the scale of intelligence, cul-
ture, and breadth of view, the more marked is the tendency to
force one's opinion upon others, to exercise a tyrannical rule
over their minds, and to hold them in subjection. 'It is use-
less here to analyze this tendency or to show in detail how
often it is the natural egoism of a soul too superficial and
ignorant to know the meaning of even rational doubt and un-
certainty, too vain and lustful of superiority to endure the
supposition that another should possess any intellectual advan-
tage. That one who has the truth should desire to impart it
and to share his treasure with others is a high instinct of our
social nature ; but unauthorized dogmatism is only a vile per-
version of this instinct.
Yet in the case of the large majority of imperfectly de-
veloped minds this same dogmatism is more an infirmity than
472 DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. [Jan.,
a fault. It is only a particular manifestation of those gregari-
ous instincts of primitive society which teach men to distrust
and fight against everything that is relatively strange and un-
usual, to look upon foreigners as enemies, to accept their own
language, notions, customs, traditions as the absolute norm
from which all deviations are therefore reprehensible. It is a
necessary phase of imperfection through which every mind has
to pass on its way to juster and more objective conceptions,
and in which the greater majority are perpetually detained to
some degree or other.
We may assume, then, that a right and fair-minded toler-
ance is comparatively rare, more often affected than real ; and
that in most minds the tendency to dogmatize exists in some
degree. Consequently the crowd is always dogmatic and in-
tolerant in respect of any opinion it may hold for the time
being.
THE INNATE PROTESTANTISM OF FALLEN MAN.
So it is not wonderful that many should be found among
the faithful of all ages who, quite unconsciously and under pre-
text of orthodoxy, are prone to gratify this dogmatizing in-
stinct by urging their religious opinions on others, really be-
cause they are their own, ostensibly because they are divinely
authorized ; who are ever trying to bring even their own
wholly unauthorized views under the aegis of ecclesiastical in-
fallibility and to impose them upon others under pain of
anathema ; whose instinct is in favor of binding rather than
loosing ; and that for the mere pleasure of binding. To this
abuse a dogmatic religion necessarily lends itself; just as the
sacramental and jurisdictional powers of the priesthood will
always offer a temptation to the domineering temper of selfish
and small-minded ambition.
Everything finite has its limitations, and the best form of
government ever conceived or conceivable will lend itself to
some particular kind of perversion. "Conservative" and
" Liberal " are tendencies in human nature and in human so-
ciety, which keep one another in check. But a conservative
ministry offers special opportunities for conservative excesses
and abuses. So too a dogmatic religion like Catholic Chris-
tianity, which is moreover the religion of the masses, and in
some ways democratic, cannot fail to be, in a large measure,
misrepresented by its popular exponents. Indeed, the whole
"idea" of Catholicism is too infinitely delicate and complex to
1901.] DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. 473
be seized purely and integrally by any single human mind.
And except in the case of intellects of Newman's calibre there
exists only a painfully imperfect notion of its content. Yet the
lust of private judgment and private dogmatizing, the innate
protestantism and egoism of fallen man, is bound to exert it-
self secretly under pretext of zeal for the public judgment and
public dogma of the church ; nor is it difficult for a trained ear
to detect a certain ring of native nonconformity in many a voice
which assumes but to echo that of the universal Pastor.
This we have a right to resent keenly, seeing it is our
privilege as Catholic Christians to be delivered from all such
individual tyranny and to submit our minds to none but divine
authority in the affairs of our soul and of eternity. While
every Protestant is practically at the mercy of a thousand
unauthorized doctrine-mongers, we own but one pope ; and
we submit ourselves to his infallibility not because his decree
represents the gathered belief of nations and centuries, but
because it is divinely guaranteed to us as the voice of Christ,
to whose representative alone we bow down our intellect.
DOGMATISM THE SPIRIT OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT.
Nothing, therefore, could be .more alien to the spirit of
faith than the spirit of unauthorized dogmatism, which is in
truth the spirit of private judgment, of heresy, and unfaith ;
nothing could be further removed from the modesty, docility,
and childlike " agnosticism " which are the requisite dispositions
of the soul which is to be taught by God, A sense of one's
entire insufficiency and absolute need of guidance in the affairs
of eternity is the only condition on which the "gift of God"
can be obtained. Theologians have speculated that, man after
his fall was left to seek the knowledge of good and evil for
himself, to be his own god and teacher until the lesson of his
blindness had been brought home to him by bitter experience;
and that then Moses restored the primitive economy, God
again became man's teacher in the affairs of eternity, and
man by faith and obedience submitted to receive the kingdom
of heaven as a little child. Somewhat analogous seems the
Divine dispensation in regard to the modern revolt against
faith ; as though a people were to be thus prepared for a re-
turn to that faith in a form more suited to the age, a people
who should at once know the world and the church, and inter-
pret them one to another ; who having digged cisterns for
themselves in vain, should return appreciatively to the well of
VOL. LXXII. 31
474 DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. [Jan.,
living waters. Doubtless in some respects the church and the
modern world have lived side by side, rather than as two rivers
mingling their waters. Since the revolt of the sixteenth cen-
tury dogmatic and general intellectual development have to a
great extent proceeded independently ; perhaps, in some ways,
like two hostile armies mustering for a death struggle. Is it
too much to hope nay, is there not much in God s method to
warrant the hope that each movement somehow is fostering in
its bosom one of those elements whose combination will give
us the perfect mind Fides quarens intellectum and Intellectus
qucerens fidem ; each of which is sterile and lifeless until the
moment of their fruitful union has arrived? Of old the church
trembled before the fierce barbarians who threatened infant
Christendom with a destroying inundation. In the event, the
flood lifted the ark and bore it over the face of Europe. For
in the dark forests of the North God had prepared a people
for himself, and a vigorous progeny for his church ; that she
might cry " Quis me genuit hos ? " Is there nothing now to be
hoped for from the hostile forces around us, from these intel-
lectual Goths and Vandals of our day, from these new icono-
clasts and destroyers of gathered treasures of worship and be-
lief? True, if we take the spirit of the Church and this Modern
spirit as manifested in the majority of those who claim to be
disciples of one or the other, and as represented by their
popular and unaccredited exponents, we shall see nothing but
the most hopeless and irreconcilable antagonism Christ and
Antichrist : but if we remember that discipleship implies an
imperfect and often perverted comprehension of the master's
mind, and if we go to the very source of one light and the
other, to the root-idea of each process, we shall, perhaps, see
that the divergence of the extremes consists with a conver-
gence of the same lines towards the centre ; and that while the
faith is unfolding itself in the bosom of the church, the need
of faith outside the church is making ready to meet it.
Doubtless the very tenacity with which the church holds to
every fragment of the sacred deposit of revealed truth makes
her keenly suspicious of liberal and comprehensive interpreta-
tions, and loth to admit them until they have proved their
soundness by every conceivable test ; yet this is from no love
of the narrower views as such, but only from an abhorrence of
a false liberty purchased at the sacrifice of truth, and from
a conviction that loyalty to law and dogma is the best safe-
guard against the eventual servitude of license. Yet, as has
been said, the church's tenacity to dogma occasionally offers a
1901.] DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. 475
seeming countenance to the unauthorized dogmatism of indi-
viduals who use her authority as a stick for beating their per-
sonal opponents. If one cannot proclaim himself infallible, at
least he can declare that his opinions are those of the infalli-
ble church. If he himself cannot anathematize, he can say that
the Council of Trent has already done so.
A man who is saving life in an emergency has no time
for courtesies and niceties of expression, and the . church's
attention since the sixteenth century has been mainly de-
voted to resisting the excesses of false liberalism, and could
not be bestowed on claims which, in a way, might be trusted
to look after themselves. She has often spoken with an abrupt
decisiveness demanded by urgent peril, when in normal cir-
cumstances she would have waited and suffered questions to
answer themselves. And hence minds to which such severity is
onlytoo congenial under all circumstances indifferently, which are
ever more willing to restrict than to enlarge, have been prone to
push themselves forward as the only thoroughly loyal representa-
tives of Catholicity, and in such a way as to imply that the opposite
school were in the church on sufferance rather than by right.
TWO TENDENCIES : CONSERVATIVE AND PROGRESSIVE.
The truth is, that wherever men are gathered into a society
these two tendencies conservative and progressive will assert
themselves ; and the life of the body depends on their being
happily adjusted and checking one another's excesses. In the
East the excess of the former has ended in petrifaction ; in
Anglicanism the excess of the latter has ended in chaos ; in
the Catholic Church neither has at any time obtained complete
mastery ; but now one, now the other has been in the ascen-
dant, and has for the time being been regarded as a badge of
orthodoxy by those in whose hearts it met with response ; for
according as any mind is naturally swayed by one tendency or
the other, its conception of Catholicity will receive a certain
subjective coloring. As, therefore, both tendencies have their
function, although either unchecked by the other would be
mischievous, so both the progressive and the conservative Catho-
lic are true Catholics, and neither can boast any pre-eminence
over the other in point of orthodoxy.
Granting, however, that the three centuries following the
revolt of Luther were a season of binding rather than of
loosing as far as the direct action of the church herself was
conceived, yet we must not lose sight of the counter-influence
necessarily exerted from without by the spirit of the age,
4/6 DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. [Jan.,
checking the ill effects of the encouragement which every new
definition and decision unwarrantably gives to the spirit of
unauthorized dogmatism ; that is, to those who are eager to
wrest the sword from the hands of authority and wield it in
the defence of their own private opinions. The church has
no need to insist on the " claims of liberty " when the whole
air is ringing with such cries. In these times liberty may be
trusted to look after itself : it is dogma and law that are now
in peril from the excesses of liberty. And liberty does look
after itself and reasserts itself in virtue of its inherent elasticity
if, perhaps, it has in any way been unduly cramped in the con-
flict. Thus the very same tendency whose unrestrained excesses
outside the church are working their own cure, and preparing a
soil for the seed of faith, is also working under restraint within
the church, preparing the faith for that soil, by purging away the
alloy of unauthorized dogmatism which tends to gather round the
divinely authorized dogma of the church ; and which is in truth
the essential spirit of Protestantism and the parent of the Re-
formation. May we not, then, recognize amid all the aimless
confusion of modern speculation a certain steady stream or ten-
dency which makes for faith on the part of the few who really
think? Can we look back on the history of that revolt and not
see that the finger of God was there, that He
" . . . who dwells, not in light alone
But in the darkness and the cloud,"
suffered seeming loss for the sake of greater gain ?
ANTAGONISMS NOT WITHOUT SOME BENEFITS.
It is often and truly said that heresies have been largely
instrumental in unfolding the contents of revelation and bring-
ing into distinct and open recognition aspects of the truth pre-
viously less observed and insisted on. Only when our minds
are questioned are they cleared and made aware of their latent
heresies ; and this is no less true of the collective than of the
individual mind. Often, however, heresy brings into relief not
only the truth it denies, but also some hitherto neglected
truth which it asserts. Indeed, without some such founda-
tion of good no heresy would have any substance wherewith
to support error.* Often it happens that the spirit and tern-
per of the day really need the accentuation of some aspect
of Catholic truth hitherto of less importance. Impatient,
* As goodness hath place in things, so hath truth in ideas. Now, it cannot be that aught
is found wholly void of goodness ; so neither do we find any knowledge that is false in every
part without any admixture of truth ; wherefore, saith Bede, there be no teaching so false
but that here or there it mingleth truth with error." Aquinas, II. II. q. 172, a. 6.
1 90i.] DOGMA AND DOGMATISM. 477
self-willed men take the matter into their own hands, push
things to extremes, and either break off from Catholic unity
themselves, or try to force that alternative on all who fail to
agree with their opinions. But the church's judgment, when it
comes, calmly separates the grain from the chaff, gathers the
one into her garner and scatters the other with her anathema.
Can it be denied that we have been, in many ways, so to
say, brought to a better knowledge of our own mind ; that we
have become more fully and intelligently self-conscious in con-
sequence of three centuries of conflict with insurgents ; that
the teachings to which these last have given prominence often
serve to rouse the church's true children from inaction and
elicit good that otherwise might have never come into being ?
If criticism is pushed to extravagance ; if liberty is ill distin-
guished from license ; if science intrudes into the domain of
morals, yet these are but perversions of things good in them-
selves; things which the age demands and which the church
must supply if she is to be in touch with the age, and to act
upon it. If, then, the very extravagances of heresy have
roused the church to supply sanely what they furnish un-
healthily ; if they have given a rude shock to the indolent
optimism of numbers of Catholics who are content to sit
stolidly in the bark of Peter as so much ballast, securing
steadiness, no doubt, but somewhat at the expense of progress
can we fail to see in the existence of such heresies an
almost necessary condition of the church's development?
God exults in bringing good out of evil, and through evil
greater good than had the evil never been. Fevers work their
own cures at times, and sin its own punishment and purifica-
tion. Where we, rightly enough, attack error in its first be-
ginnings, He suffers it to prevail and spread until its hurtful-
ness is experimentally evident to the least discerning mind.
His favorite argument is the reductio ad absurdum indirect
and tardy perhaps, but of all the most efficacious. Let us
learn from this to hope the influences seemingly most adverse
may become those through which Catholicism will prevail.
Who knows but that the declaration of the Bourges Congress
is as a first note in our song of triumph ; that the remedy for
the frightful dangers arising from liberty, independence, criticism,
science, and history may be found in pushing on instead of in fall-
ing back in the more perfect cultivation of liberty, indepen-
dence, criticism, science, and history? In a storm safety lies not
in hugging the shore but in pushing out boldly into the deep.
4/8 THE STORY OF WHITTIER' s " COUNTESS." [Jan.,
THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S "COUNTESS."
BY MARY E. DESMOND.
ANY of the best poems of John G. Whittier treat
of the legends and romances of the early set-
tlers of the Merrimack Valley. In the stories
of the long ago that were told by the gray-
haired villagers of his native place the poet
found material which by his genius he wove into immortal
verse, and thus preserved many incidents of bygone days that
would soon have been forgotten. Many of these incidents
deal with events in which love, pathos, and tragedy often
found a place, and which his facile pen depicted with a master-
hand.
Among his narrative poems is the romantic and pathetic
tale so graphically told in "The Countess." To many who
have read this poem it may have seemed a fancy sketch, but
such is not the case. The heroine of this tale in verse, who
was the " Countess," was a native of East Haverhill, Massa-
chusetts, the birthplace of Whittier, and her name was Mary
Ingalls.
East Haverhill, or, as it is usually called, Rocks Village, is
situated about four miles from the centre of the business part
of Haverhill, which is a city of about 37,000 inhabitants, and
the chief industry of which is the manufacture of shoes. The
settlement in Haverhill's suburbs, which is the scene of the
poem, is about a mile and a half from the much-visited Whit-
tier Birthplace. It is a very picturesque spot, consisting of
a cluster of houses, nearly all of which are very ancient, and
many fertile farms which slope gently toward the Merrimack
River. No steam or electric cars disturb the stillness, and it
is difficult to realize that only four miles up the river is a
bustling, progressive city. Here the Rocks Bridge, an ancient
covered wooden structure, built in 1828, spans the picturesque
Merrimack, connecting Rocks Village with the pretty little
town of West Newbury, which is directly opposite and which
is one of the most fertile farming towns in eastern Massachu-
setts. In the opening lines of " The Countess " Whittier thus
describes this quiet scene :
THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S ^COUNTESS."
479
GRAVE OF THE COUNTESS.
HAPLY YON WHITE-HAIRED VILLAGER
OF FOURSCORE YEARS CAN SAY
WHAT MEANS THIS NOBLE NAME OF HER
WHO SLEEPS WITH COMMON CLAY."
" Over the wooded northern ridge,
Between the houses brown,
To the dark tunnel of the bridge
The street comes straggling down.
480 THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S " COUNTESS" [Jan.,
" You catch a glimpse through birch and pine
Of cottage, field, and porch,
The tavern with its swinging sign,
The sharp horn of the church.
" The river's steel-blue crescent curves
To meet, at ebb and flow,
The single broken wharf that serves
For sloop and gundelow.
" With salt sea scents along its shores
The heavy hay-boats crawl,
The long attennae of their oars
In lazy rise and fall.
" Along the gray abutment's wall
The idle shad-net dries,
The toll-man in his cobbler's stall
Sits smoking with closed eyes.
" You hear the pier's low undertone,
Of waves that chaff and gnaw ;
You start a skipper's horn is blown
To raise the creaking draw.
" At times a blacksmith's anvil sounds
With slow and sluggard beat,
The stage-coach on its dusty rounds
Wakes up the staring street.
" A place for idle eyes and ears,
A cobwebbed nook of dreams,
Left by the stream whose waves are years,
The stranded village seems.
" And there, like other moss and rust,
The native dweller clings,
And keeps in uninquiring trust
The old, dull round of things.
"The fisher drops his patient lines,
The farmer sows his grain,
Content to hear the murmuring pines
Instead of railroad trains."
1901.] THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S " COUNTESS" 481
Near the centre of the village stands an ancient farm-
house where the heroine of the poem was born in 1786. The
part in which the Ingalls family resided is now the rear of the
house, the portion which fronts the street having been added
in later years. The house is very quaint-looking, and the
small-paned windows and large chimney in the rear portion
attest its antiquity. Some of the rooms once occupied by the
Ingalls family are now used by the family of Moses Little, the
present occupant.
At the time described in the poem Mary Ingalls was nine-
teen years old. In a sketch written by Rebecca I. Davis, of
East Haverhill, many years ago, and which appeared in a little
volume entitled Gleanings from the Merrimack Valley, she is de-
scribed as being "of medium height, with long, golden curls,
violet eyes, fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and so modest and
amiable that others besides him who afterward became her
liege lord looked upon her with interest and favor." Whittier
describes her as
" Of all the village band
Its fairest and its best."
In the latter part of the eighteenth century, at the time of
the French rebellion, when Napoleon took the reins of govern-
ment a second time, a company of exiles, about sixteen in
number, fled from Guadeloupe and came to this country.
They landed at Newburyport, Mass., in March, 1792. This
city is situated at the mouth of the Merrimack River. Nine
of the party settled in Newburyport, and old stones in one of
its ancient cemeteries mark their resting place. At the close
of the war five returned to their native land. Among those
who remained were Count Francis de Vipart and his cousin,
Joseph Rochemont de Poyen. After a time these two exiles
wandered up the Merrimack River and landed at Rocks Vil-
lage. Count de Vipart was a fine-looking man, of stately bear-
ing and of a very genial and courteous nature. Of him Whit-
tier wrote :
" Yet, still in gay and careless ease,
To harvest field and dance
He brought the gentle courtesies,
The nameless grace of France."
His meeting and acquaintance with Mary Ingalls, the belle
482 THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S " Co UNTESS." [Jan.,
of the little settlement, soon ripened into love, and in less
than a year they were wedded in the village church.
" An exile from the Gascon land
Found refuge here and rest ;
And loved of all the village band
Its fairest and its best.
" He knelt with her on Sabbath morns,
He worshipped through her eyes,
And on the pride that doubts and scorns
Stole in her faith's surprise."
The difference in their stations in life naturally created a
great sensation among the villagers. The count, however, in
no way showed that he realized the difference in their social
position, for
" Each grew to each in sweet accord,
Nor knew the gazing town
If she looked upward to her lord,
Or he to her looked down.
" For her his rank aside he laid ;
He took the hue and tone
Of lowly life and toil, and made
Her simple ways his own.
" And she who taught him love not less
From him she loved in turn
Caught in her sweet unconsciousness
What love is quick to learn."
Mrs. de Vipart's mother was an invalid, and her daughter
carefully and unceasingly tended her, ministering in every way
to her comfort. Being naturally of a delicate constitution, in
a short time Mary contracted consumption, and in less than a
year after her happy marriage she answered the call of the
dread destroyer.
"Ah! life is brief, though love be long,
The altar and the bier ;
The bridal hymn and burial song,
Were both in one short year."
Count de Vipart was very much grieved over the death of
THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S "COUNTESS." 483
his beautiful bride, and soon after her decease he returned to
his native land. After many years he again married, and at
his death, several years later, he was interred in the family
tomb at Bordeaux.
Whittier thus contrasts their positions in death :
" Her rest is quiet on the hill,
Beneath the locust's bloom !
Far off her lover sleeps as still
Within his scutcheoned tomb.
" The Gascon lord and village maid
In death still clasp their hands ;
The love which levels rank and grade
Unite their severed lands.
" What matters whose the hill-side grave,
Or whose the blazoned stone ?
For ever to her western wave
Shall whisper blue Garonne !
"And while ancestral pride shall twine
The Gascon's tomb with flowers,
Fall sweetly here, O song of mine,
With summer's bloom and showers ! "
The countess was interred in Greenwood Cemetery, on East
Broadway, East Haverhill, not far from the village where her
short life was spent. The Quaker poet thus writes of her rest-
ing place :
" Go where, amid the tangled steep
That slopes against the west,
The hamlet's buried idlers sleep
In still profounder rest.
" Throw back the locust's flowery plume,
The birch's pale-green scarf,
And break the web of briar and bloom
From name and epitaph.
"A simple muster roll of Death,
Of pomp and romance shorn,
The dry old names that common breath
Has cheapened and outworn.
484 THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S " COUNTESS" [Jan.,
"Yet pause by one low mound, and part
The wild vines o'er it laced,
And read the words by rustic art
Upon its headstone traced.
" Haply yon white-haired villager
Of fourscore years can say
What means this noble name of her
Who sleeps with common clay."
The gray slate stone which marks the grave of this village
belle is very near the road, not far from the main entrance
to the cemetery, and it is covered with an iron network to
prevent relic-seekers from destroying it. About one-third of
the footstone has been broken off and carried away by ruthless
curiosity collectors. On the network are the words " Grave of
the Countess," and the simple headstone has the following in-
scription :
MARY,
wife of
FRANCIS VIPART,
of Guadeloupe.
Died January 5, 1807.
JEt. 21.
The romantic story of this village maid and her early death
is most pathetic, and is a striking illustration of the truth of
the old saying, " Love levels all ranks."
" O Love ! so hallowing every soil
That gives that sweet flower room,
Wherever nursed, by ease or toil,
The human heart takes bloom !
" Plant of lost Eden, from the sod
Of sinful earth unriven,
White blossoms of the trees of God
Dropped down to us from heaven !
"This tangled waste of mound and stone
Is holy for thy sake ;
A sweetness which is all thine own
Breathes out from fern and brake."
The other exile who came to East Haverhill with Count
ipoi.] THE STORY OF WJITTIER'S "COUNTESS" 485
Vipart, Joseph Rochemont de Poyen, settled in Rocks Village.
He married Sally Elliott, of that place, and many of their de-
scendants are living in Haverhill to-day, and also in the neigh-
boring town of Merrimac, where the Poyen block is one of the
handsomest buildings in the " square " of that pretty little
town. Matthew Franklin Whittier, a brother of the Quaker
poet, married Abby Poyen, a daughter of the exile. She died
in 1841 and was interred in Greenwood Cemetery, not far from
the resting-place of the " Countess." Their son, Francis Louis
Whittier, also rests there; but Matthew Whittier, who died in
1883, was interred in the Whittier lot in Union Cemetery at
Amesbury, Mass.
In Greenwood Cemetery also rests Lydia Ayer, the heroine
of " My Playmate," of whom Whittier sung:
" O playmate of the olden time,
Our mossy seat is green ;
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean."
Dr. Moses H. Elliott, the early lover of that woman^of
strange, varied character, Harriet Livermore, whom Whittier
has immortalized in " Snow-Bound," also sleeps in this cemetery.
The poet gives an admirable picture of this remarkable woman
in the lines :
" Another guest that wintry night
Flashed back with lustrous eyes the light.
Unmarked by time, and yet not young,
The honeyed music of her tongue
And words of meekness scarcely told
A nature passionate and bold ;
Strong, self-concentrated, spurning guide,
Its milder features dwarfed beside
Her unbent will's majestic pride.
She sat among us at the best
A not unfeared, half-welcome guest.
Rebuking with her cultured phrase
Our homeliness of words and ways.
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace,
Swayed the lithe limbs and drooped the lash,
Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash,
And under low brows, black with night,
Rayed out at times a dangerous light ;
486 THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S " COUNTESS" [Jan.,
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face
Presaging ill to him whom Fate
Condemned to share her love or hate ;
A woman tropical, intense
In thought and act, in soul and sense,
She blended in a like degree
The vixen and the devotee."
Dr. Elliott's parents objected very strongly to his marriage
with Miss Livermore on account of her ungovernable temper,
and they urged him to accept a position as surgeon in the
United States army, which he did. While attending yellow
fever patients at a hospital at Pensacola, Florida, of which he
had charge, he contracted the dread disease and died in a
short time. His body was brought home to rest in his native
place. A plain white stone marks his grave and the inscrip-
tion reads :
MOSES H. ELLIOTT.
Died
September 22, 1822.
Aged 33 years.
There are a number of ancient stones in Greenwood Ceme-
tery, many of which have quaint epitaphs. The original site
of the cemetery was donated to the town of Haverhill in 1785
by Ephraim Elliott, the father of Dr. Moses Elliott. Of recent
years several acres have been added and many handsome
monuments have been erected in the modern portion. It is
situated on what is known as the Merrimack River Road,
about three miles from the centre of Haverhill, overlooking a
high bluff on the river bank. Several miles of the beautiful
Merrimack River, winding in and out, can be seen from this
spot. Here it may have been that Whittier stood when he
penned these lines on the Merrimack :
" Stream of my fathers ! sweetly still
Thy sunset rays the valley fill ;
Poured slantways down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and flower beneath them smile."
A short distance from Greenwood Cemetery, on the same
road, stands a garrison house which is over two hundred years
old, and the bricks of which it is built were brought from
England by Joseph Peaslee. In the early days of Haverhill's
THE STORY OF WHITTIER'S "COUNTESS" 487
OLD GARRISON HOUSE, EAST HAVERHILL
settlement, when the Indians were troublesome, this house was
used as a place of refuge from the red man's vengeance. Its
unique appearance, with its outside plastered wall, through
which the bricks are appearing as time causes the plaster to
fall off, bear testimony to its antiquity ; while its massive
chimneys, which are crumbling with age, prove that it was one
of the earliest houses built in Haverhill. Before it stands a
willow-tree the branches of which spread far and wide. This
tree, tradition states, grew from a willow cane which was
planted by a lover of the long ago when visiting the lady of
his choice, who resided in the garrison house. An excellent
description of this historic old house appears in a book of
poems entitled Wayside Flowers, the author of which is Mrs.
Emma A. Kimball, of East Haverhill, who is the owner of the
garrison house, and the poem which describes the old garrison
is entitled " The Old House o'er the Way."
There are many interesting reminiscences attached to this
ancient landmark. One of Whittier's ancestors once resided
here. Joseph Peaslee, who erected the house, had a daughter
named Mary who^was born in this quaint old building. May 24,
THE STORY OF WHITTIER' s "COUNTESS" LJ an ->
1694, she married Joseph Whittier, the poet's great-grandfather,
and they resided in the old homestead. Here also, in 1789,
was born the Dr. Elliott above referred to, whose affection
the proud Miss Livermore sought to win. The first Quaker
meetings which took place in the vicinity of Haverhtll were
held in this house, and also the quarterly conventions of that
sect in the early days. Despite its antiquity the old house is
still fairly well preserved, and the part of it which is inhabi-
table is at present occupied by Byron Ramsey and family. Its
situation is picturesque, grassy fields being seen on all sides;
and almost opposite is a hill from which a fine view of the
surrounding country can be seen.
Haverhill has grown wonderfully during the last half-cen-
tury, but its energy has not extended to its eastern suburb
owing to the fact that many of the sons and daughters of
East Haverhill have left their early homes and sought more
busy scenes. The beauty of this suburb, however, still remains,
and the historic and poetic memories which centre about it
add much to its interest. As the birthplace of Whittier it will
ever be interesting to those who admire the writings of the
Quaker poet. Many of his poems deal with lofty themes,
but he is seen at his best in his verses which appeal to the
heart and deal with incidents which brought out his sympathe-
tic nature, as in " The Countess." The skill with which he has
woven the story of this village maid into verse displays his
sympathy with his theme, and he has made Greenwood Ceme-
tery at East Haverhill the Mecca for many visitors who admire
the genius of the poet and learn with interest the romantic
story of the love which knows no rank, but makes hovel,
cottage, and palace alike an Eden here below.
1901.] CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. 489
CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER,
BY KATHERINE F. MULLANY.
}T has been well said that history is the most edu-
cative of studies. It broadens the mind, en-
larges the heart, and enlightens the understand-
ing. Other studies develop the comprehension
in one particular line, cultivating some one
particular faculty, but history comprises a knowledge of all
things : religion, science, art, letters, philosophy, governments
and peoples. It is the story of humanity in all its grandeur
and in all its meanness. It is the tale of nations, of govern-
ments, and of individuals ; the relation of the rise and fall of
commonwealths and of men. It is the drama of human life,
in all its tragedy and comedy ; the long spectacle of human
existence in its supreme glory and most abject poverty.
On its pages we find written the records of deeds so mag-
nanimously great and achievements so noble that one's heart
expands with admiration over the lofty heights to which the
human mind is capable of winging, when the human heart is
inspired by noble ambitions ; but there, too, are the records of
a wickedness and degradation so awful that one wonders if the
human soul is not, at times, a rival of the very demons in
iniquity. There is not an age or an epoch in history but has
an educational value, in the thought-awakening power it exerts
over the earnest student ; for in every age and nation human
nature is still the same, unchanged and unchangeable, in its
ever changing fluctuations. That "there is nothing new under
the sun " is a truism we sometimes feel like questioning ; but
that there is nothing new in human nature, from Adam down,
the study of history makes known to us in a very interesting
manner. The difference between times and nations is simply a
minor matter of dress and manners ; human character is ever
the same. The human heart, like a perfect musical instrument,
is capable of sublimest harmonies, if touched by Divine skill,
and capable of almost diabolical discordance, under the manipu-
lation of malign influences. So it is that, from the dawn of
history until the present time, mankind has left a record of
glorious deeds and noble achievements, to inspire the student
with lofty ambitions ; but, side by side with them, ever, like
VOL. LXXII. 32
45 CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. [Jan.,
shadows against the sunlight, are the evil things it has done,
and the degradation of which it is capable.
It will be our province to examine into the causes which
lifted man's thoughts unto lofty things and, on the other hand,
dragged them down, and nations with them for the strength
of a nation lies in the strength of its people's virtues into the
wretched condition of civilization that characterized the begin-
ning of King Arthur's reign :
" When the land of Cameliard was waste,
Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein,
And none, or few, to chase the beast.
So that wild dog and wolf and boar and bear
Came in the night and day, and rooted in the fields'
And wallowed in the gardens of the king."
It ii. r lated that wolves, if deprived of their own offspring,
will steal children and if they do not eat them nurse them
as their own
" And the children, housed in such foul dens, would growl at
their meat, and mock their foster-mother on four feet,
Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf-like men, worse than
the wolves."
The poet, in describing this sad condition of civilization,
does not exaggerate in saying that people were " worse than
the wolves," for history is full of examples of men who were
worse than wild beasts. It is a dark and pitiable picture of
humanity, truly, to see it grovelling like a beast, deprived, as
it was, of the refining influences that, but a few centuries
agone, had bestowed on it the highest degree of culture the
world has ever seen.
There were centuries that were veritable epitomes of intel-
lectual blackness. The invasion of the barbarous Northmen
extinguished learning, as a fierce blast of wind extinguishes a
lamp, leaving the world enveloped in the night of ignorance
a night through which but one torch remained alight ; one star
of hope remained unclouded ; one Voice gave hope of return-
ing day; and that was the torch of Catholicity; the star of
divine faith ; the Voice of the Church. " But for the church,"
says Hallam and all other accepted historians echo the state-
ment " civilization would have been banished for ever from
the face of the earth."
Compared with those days of ignorance and barbarism, our
own times seem a perfect glory of enlightenment and knowl-
190 1.] CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. 491
edge, the sum total of progressive civilization, and we are apt
to wax proud over the achievements of modern times, and the
superiority of our nineteenth century " smartness." In many
respects, however, the civilization of Greece and Rome, even
five centuries before the coming of our Lord, was in advance
of our own. In departments of human knowledge summed up
in the word "culture" the ancient civilization overtopped
ours, as mighty mountains surpass in height and grandeur the
lesser hills ! It is a healthful lesson for our modern conceit
and egotism to bear in mind that the human intellect has not
advanced many steps in intellectual culture for over two thousand
years! That which we are but beginning to understand in the
world of art and letters was known in completest perfection
to that magnificent ancient world which lies for ever buried
under the dust of nearly twenty centuries; a world of which
but a few scattered ruins remain as silent witnesses to its sur-
passing grandeur, and the curio collections in our art mu-
seums are but the feeblest of testimonies to its supreme great-
ness. Those were the days of such intellectual giants as Soc-
rates, Plato, and Aristotle. Those were the times when Phidias
and Apelles, the teachers and masters of Michael Angelo and
Raphael, lived and wrought such wonders of art creation as
have never been equalled, even by these masters of the mod-
ern world.
It is said by some that not in architecture, nor in art, nor
in literary genius has our modern progressiveness reached
the height attained in the days of Pericles 450 years before
Christ ! Nor in bodily development do we touch upon the
ancients ; nor in material enjoyments. The ancient world
of Greece and Rome surpassed our civilization, as our steam
and electricity surpass the stage-coach and candle-light of fifty
years ago. Here, indeed, is the one thing of which we vain
moderns may boast as having no peers: that of mechanical
science ; the possession of almost supernatural powers, in
being able to harness the mysterious forces of nature for our
greater convenience and comfort. In all else we are but imi-
tators and weak ones of our brethren the ancients ; to whom
was given the supreme victory of intellectual and physical
achievements. It would seem as if God had permitted the
creatures he had made and endowed so wondrously to arrive
at the very pinnacle of human powers, in mental and bodily
glories, and then exhaust them all in the search after happi-
ness ; leaving them yet unsatisfied, before he stepped from his
492 CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. [Jan.,
throne in heaven to come down here and teach us, in his
mercy, that in none of these things does happiness abide ; for
they can never fill, great as they are, the infinite void in the
human heart.
What a world it was that He came to nearly two thousand
years ago ! A world of wealth and palaces and pomp and
pride ; a world of material greatness and supremest human
power ; for, as in the days of Pericles the Greek, 450 years
before Christ, intellectual splendor had reached its zenith,
so, too, in imperial Rome, in the days of our Lord, had
national greatness consummated its climax, by subjugating a
world at the feet of Caesar Augustus.
Despising the magnificence of kings' houses and the purple
and fine linen of human pomp and pride, the Lord God chose
a stable for his birthplace, the humblest of clothing for his
garments, and a poor maiden of despised Nazareth for his
mother. Scorning the vain glories of the human intellect, he
never went to school, thus setting aside the dominion of the
human mind over his own, as he had set aside the dominion
of Satan in his body. It was not fitting that he, who came as
the supreme Teacher of Mankind, should submit to the teach-
ings of any earthly pedagogue. He was come to civilize
civilization !
As supreme civilization cultivates pride, and pride cultivates
materialism, and materialism cultivates sensualism, and sensual-
ism death, in the individual ; so, too, in the fate of nations,
supreme civilization, unless dominated by right religion, is but
the dazzling precursor of their downfall. Civilization, in its
pride, rejected Christ, preferring its own materialism and sen-
sual pleasures to his code of morals ; and, drinking to intoxi-
cation of their dangerous delights, over-indulgence debased the
great Roman Empire, weakening its once magnificent power,
and the end was death !
Down from the Northern mountains, like an avalanche
sweeping all before it in the unthinking valleys beneath ; or
like fierce eagles swooping upon the unprotected flocks of a
faithless shepherd, rending and tearing without mercy, came
the terrible barbarians, stamping into dust beneath their iron-
shod feet the glories of human genius and the proud monu-
ments of the most perfect civilization, humanly speaking, that
the world has ever known. Where once Beauty reigned su-
preme, and Order was her maid of honor, Chaos was evoked
and Desolation robed the world! What cared these fierce
1901.] CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. 493
warriors for sculpture, or painting, or the imposing majesty of
architecture, or the rich adornments of elegant civilization ?
They lived in rude dwellings, were clad in iron, and reverenced
strength as a god ; and so, beneath their spurning wrath, the
splendor of ancient days disappeared from the earth, as frost-
work under the scorching sun-rays. Civilization, with all its
refinements, was shattered into fragments, and buried beneath
the soil, as a thing that is dead. It had done much for man-
kind ; but it was so beautiful that men worshipped it, and,
in God's anger, it was destroyed. Civilization is a means, not
an end. With all its refinements and beauty and elevating
tendencies, it is powerless to satisfy the longings of the human
soul or give peace to the restless human heart. Intended as
an aid, it became the end of human existence and ambitions,
and men made of it a god. Attila the Hun proclaimed himself
the "Scourge of God"; and without doubt he spoke a stern
truth, unconsciously.
For three hundred years the apostles of the Great Nazarene
who had preached and practised a new and holier civilization
in insignificant Judea, and been crucified by the anger of the
rich and proud had been hidden in the cemeteries under Im-
perial Rome, which had laughed them to scorn and persecuted
them to death. Imperial Rome was now laid in the dust for
ever, and on its splendid ruins was to be built up the Church
of Christ and the new civilization, that would cultivate and
make beautiful the hearts and souls of mankind, as well as the
minds and bodies of the human race. We will take a glance
at this old civilization, of which such great things are said, and
will select Rome, the " Epitome of the Universe," as it has
been called, for an object-lesson.
They tell us that London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople,
St. Petersburg, and Berlin, the great centres of modern fashion
and power, all together, would not surpass ancient Rome in
her days of splendor. When we see a magnificent building in
some of our great cities we gaze at it in silent admiration and
delight ; but old Rome was a perfect forest of just such splen-
did buildings, and of far more beautiful ones. The mimic
glories of a World's Fair and a Paris Exposition are only
shadow pictures of the marble splendors of Imperial Rome.
A visit to the museums of art in New York or Boston give
but a faint hint of the sculptured beauty and statue-adorned
grandeurs of the old city by the Tiber, where works of art
encrusted the buildings, and the genius of man exhausted it-
494 CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. [Jan.,
self in splendid architecture. The luxury of the interiors was
the summit of splendor, in columns of precious marbles, in
carvings and paintings and gilding ; in rich carpets and cushions
of velvet ; in silken draperies, fabulously fine ; and furniture of
ivory and gold. The streets were vistas of marble statues ; the
gardens were triumphs of artistic skill in floriculture ; the roads
and drives marvels of smoothness, along whose splendidly
wide limits chariots of ivory, and rarest woods and metals,
rolled in gorgeousness ; ladies seated within attired with a
taste and richness that only pictures may describe, and drawn
by such horses as our modern days know nothing about.
The social pleasures of old Rome may be guessed at by
their mammoth theatres, one of which would seat more people
than any public building in the world to-day. " Amphitheatres
more extensive and costly than Cologne, Milan, and York
minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight times as many
people as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church ; circuses
where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand per-
sons could witness the chariot races at a time." The Scaurus
theatre seated 80,000 people ; that of Marcellus, 20,000 ; the
Coliseum would seat 87,000 and give standing room to 22,000
more. The Circus Maximus mentioned, I think, in Ben Hur
would hold 385,000 spectators.
Temples and porticoes and triumphal arches of white mar-
ble and bronze and brass, beautifully sculptured, were every-
where to be seen ; the rivers being spanned by more gracefully
arched bridges, statue-crowned, than adorns Paris the Magnifi-
cent. The City of the Seven Hills contained a population of
four.; millions, for whose comfort and enjoyment nine thousand
and twenty-five public baths were provided ; those of Diocle-
tian alone accommodating thirty-two hundred bathers at a time.
Their feasts were something marvellous, each patrician noble
striving to outdo his neighbor in costliness and gastronomical
wonders.
This was the splendid city of palaces and kings, and sur-
feited civilization and brutal pleasures, at whose bronze gates
came knocking the inspired Fishermen of Galilee, whose mission
was to rebuke its sensualism and humble its pride by the preach-
ing of Christian civilization, abhorrent because of its morality.
Christian civilization won for its teachers and believers but
persecution and death to afford amusement for the depraved
hearts of pagan Rome ; a civilization whose seed was in the
blood of martyrs, and whose roots found life in the graves of
1901.] CHRIST THE TRUE CIVILIZER. 495
the Christians. Such was the magnificent city that was
trampled under foot by the war-horses of the savage Northern
tribes ; a city of marvellous splendor, of which but a few
magnificent monuments remain, standing in lonely grandeur,
sadly eloquent memorials of the downfall of human greatness
and of human pride !
No wonder that God, angry and sick at heart because of
the miseries which over-civilization had brought upon the world,
left the proud intellect of man as a fallow field, uncared for and
untended, for six centuries, by plunging the world into darkness,
that it might comprehend the returning Light more wisely !
What happened to Rome happened to the world at large, for
Rome ruled the world. The Barbarians spread everywhere
that the hope of conquest invited. So it was that " the land
of Cameliard was waste, and men were worse than wolves."
So it was that King Arthur came to tame the beast and lay
the material and moral forest, and let in the sunlight:
Arthur, who was the harbinger of a brighter day just dawning ;
who would teach his people to " reverence their conscience as
their King," and lift men's souls to better things by the ex-
ample of his blameless life ; Arthur, who established a new code
of morals in founding the chivalrous order of the famous Round
Table :
"A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginnings of a time";
Arthur, whD made them swear, laying their hands in his,
"To reverence their conscience as their King-
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs ;
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it ;
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity ;
To love one miiden only, and to cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until he won her " ;
For he held that
" There is no power under heaven subtler
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But to teach high thought, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man a man ! "
496 A WINTER NIGHT. [Jan,
I his nigl|t Will fierce Crolus ride his steeds
n land aqd sea and up the scudding sky,
And human folk in rocking beds Will lie,
Wood-folk where t\\e coverts bend like reeds,
While the Wild midnight hoofs go roaring by.
hear t\\e blind ships beating on the rocks;
1 see the quick-quenched rocket streaming down
n the remorseless gale. Beyon,d the town
hear the engine panting in its stocks,
Where snoW-mists spin across the ridqe's croWn.
1 <y
Beath aqd the storm are coursing haqd in hand
1 o-night ! (giod help all horseless folk and Weak,
'All Wanderers, and ships th,at harbor seek,
<All pilgrirqs on the sea or on the land!
(god hear tl]e pleadiqg prayers that white lips speak,!
JAMES BUCKHAM.
REV. EDWARD W. MCCARTY, THE FOUNDER.
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION.
BY LOUISE GIROD.
'N Prospect Place, in the Borough of Brooklyn,
stands a large, commodious house, whose out-
ward appearance is no more pretentious than
that of its neighbors, but within whose walls a
corporation known as The Catholic Women's
Association has labored assiduously during the past six years
To help young women to help themselves is its object. This
is accomplished by aiding them in obtaining a knowledge of
such branches of the useful arts as may be suited to their
ability, and in which they may afterward obtain lucrative em-
ployment and better their condition in life. In order to in-
culcate a feeling of independence, a nominal fee is charged
for all classes except those in sewing, elementary English, and
arithmetic and penmanship, which are free.
498 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
The association was founded in May, 1894, by the Rev.
Edward W. McCarty, rector of St. Augustine's Church, who is
also its president. Though constantly busy with other in-
numerable cares and occupations, he still gave much time and
thought to evolving this scheme whereby he might assist young
women to become self-reliant and self-supporting, which as-
sumed tangible form at the time. He selected the building,
No. 10 Prospect Place, as one suited to his requirements,
reconstructed it from top to bottom, and furnished it with such
equipment as is used in schools of similar character. The
basement is fitted up as a cooking school, and contains all
the latest apparatus for the successful conduct of classes in
cookery. It also contains a small gymnasium, where instruction
in physical culture is given. The first floor contains the re-
ception-room, the reading-room, the library, and the general
office. On the second floor are the dress-making, millinery,
sewing, bonnaz machine, and English rooms. The third floor
is devoted to the stenography, typewriting, book-keeping
rooms, etc.
The accommodations of the present building have long been
inadequate for the enlargement of the scope of the work, and
a fund for the erection of a new and suitable building in the
not far distant future is steadily assuming larger proportions.
In order to provide every facility for the proper conduct of
such work as the association should undertake, Father Mc-
Carty selected a corps of earnest women to aid him in carry-
ing out his philanthropic enterprise. He is assisted by two
vice-presidents, a recording secretary, a financial secretary, and
a treasurer, who, in conjunction with the Board of Managers,
meet on the second Wednesday of each month, except July
and August, to settle all affairs of moment. The chairmen of
the library, educational, entertainment, membership, house, em-
ployment, finance, and lecture committees are members of this
board, and at these meetings render an account of the work
of their several committees during the previous month. The
membership of these committees is made up from the general
membership of the association.
The memberships are honorary, life, contributing, active,
and associate. Any person, upon the payment of one hun-
dred dollars, may become a life member, and receives the
privilege of placing a student in any one of the classes
for a period of five years not necessarily consecutive. The
life members include some of the most representative Catho-
190 1.]
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION.
499
lies of the city. Any
person, upon payment of
twenty five dollars an-
nually, is inscribed as a
patron of the association
and receives the privi-
lege of placing a student
in any one of the classes
for one year. Any per-
son, upon the payment of
five dollars annually, will
be enrolled as
a contributing
member. Men,
as well as wo-
men, may be-
come life and
contri buting
members, or pa-
trons. The
larger portion
of the membership roll is
composed of the active
members, who pay an an-
nual fee of two dollars,
and have the privileges of
the library and of the
entertainments, and of
course may enter classes.
In order to conform
to the rule of the associ-
ation that all persons
connected with it should be members, the students of the
classes are allowed to become associate members upon the
annual payment of one dollar, and receive the full privileges
of the association.
The members of the Library Committee are assiduous workers.
THE ASSOCIATION is A CENTRE FOR INTEL-
LECTUAL IMPROVEMENT.
500 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
They keep the library up to date and have in it the best works
ready for circulation. A fine collection of four thousand care-
fully selected books is at the disposal of the members. As
elsewhere, a fondness for fiction seems to predominate. How-
ever, an examining committee passes judgment on all books
considered for the shelves, and selects none but those which
will add to the mental and moral growth of the readers. All
the latest standard works of fiction are secured.
The Constitution, outlining the duties of this committee,
says : " This committee shall remember that it is establishing
and conducting a Catholic library. Consequently, any book, by
whatsoever author written, that is inimical to Catholic faith,
morals, or practice shall be black-listed and kept from its
shelves. It shall make it a specialty to secure works of merit
by Catholic authors, and shall encourage its patrons to read
them."
The result is that, while general literature not poisoned with
immorality or irreligion is constantly secured, there is a steadily
increasing department of high-class Catholic books.
The members of the committee occasionally hold book
receptions, and at all times are ready to suggest desirable
works to persons who would like to make donations of books
but are uncertain what to send ; or, they do gladly receive
contributions of money to buy what may be the most needed
at the time. This branch of the work receives the constant
and substantial support of all well-wishers of the association,
as its power for good in the distribution of helpful as well
as attractive literature, as may readily be understood, is un-
paralleled.
The reading room is supplied with all the standard
magazines and periodicals, and through the courtesy of the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle during the past three years a file of
that paper is always at hand for perusal.
The Educational Committee is responsible for all class
work, and two members are in attendance each evening. The
scholastic year is divided into three terms, beginning the first
of October and ending the last of June, each term comprising
a period of twelve weeks. Well-trained teachers preside over
all classes, and follow the methods endorsed by the best
educational authorities. Two exhibits are given each year, and
these practically demonstrate the character and completeness
of the work. Promptness, regularity of attendance, and in-
terest are noticeable on the part of all students. Certificates
1 90 1.] THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 501
of the association are awarded at the end of each year to
those who have completed one or other of the branches and
have secured the percentage required by the association.
In April last the reverend president called the graduates
together and formed an alumnae association. Its object is to
keep together all who have graduated from the classes ; to
have them constantly in touch with the workings of the asso-
ciation ; to assist them in getting positions ; to protect them
while in positions from abuse or injustice so far as it is pos-
sible, and to look after their general interests. It meets in a
social, informal way on the first Wednesday evening of each
month. The membership is steadily growing.
The sewing courses comprise instruction in the various
stitches used in hand-sewing, including patching and darning,
upon small, uniform samplers ; machine-sewing, use and care of
machines, cutting from pattern and making undergarments,
dressing-sacques, or shirt waists. Talks are given on cotton,
silk, wool, emery, needle, pin, thimble, etc., as the work pro-
gresses, and upon the position of the body and care of the
eyes while sewing. This course, leading through the prepara-
tory dress-making classes, furnishes material for the regular dress-
making classes.
A special feature of the sewing is the Children's Saturday
Morning Classes, in which one hundred and twenty-five little
women make diligent use of their needles, in following the
two years' course which is carefully arranged for them by the
young woman who has devoted herself to the welfare of this
department from its inception. She is assisted very ably by
ten clever co-workers. At the exhibits each year the regula-
tion samplers and little garments are presented, together with
the masterpiece of the department, a beautifully dressed doll,
which is entirely the work of the children.
The dress-making courses comprise the principles of cut-
ting skirts from measure, and of neatly finishing and hang,
ing them. Draughting and fitting waists receive great attention,
and, as the basis of success in fitting garments, considerable
practice is given in taking accurate measurements. Talks are
given on adapting the lines of the material to those of the
figure, and in selecting trimmings suited to the material and to
the character of the figure. The costumes are designed to
carry out these principles. The work closes with a course of
designing and making fancy costumes in harmonious shades of
tissue-paper.
502 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
The millinery courses include the making and trimming of
hats, bonnets, toques, and turbans, and the making of close
and open frames. In the first course colored canton flannel
is used to represent velvet, and sateen in harmonizing shades
to represent ribbon. The principles thus learned are applied
to hats of choice material. At intervals talks are given on the
suitability of material, the combination of color, and the
character of lines and form in relation to artistic millinery.
Light, tasteful bows, rosettes, flowers, and general hat-trimming
are also, made in effective shades of tissue-paper. In the hand-
ling of tissue-paper the students acquire a lightness and deft-
ness of touch which is most beneficial in practical work.
In the art embroidery class the principles and methods are
taught in connection with the cultivation of judgment in the
choice of design, color, and material, in articles for personal and
home decoration. Stitches are worked upon samplers, and
afterward applied to special pieces of embroidery, for which
original drawings are made. The results obtained from these
classes, both day and evening, have been artistic and beautiful.
This is the only school in the greater city where in-
struction may be obtained on the bonnaz machine. Every
facility is provided for gaining a working knowledge of this
branch of the useful arts. The instruction comprises chain-
stitching, braiding, cording, feather-stitching, etc. The bon-
naz machine has been steadily improved upon for a num-
ber of years, until an expert operator is now able to turn
out an original design, which upon close inspection can
scarcely be detected from hand embroidery. This style of
trimming is used so extensively that there is always a demand
for skilled operators, and the knowledge is easily acquired.
Perseverance and constant practice in manipulating the hand-
bar underneath the table are the principles to keep steadily in
mind.
Regular courses in cooking are given, both day and even-
ing. Ample facilities are provided for obtaining a knowledge
of all the fundamental rules of cooking, and in the preparation
of such articles of food as would be necessary on a well-ap-
pointed home table. In addition, a fancy course is given ; an
invalid course, which comprises the preparation and serving of
daintily prepared dishes, special emphasis being placed on the
nutritive value and digestibility of foods, as affected by seem-
ingly unimportant conditions in their preparation. Also, a
chafing-dish course, in which each member solves her own pro-
1901.]
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN' 's ASSOCIATION.
503
blems, a chafing dish being provided for each individual. This
method is preferable to the demonstration work given in other
schools, and better results are obtained. A feature each year in
the cooking department is a chafing-disli course for men. Super-
intendents and prin-
cipals of the schools,
doctors, lawyers, and
other gentlemen of
prominence have by
this means been in-
structed in the mys-
teries of cookery.
They finish their
courses fully equip-
ped to cater to their
stag parties in the
city, and to their
camping-out parties
in the woods.
Each year's work
ends with a stag
dinner of many
courses. Each
course is cooked
by two members
of the class. Their
work thus far has
equalled, if it has
not surpassed, that
done by the wo-
men. It may not
be significant, but
usually most of
the members are
married men. A children's course, in an abridged form, is
arranged for Saturday afternoons. Parallel with the technical
work instruction in theory is given, the notes being recorded
in note-books, which are examined at the end of the course.
SOCIAL LIFE is CULTIVATED HERE.
504 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
The class in elementary English is one of the most helpful
features of the work. To train adults in the fundamental prin-
ciples of the language is unique to this association. While it
is true that some grown persons find study irksome and are
unable to apply themselves to it, the majority, including some
who cannot write their own names, are glad of the opportunity
of acquiring the ability to read and write. These apply them-
selves diligently to the tasks set before them. Beginning at
the very foundation, they advance step by step, growing more
and more interested during the gradual unfolding of their
minds, until the close of the year. They are then able to read
fairly well, write simple general and business letters, and
make out bills. The results are very gratifying to teacher and
pupils, who become quite proud of their accomplishments. A
well-equipped class-room is provided for their accommodation,
which is excluded from the inspection of visitors.
Instruction in arithmetic and penmanship begins with a re-
view of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and
includes interest, percentage, profit and loss, partnerships, ex-
change, discount, partial payments, etc., which are presented
from a business stand-point. Penmanship is taught in a prac-
tical manner, with a view of acquiring a good business hand.
Written exercises in spelling, accompanied with exercises in
oral definition, etc., are given in connection. In this class
the students are prepared for the book keeping course.
The fundamental principles of debit and credit are included
in the book-keeping course, with thorough drill in journalizing,
posting, analysis of accounts, detecting errors in trial balances,
short methods in interest, discount, multiplication, etc., rapid
addition, and computations generally. A comprehensive under-
standing of the system of double-entry books, required in dif-
ferent kinds of wholesale and retail business, checks, drafts,
notes, bills, invoices, receipts, etc., may be acquired in this
class. Single entry is taught in its relation to double entry.
Classes in Spanish, French, or German are formed when
sufficient applications are received to form a class. The natu-
ral method is employed, supplemented by all necessary gram-
matical drills. Constant practice is given in conversation, read-
ing, and writing.
The stenography course is divided into three grades. The
elementary gives a thorough knowledge of the principles of
phonography ; the intermediate embraces a thorough review
and amplification of the previous grade, special attention being
1901.]
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION.
505
given to word signs, together
with systematic drills in con-
tracted phrases, special forms,
words of frequent use, out-
lines peculiar to various lines
of business, etc.; the ad-
vanced includes systematic
drills in writing from dicta-
tion, business correspondence,
and general matter. The
Pitman- Heffley system is
used, but writ-
ers of any sys-
tem may enter
the Tuesday
and Friday
evening speed
classes.
Instruction
is given on the
standard typewriting ma-
chines, and covers graded
exercises in words, com-
mercial phrases, business
correspondence, headings,
titles, addresses, miscella-
neous, mercantile and legal
forms, testimony, specifica-
tions, etc., special attention
being paid to manifolding,
mimeographing, letter-press
copying, and construction and care of machines. In both the
stenography and typewriting classes short dictation exercises
are given in spelling, composition, and punctuation.
Ample accommodations and equipment for the fundamental
VOL. LXXII. 33
THE MAIN PURPOSE is TO HELP YOUNG WO-
MEN TO HELP THEMSELVES.
5o5 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
principles of physical culture have been provided. General ex-
ercises are given for the preservation of health, for energizing
and strengthening the body, especially the vital organs, the
movements being given in regular progression ; to correct bad
habits of carriage, movement, and breathing ; to develop the
heart, lungs, chest, neck, shoulders, etc.; to the strengthening
and freeing of the muscles, resulting in conservation of nervous
energy and grace of motion, and producing the healthful
action of all functions of the body in the harmonious develop-
ment of the whole. Students are expected to wear the regu-
lation suit of the association, made of dark blue material, with
white trimmings, made to escape the ground by nine inches.
The Employment Bureau has not been developed to the
desired extent, owing to lack of adequate space. Great care,
however, has been exercised in making it as helpful as possi-
ble, until the erection of the new building. It carefully inves-
tigates references as to character, and endeavors to rectify any
injustice which may be done to any one under its patronage.
It has been largely successful in adjusting the wants of both
mistress and maid. It is the intention to enlarge its scope to
cover higher employment, in the way of finding positions, so
far as is possible, for the graduates of the various courses
given by the association.
An exchange in charge of this Bureau was organized dur-
ing the past year, and is open every Saturday afternoon, with
members of the committee in attendance. It is designed to
assist worthy women by selling for them such articles of their
own manufacture as they may present for home or personal
use or ornament. Biscuits, cakes, preserves, pastry, confectionery,
and a variety of useful and fancy needlework form an attractive
display when the exchange is open.
Wednesday evenings are reserved exclusively for entertain-
ments. The Entertainment Committee is untiring in invent-
ing ingenious devices for the pleasure of its guests. It
succeeds in brightening the lives of many young women,
to whom these are " red-letter " nights, and their only diver-
sion. On these occasions the house is decorated with flow-
ers, ferns, and palms, which blend harmoniously with the
colored lights, and form an artistic picture. Every second
Wednesday is an "at home" night, when the girls are
initiated in the mysteries of certain games which are both
amusing and instructive, and also to impromptu singing,
recitations, and instrumental music. At other times a set
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION.
507
programme is provided
in the form of a fine
musicale, a reading, a
lecture, or a progressive
euchre, which is the
most popular form of
entertainment. Three
fine prizes are awarded
at each of these euchres,
and are triumphantly
carried off by the win-
ners. Occasionally re-
freshments are served.
All the outside talent
which has appeared be-
fore the association has
been cheerfully donat-
ed. Once each year a
progressive euchre is
held at the Pouch Man-
sion, for which tickets
are sold to all members
and friends throughout
the diocese, and the ac-
commodations of the
house are usually taxed
to the utmost. Over
six hundred players
generally take part in
the games. The last
was entitled "The New Century Euchre." Then.'.'a large sil-
ver figure, representing the new century, was awarded as the
first of the one hundred prizes distributed. These festivities
HlGHER BRANCHES ARE NOT NEGLECTED.
508 THE CATHOLIC WOMEN' s ASSOCIATION. [Jan.,
are closed with a dance in the gallery, which is an entertain-
ment in itself and much enjoyed. Once during the Lenten
season a sacred concert is given.
University Extension Centre. During the past year the asso-
ciation was incorporated under the University of the State of
New York, and was made a University Extension Centre.
The object of this new departure was to widen the influence
of the association. It accommodated at once many teachers
and others who applied for university courses. The initial
work in this line was a course of thirty lectures on psychology,
given last year under especially able management, which proved
both beneficial and popular. About three hundred students
were enrolled as members, the majority of whom were public-
school teachers, some coming from the Borough of Manhattan.
Their attendance-marks and note-books were carefully exam-
ined by the lecturer, and certificates granted to those who
fulfilled the required conditions. All certificates issued by the
association are recognized by the Board of Education of the
City of New York.
For the accommodation of all who may wish to benefit by
them four courses of lectures are now in progress, and are con-
ducted by lecturers of great skill in their respective lines. In
the eastern section of Brooklyn there is a course in elementary
psychology, and in the western section three courses : one in
advanced psychology, one in literature, and one in Sacred
Scripture. A full course in Sacred Scripture has never been
offered before to the general public, and should be of great
interest not only to the laity but to the clergy as well.
The reverend president has received many grateful acknowl-
edgments from those who have been benefited by this exten-
sion work, which promises to grow rapidly in strength and
usefulness.
By entering this field of University Extension work the
Catholic Women's Association has erected a platform from
which the Catholic side of important subjects can be presented
to the public. la lectures and in courses of lectures, given un-
der non-Catholic auspices, the history, doctrines, and practices
of the Church are being constantly misrepresented, and errors
flagrant and hurtful are deliberately taught. Whether this hap-
pens intentionally or not, the truth suffers and the people are
misled. Generally the decision has gone against us by default.
We have said nothing. The aim of this association is to handle
THE CATHOLIC WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION
509
in its lecture courses
practical subjects
of vital importance,
and thus to do its
very best to spread
the light.
Although handi-
capped by environ-
ment in many re-
spects, the work of the
Catholic Women's As-
sociation is steadily im-
proving in character
and extent. The num-
ber of students regu-
larly increases, and
represents widely
separated and remote
districts of the city.
There are at the pre-
sent time attending
its various classes ap-
proximately six hun-
dred and fifty pupils.
While it is the only Catholic institution of its kind in the
city, and was established mainly for the benefit of Catholic
women and girls, it is non-sectarian in character, and numbers
many Protestants on its membership rolls. Its spirit is truly
LEARNING THE PRACTICAL ARTS.
5io
Soxxow's EPIPHANY.
[Jan.,
catholic in the broadest sense, and a feeling of universal brother,
hood pervades all its actions. These helpful women extend the
right hand of fellowship to both Catholic and Protestant with
equal cordiality, in conformity with the maxims inculcated by
the president, to whom this organization will stand as an object-
lesson of his energetic and untiring zeal in promoting the wel-
fare of his fellow man.
Sorrow's CPIPHANY.
(IN MEMORIAM.}
OLD for the King the Eastern monarchs
gave,
And Incense for the Priest ;
Myrrh for the Man to bear unto the
grave
When life and labor ceased.
What can we give from hearts bereft of Her,
To match our gifts with theirs?
Our love for Gold our bitter tears for Myrrh,
For Frankincense, our prayers.
MARY BLAKE MORSE.
1 90 1.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 511
THE MOTHER OF JOHN.
BY MARY SARSFIELD GILMORE.
"Thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shall call his name John.
. . . He shall be great before the Lord " (St. Luke i. 13).
I.
:RT," remarked John Graves, significantly, "is the
handmaid of religion."
His first visit to the studio of the woman
who, six years earlier, making her choice between
love and art, had deserted parents, lover, and
the American home of her girlhood for the bohemian life of
artistic Paris, was proving to him, in a spiritual sense at least,
a startling disappointment.
The studio itself was an ideal atelier a spacious apparte-
ment illumined by a magnificent window commanding a view of
the fairer part of Paris, including the distant Seine; and luxu-
riously yet artistically appointed with rugs, tapestries, and
divans de luxe, whose restful tints harmonized with the domes-
tic suggestions of the Sevres chocolate-service arranged on a
French gilt table, glittering on the hearth of an open fire.
Casts, reliefs, heads, figures, and torsos replicas of famous
works of art, as well as the original creations of modern mas-
ters were evident in profusion ; but no pictures were visible,
save such as littered various easels, and jutted from bulging
portfolios. Elizabeth Minton herself, however, made a living
picture defying art's inanimate beauty to rival. She was a
glowing brunette of splendid figure, with lustrous black eyes,
vivid, sensitive lips, and an intense manner at once magnetic
and charming, which Paris called " dramatique" At twenty-
five the beautiful promise of her nineteenth year was fulfilled,
not outgrown ; yet the faithful lover who still wished to make
her his wife dared to look upon her, both as woman and art-
ist, with reproachful eyes. Elizabeth's physical beauty had
never been her hold upon him. It was the soul of the man
that had claimed its mate : and now he was sadly asking him-
self where Elizabeth's soul had fled ? Of her talent there
could be no question ; of her application there was every
proof ; but her achievement seemed exclusively mundane in
5i2 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
suggestion, and what the American expressively called " too
Paris-y " in type. In other words, the spiritual element was
universally lacking in her paintings ; a morbid atmosphere of
sensuous beauty unworthily usurping its place. John Graves,
son of the people and "self-made" man of millions, was not
an artist ; but the intuition of his soul told him that true art
must be of GDd. Elizabeth's ideals had once been the same;
and the great Leroi her first French master had striven to
seal her to them ; but in an evil hour she had left him for
the more popular Caveau, the romanticist of modern realism,
the idealist of materialism, the refined sensualist of a school of
art neither pure nor simple ; and her gamins and grisettes, her
easled Venus and the beautiful, evil Circe, already half-boxed
for Caveau's exhibit (known as the "foyer of the Salon"),
were the result.
The inartistic but 'manly, moral specimen of Catholic and
American manhood struggled vainly to conceal the shock that
lack of spirituality in a woman inevitably gives the man who
truly loves her. But the intuitive Elizabeth was not to be de-
ceived by John Graves' silence. She flushed slowly, even as
she shrugged her handsome shoulders in jaunty defiance of his
orthodox ethics. Art the handmaid of religion, indeed ! How
Caveau would laugh, when she should tell him, the fastidious,
famous Caveau who, even while he complimented her upon
the Madonna copied under Leroi, had made her weak faith
falter, her human respect blush, as he subtly deplored that
she, potentially a great artist of the realistic school, should be
enslaved by the myths and superstitious traditions of effete
priestcraft's book and bell !
"Art, the handmaid of religion?" she derided, lightly.
" Mais pas ainsi, cher ami! We have changed all that, nous
autres ! You barbarian, Philistine, sauvage do not understand !
You have not the artistic temperament. But to us of the
brush and crayon art is religion ! Religious art, as you define
it, is beautiful, yes; could I be an artist, and not admire the
ideal? But it is old, my friend; it has all been done to
death : and we of the modern school seek the new, the living !
You would say that the pagan ideal is older, dead longer, than
the Christian ? Cher man ami, the resurrected is again new-
born, and it is the human spirit of Circe that thrills the world
to-day, rather than the diviner spirit of the Virgin and
Mother. The spirit of the age is the realist's ideal. Therefore
to us who march with the world my Circe is as pure, as holy,
1901.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 513
even as " religieuse" as the Madonnas you seek vainly ; inas-
much as Circe is the truthful expression, reflection, symbol of
the present age's ideal, which is not religion, but beauty :
la beaut^ the desire of man, the divinity of art ! "
" My dear Elizabeth," retorted the practical American,
" do you not realize that you are talking utter nonsense,
and worst of all, blasphemous nonsense ? Art is celestial only
when it serves the Divine ; serving the human, it is but a
fallen Lucifer. You have great talent, even potential genius ;
but the genius that grovels is a wingless lark, whose song
grows hoarse and false, and finally silent, lacking the inspira-
tion of its natal heavens. You used to be frank, even to a
fault. Look me in the eyes now and tell me with the old honesty
that your artistic ethics really satisfy your soul, exalt your life,
make your heart happy, and I will leave you without a word ;
but otherwise, I shall have serious things to say to you.
Answer me, Elizabeth ! "
The honest but wilful Elizabeth shifted her attitude in em-
barrassed irritation, and looked impatiently toward the door ;
wishing that Caveau, her autocrat, her idol, high-priest of art
as Voltairean Paris worshipped it, would come to her relief.
Nevertheless, she did not evade John Graves' stern question.
" The 'satisfied soul,' " she said, " is an unfulfilled vision, my
friend, the soul itself being what ? Infinite knowledge, assur-
ance of immortality, are the desire of mortal humanity ; yet
inevitable doubt and ignorance are its finite destiny. So much
of your question is therefore answered negatively. ' Is my ex-
istence exalted by my artistic ethics ? ' Mon ami to be exaltte
is not my metier! Non, then, I am not exalted by my art, but
I fulfil myself in it ; which is the small dignity, the pale glory,
the poor triumph of personal entity ! Is my heart happy ?
CJier monsieur, you forget that I am artiste, not woman. The
girl you wooed and almost married had a. heart, I suppose, and
was both happy and unhappy. I am neither the one nor the
other. Feminine negation is the marble from which the sexless
artist is moulded. This is why the ideal life of woman, as you
conceive it, is fatal to the artist. She must live human life in
its fullest sense, yes; but in dream, in sentiment, in the ex-
perience of intuition only. The ideal is her birthright. If she
sells it for the real, she is for ever art's Esau, staring forlorn-
ly at the mess of pottage for which her heritage has been ex-
changed."
With a loud knock Caveau entered.
514 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
" Brava, mademoiselle" he cried, applauding his own sophisti-
cal teachings, whose echo he had overheard as he approached
the door. His tendresse for his beautiful and wealthy pupil
and protegee was stimulated by the sight of the handsome,
grave American, whom instinctively he knew to be a rival even
more dangerous than the artist Leroi. Leroi had been van-
quished ; the American would be even a prouder conquest.
Caveau smiled in complacent anticipation. He was Parisien to
his finger-tips, slender, sinuous, dark and dapper, superficially
brilliant, a fin-de siecle fatalist, shrugging his shoulders at the
inevitable, and laughing and feasting to-day, since to-morrow
man dies ! Elizabeth did not yet understand him ; but John
Graves, at first glance, comprehended the type of the good
Leroi's unworthy successor, and rang the bell sharply for the
attendance of Elizabeth's maid. Then he took abrupt leave,
and turned his face towards Leroi's atelier. Even across the
sea the reputation of Leroi, as man and artist, was established.
That Elizabeth had made the mistake of her life in deserting
him for Caveau, John Graves knew; yet it was characteristic
of him that he did not doubt Elizabeth. He blamed the world-
liness and irreligion of her frivolous mother, the indiscreet in-
dulgence of her typically American father, who, lavishing all
upon his only daughter, demanded no filial return ; blamed his
own unselfish chivalry in freeing her when she had feigned to
regret the initial bondage of affianced love blamed most of
all the godless, unscrupulous, evil Caveau! But blame for the
culpable Elizabeth? Never! She was the woman he loved,
and no suspicion was suffered to mar the ideal of his heart.
A less noble man would have admitted, at least, that Elizabeth
needed saving from herself. John Graves recognized only that
he and Leroi, by the grace of God, must save her from
Caveau !
II.
Leroi was alone in his atelier, looking toward the spires of
the Madeleine, when the resolute American knocked. He was
a short, thickset, rugged-featured man with piercing yet intro-
spective dark eyes, heavy black eyebrows, and a picturesque
shock of wavy iron-gray hair. Both head and chin were mas-
sive, his mouth and hand strong and fine. An immense can-
vas, almost virginal in its freshness, was the central figure of
the large, bare room. Its ascetic plainness was in striking
contrast to the luxury of Elizabeth's studio. Moreover, her
190 r.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 515
artistic neglige had been of lustreless amber silk girdled with
garnets chic, beautiful, artistic. Leroi wore a peasant's blouse
spattered with paint verily a " coat of many colors." At first
sight he looked shabby, weary, old ; yet there was a pride and
power about his shaggy leonine head, an exaltation of expres-
sion about his seamed old face, that made him an impressive
figure. As his eyes fell upon his unexpected visitor a sudden
flash of enthusiasm transformed his ugliness to beauty. With
brush still in hand, he sprang forward with all the impulsive
agility of youth ; excitedly running his left hand through his
hair till each gray curl stood out singly.
"A type!" he ejaculated, audibly. " Head, shoulders, torso,
all magnificent : a perfect human animal, a son of nature, a
monarch primeval, yet with eyes and brow revealing soul and
brain ! del, a miracle ! My model for whom I have prayed
and vainly looked, for my ' Adam of the New Paradise.'
Monsieur is from England from America? Mais oui, from the
America, of course : the Young World, cradle of Christian
Anaks ! Permit me but a charcoal outline, as we talk. Merci,
Monsieur. My Adam is mine ! And meantime, beau gar^on,
you seek Leroi for what ? "
" For full and confidential information as to Miss Elizabeth
Minton, an American formerly your pupil; now, I believe, a
protegee of Caveau's," answered Graves, smiling indulgently at
the erratic artist's enthusiasm. In truth, he was a handsome
fellow, built strongly on splendid lines ; big, lithe, powerful,
yet characteristically reposeful ; fair rather than dark in
coloring, with hair burned by many suns, and skin glowing
with the freshness of the western winds. His features were
strong, and sternly handsome ; his dark-lashed eyes chameleon
in their gamut from hazel to brown, and his clear-cut face
smooth-shaven. In the prime of his six-and thirty years, the
more youthful reserve that once had awed impulsive Elizabeth
had matured to quiet dignity ; his natural sternness to the
more tender gravity of earnest manhood, his pride of carriage
to the unconscious assertion of mind over matter, of spirit
scorning indulgence of mortal sense. But he had no vanity,
and Leroi's outspoken admiration only amused him. He was
unpleasantly surprised, however, when the old artist impetu-
ously relinquished his scarcely outlined sketch, and faced him
with indignant eyes.
" Les demoiselles are sacred with Leroi," he stormed. "How
dare you assume that I turn informer?"
516 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
" Because," explained Graves, calmly, " I have had the
honor to be Miss Minton's affianced husband, and am at
present the representative of her anxious parents. I respect
your scruples, Monsieur Leroi, even as I shall respect your
confidence. Is the bohemian life of artistic Paris conducive to
Miss Minton's best welfare ? Is her present master, Caveau, a
noble instructor, a chivalrous friend, a man of honor ? Does
her genius warrant the woman-price she is paying for it ?
Only these questions I ask of you for the lady's own sake,
monsieur."
" Pardon, mon fits" prayed Leroi, resuming his work. " Eh,
bien ! What will you you mad Americans when you send
your young girls over here, lovely, innocent, ignorant ; del,
how ignorant of the French world, and sans la mere, la mon-
daine ! The riches are in one sense a protection, out; but in
another, the gravest danger. Mademoiselle is as innocent as
she is beautiful; therefore, at present, her life harms her pas
du tout, except that her soul has no place in it. As for her
genius genius wasted on woman is as the nectar of the gods
poured into a leaky vessel. Genius of art is for man ; only
the genius of love, as the wife and mother, for woman. I have
known many a woman-genius, yes ; but mark me, either she
betrayed it, or it broke her heart. La belle Elise has great
talent, oui; but Caveau has desecrated it. Genius soars up-
ward always, reaching the divine as nearly as mortal can ; talent
approximates genius only when it, too, strains heavenward.
Caveau points talent downward. The earth, the flesh, the pas-
sions these are his ideals. Even genius does not survive
them. The gift of la belle Elise is dead. Take her back to
America, and marry her, monsieur. She is worthy you. Leroi
has watched her. She is an angel walking the ways of men ;
a lily blooming above the slime. Caveau has not yet dared to
touch her hand, but he has bound her soul to earth, and stands
between her and heaven. Monsieur has seen her Salon- Circe ' f
That is Caveau's work. Here is mine ! "
He drew aside a curtain screening an easled picture. It
was a copy of Carlo Dolce's " Madonna detta delle Stoffe,"
the Hand of whose Divine Infant points toward heaven.
" This," announced Leroi, " is the chef d'ceuvre of la belle
Elise the work that incited Caveau to take her from me.
Unknown to her, I bought it. If you marry, it shall be Leroi's
gift to you deux ! I myself sent her to Florence, to the
Palazzo Pitti, to study the ideal of art in le petit /e'sus, show-
1 90 1.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 517
ing her that the Divine points upward, ever up ! But Caveau
turned her brush down down ! Man Dieu, that a man could
be so evil an artist so blind, so sacrilegious ! del, I cannot
comprehend it, since art is but theology illustrated. Without
the Divine, without religion, where were the great paintings,
the immortal frescoes of the inspired masters ? Regard the
treasure-houses of art all over the world ; explore the churches
and the galleries ; divest them of original and copied Giottos,
Guides, Angelicos, Da Vincis, Michael Angelos, Raphaels,
Correggios, and all their supernal kind, and what were left but
the husks of art? The monks and men who sought their in-
spiration at the morning-altar, and knelt as they worked, are
the artists whose work survives. Note how even Rubens, when
he humanized the spiritual, lost the divine touch. What is
art to day, in the land of the heretic, the iconoclast ? Its
school survives in Reynolds alone : and his triumphs ? Pah !
Human portraits and natural landscapes! Without inspiration,
I tell you, Art is dead ; and inspiration is of the soul only.
When la belle Elise painted this Madonna she aspired. Now
she descends, and paints Circes ! Monsieur, permit me to
draw the curtain. It is the shroud of the artiste Elise ; but
the woman, by grace of God, is not yet dead. Marry her,
monsieur. It will be her salvation."
" She is not responsible," defended the loyal lover. " She
is the daughter of a mixed marriage of a godless father and
a bad Catholic mother, who ended all religious training on the
day of First Communion, and taught her young daughter by
word and example that the world is the only god of beauty
and youth. When she engaged herself to me who have the
blessing of being a Catholic, too, monsieur I hoped it was the
turning-point of her soul-life ; but she was young, and dreamed
that art promised greater happiness than love ; so I released
her. It was my sin of weakness, not hers of unfaith, for she
would have kept her plight had I insisted. If it is not too
late to retrieve my mistake "
The mystic light of prophecy blazed in Leroi's eyes as he
answered.
" It is not too late," he asserted. " La belle Elise is more
woman than artist. Leroi watched her eyes as she finished le
petit Jesus. Caveau has obscured her soul- sight, but she will
behold again virginity's maternal vision. Patience, mon fits, and
vocation will come to her. The way and means are le bon
Dieu's secret. Leroi's old eyes of faith see but the end ! "
5 18 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
The men parted, friends for life. Neither suspected how
speedily, or with what tidings, John Graves would return
from his hotel to Leroi's studio.
III.
Caveau, meantime, had supervised the final packing of
Elizabeth's Circe, and whispering to her to dismiss her maid,
had turned upon her with a smile that was more satirical than
congratulatory.
" Last year," he said, " an honorable mention \ This year,
.a mtdaille the Circe cannot miss it! But next year what,
mademoiselle? If the virtuous lover triumphs, a commonplace
Madonna, skied and rejected, and 'the occupation of the artist
gone ' ! "
" I do not understand," said Elizabeth, coldly. For the first
time Caveau repelled her; impressing her as shallow, artificial,
petty, ignoble, insincere. Contrasted with John Graves' recent
presence, he stood revealed a morbid character, unwholesome,
baleful, sinister. His smile had the menace of the basilisk, his
eyes the greed of the vampire. She shrank intuitively from his
personal approach. Hitherto he had been wise as the serpent,
and kept his respectful distance.
" Mademoiselle," he admitted, " I have a confession to make.
I listened to the American's words. For the sake of the pupil,
the master studies the influences swaying her. This is my ex-
cuse. What I heard convinces me that between the barbarian
American bourgeois and Caveau, I'artiste, you must choose for
ever. The American will make you the obscure, commonplace
femme marie'e ; I, the great, the famous, the idolized artist.
Choose between us, mademoiselle. But in choosing art realize
that you are not losing I amour, but gaining it. For the artist
born, marriage is not love : it is fatal bondage only. You are
too broad, too enlightened, to be the slave of religious creed.
Be likewise brave and lofty enough to defy the cant of social
gospels. Every law -and obligation standing between the artist
and perfect liberty, untrammelled freedom, imply the sacrifice
of genius and bourgeois marriage, mademoiselle, with its
despotic life-long fetters, is inspiration's slow, sure, cruel death.
But the spontaneous sentiment, la grande passion of the human
heart, the artistic affinity, the ideal fealty, free yet faithful, is
the life-flame of art and genius ! Mademoiselle understands ? "
Even as he was speaking Elizabeth had risen haughtily.
1 90 1.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 519
"Alas for me, monsieur," she replied, " that I should under-
stand so late ! "
Once more the little bell on the gilded table tinkled im-
peratively.
" Monsieur Caveau departs," she said, gesturing the atten-
dant to open the door.
She was white to the lips, and her voice trembled; but the
scorn of her eyes was eloquent. Caveau knew that he had
staked all and lost. He bowed with mocking courtesy, ven-
geance already raging in his words.
" The Circe will be rejected," he threatened. " The jury,
the director himself, is in Caveau's hands ! "
She sank down trembling as the door closed upon him.
She had idealized Caveau, and now that his unworthiness was
revealed, his artistic tenets crumbled with him. The man and
his art were equally depraved. Of a sudden she realized the
baseness of the sophisms which she had thought art's pure
philosophy. The Circes and sirens of this false prophet of
realism, how could she have preferred them to the Madonnas
and the angels of the pure, good, spiritual Leroi ? What mad-
ness had confused her, that she had mistaken the clay for the
porcelain, bartered the gold for the alloy? In her feverish
ambition and youthful worldliness she had revolted against
Leroi and his ideals, because they appealed to her soul only ;
but had Caveau's sensuous ethics satisfied her hungering
woman-heart? Folly, pleasure, ambition, artistic absorption
had hitherto blinded her to the subtle truth ; but now she
recognized that not for one hour had her dreams been ful-
filled, her desires satisfied. Looking back, she saw that she
had been happier, infinitely happier with Leroi than with
Caveau ; happier as the fiancee of John Graves than with
either! What, then, had been her fundamental mistake? The
suppression of her womanhood, which, in its pure and perfect
development, included service both to God and man. She had
failed both, for art ; and the bitter fruit of her disloyalties
was upon her. Art and artist, in their turn, were failing her!
As a knock sounded on her door, prefacing the readmit-
tance of John Graves, followed by Leroi, who had not once
entered her studio since she had deserted him for Caveau, she
rose from her unhappy meditation in embarrassed surprise.
Now that Caveau had betrayed himself, Elizabeth was vividly
realizing that her choice between him and Leroi had been the
choice of the farthing rushlight in preference to the star ! Her
520 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
ambition revealed itself as an unworthy, degraded thing, the
failure of which had been far more honorable than success.
It was in her heart to throw herself at Leroi's feet and plead
with him to take her back, not only for his artistic but also
for his ethical teaching, when the gravity of the men thrilled
her heart with sudden terror. Why were their eyes so pitiful,
their silent lips so pallid? Why had Leroi returned with John
Graves? There was a mystery a mystery of sorrow concern-
ing her. Instinctively she knew that the unexpected had hap-
pened, and ingenuously ascribed it to the revengeful Caveau.
"You you have something to tell me. What is it?" she
faltered. " If it relates to Monsieur Caveau, do me the honor
to believe that I that I have been mistaken in him ! In
future he is a stranger to me. If Monsieur Leroi could but
forgive me "
The men exchanged intelligent glances of mingled resent-
ment and thinksgiving. That Caveau had betrayed himself,
was an insult to Elizabeth ; but that Elizabeth was disillusion-
ized, was a mercy well worth its cost. Leroi left his response
to John Graves, who ignored the subject of Caveau. He took
Elizabeth's hand in his, and held it as he answered.
" I have news for you, Elizabeth," he said ; " bad news,
which an hour ago I little thought to bring you. I went from
here to this good Monsieur Leroi's, dear. He has nothing to
forgive. He loves, and honors you. When grateful for his
beautiful, true words of you I left him, I returned to my
hotel. A cablegram awaited me. It was from your father.
Are you brave enough to read it, Elizabeth ? Remember,
dear, that one and all alike pass onward ; that love is eternal ;
death, resurrection ; heaven, reunion. Remember that our
communion of saints keeps soul in touch with soul, even heart
with heart, in spite of the grave dividing! Faith is the victor
of death the divine faith that is your sacred heritage ! Can
you bear my news of sorrow, Elizabeth?"
"Mother is dead!" she droned, dully. "Mother is dead!"
Without a word he passed her the cablegram.
" Break to Elizabeth that her mother is dying. Sail by first
steamer. (Signed] PAUL MINTON."
"A fast steamer sails to-morrow, Elizabeth," he continued,
as she stared blankly at the message. " We may yet be in
time, if you can leave Paris by the midnight express. Mon-
sieur Leroi, I am sure, will be responsible for the safety of
1901.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 521
your paintings. Will you trust all to him and, with your
maid, leave Paris to-night?"
"Dying!" she echoed; "dying?" She cast a glance about
her at her glowing canvases. How they jarred against the
thought of death these beautiful, luring, sensuous figures
boasting no hint of soul or immortality, offering no human
tribute to the Divine! Leroi, sympathetically comprehending
her eloquent shudder, went to the farthest easel. Against it
was propped a huge old portfolio that he recognized. He
emptied its contents, revealing the studies of Elizabeth's earlier
student life defective in drawing, false in color, lacking la
toche for which, under Caveau, she was becoming famous ; but
one and all vital with the spiritual inspiration pure from true
arts source the soul. Her angels had their celestial messages,
her Virgins were beautiful with the beauty of purity inspiring
emulation, her Infants exalted the human to the Divine!
Leroi pointed to them, and then to her later work, with an
appealing gesture rendering superfluous the words that swiftly
followed it.
"These only are yours," he said. "The others are Caveau's.
Let me burn them with the Circe that Caveau will now reject,
and suffer that I forward only the good, the true, the pure,
the noble, to represent your innocent youth, your holy art,
even Notre Dames good Paris! Le ban Dieu will bless the
holocaust, ma fille"
"It is a good thought," approved John Graves. "The pupil
surely may trust the master. The fittest will survive!"
IV.
Elizabeth never forgot the tempestuous voyage homeward.
The storm at sea, with its war of wind and waves, was a placid
calm contrasted with the passionate tumult of her own heart.
A wrecked past, a stormy present, an unrevealed future, alike
encompassed and threatened her bark of life. Whither was she
drifting? She did not know. She knew only that her youth's
fair fleet, her ships of art, were burning luridly behind her!
John Graves kept a reverent distance. Always within call,
yet he asserted his presence only when her maid summoned him
to Elizabeth's side, to answer, some pathetic question. Had
her mother missed her? Did he think her presence might
have prolonged the maternal life ? What was the sudden, fatal,
mysterious disease? Why had she not been warned of the
coming sorrow ? Did he think she would be in time to stand
VOL. LXXII. 34
522 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
by the dying, rather than by the death-bed? Could not the
captain, the crew, be bribed by unstinted gold to sail the
steamer faster? and so on and on and on, in illogical woman-
way, infinitely touching to her lover's tender heart, aching in
its impotence to comfort her.
His love expressed itself but once on the last night of the
voyage, when land was in sight and Elizabeth's suspense virtu-
ally ended. Then he spoke to her frankly, manfully, earnestly;
telling her that his faith and love had never wavered, that his
suit was the same as when she had done him the honor of
accepting it, six years earlier; that her change of mind had
been her privilege, which he had never resented but only re-
gretted with lonely pain of heart ; and that the artistic woman
Elizabeth was even dearer and fairer to him than had been the
dear, fair, ambitious, fickle girl. He reminded her that art had
already dealt her its sting, revealed its disillusion ; that its
Lerois were few and its Caveaux many, and that the artist as
well as the woman must always find a husband's love and pro-
tection sweet. He spoke of the real significance and issues of
life, revealed by the shadowed light of the death-bed tapers;
mocking all ambitions, ideals, and service that were not based
upon the supernal destiny of man. Then, without waiting for
her answer, he left her. Perhaps it was the best method he
could have taken with defiant Elizabeth. The mystery of the
skies and winds, the immensity and majesty and loneliness of
mighty ocean, humble mortal pride more effectively than any
eloquence of human words. With the awful solitude of the
vast sea awing her, the calm stars arraigning her, she recog-
nized her puny life as the atom of creation it was, its human
means dignified alone and only by its service of Divine ends;
or, if not by them, then, as Caveau would have told her, by
nothing! Which were the grander, nobler, more lofty and pro-
gressive teachings: Caveau's, of negative materialism, or Leroi's
and John Graves', of spiritual immortality, to which her soul,
once vivified by sacramental grace, strived feebly to respond ?
She shrank from the sole answer. The revelations of God
were startling her. They seemed to have dawned upon her
so sharply and suddenly. Elizabeth forgot that God had
waited long !
Her father's messenger had come on the tug, her father
himself awaited her on the pier. His good-looking, florid,
complacent face looked strangely worn and haggard. By a
miracle of maternal will her mother still lived, refusing to die
1 90 1.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 523
until she had seen Elizabeth. Reaching the sumptuous house,
sombre now with its darkened windows and muffled bells,
Elizabeth sped to her mother's bedside. The nurse, and a
priest recognized by Elizabeth as the confessor of her youth,
were in attendance. He had grown gray since the years in
which he had warned her that her special temptations were
worldly pride and ambition; but age had beautified him, as
years beautify only when they lead the soul toward heaven.
His face had the lustrous pallor of the spiritual man who
mortifies the flesh. Its expression was one of chastened sweet-
ness, as if the storm-clouds of life were already revealing their
silver lining. His gentle eyes, however, were sad and pitiful
as they turned to the dying woman. In spite of the Last Sac-
raments, her death bed was not a peaceful one. Too late re-
morse tortured the unfaithful Catholic. She had been absolved
from her own sins, indeed ; but what of the potential sins of her
daughter, for which she was mainly responsible ?
After the first greetings, the nurse retired ; but, at a ges-
ture from Mrs. Minton, the priest remained. He stood with
his hand on the shoulder of the grieving husband. Paul Min-
ton was a man without bigotry or malice, irreligious through
ignorance, rather than by deliberate choice. The priest, know-
ing the potency of death's great lesson, foresaw that his con-
version was at hand.
" Elizabeth ! " moaned the repentant mother. Her face, wan
with pain, framed in hair gray only since her illness, her at-
tenuated hands plucking at the silver coverlet, made a pathetic
picture blinding Elizabeth's eyes with sudden tears. " Eliza-
beth, I have much to say to you. I have prayed that I might
live to say it. If you will not heed me, your soul and mine
are lost together. I want to tell you that I have been a bad
mother to you, a bad wife to your father: the worst of wives
and mothers, since I, already a Catholic, was entrusted with
your souls. Did I lead them toward the light of faith? No!
Instead, I led them from it. Wealth and worldliness, earthly
ambitions and social fashion these were the idols I encouraged
you to serve. ' What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul?' I warn you, I who die tonight,
that it profits nothing, nothing ! I have lived not for God,
not for husband, not for child, but for the world ; and now
that my last hour comes, how am I the gainer? The world
shared my feasts, but where is it for my death watch ? It revels
while I, its slave and sycophant, suffer and die ! It is a terri-
ble thing to die when life has been wasted, and the woman-
524 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. [Jan.,
life wasted has less excuse than the man's! Elizabeth, daugh-
ter, remember the mission of Catholic womanhood of wife-
hood motherhood "
A gurgling sob choked her last human utterance. As she
fell back exhausted, the priest made the sign of the cross on
her pallid forehead. The nurse, accompanied by the doctor,
emerged from the inner room.
" There is no danger of the end at present," announced the
doctor, after a brief examination ; " and in her present intense-
ly nervous condition solitude will do more than opiates to
restore her peace. Let all save the nurse take a few hours of
rest, at least until my return, between midnight and dawn. In
frankness, I must insist upon your absence, solely, of course,
for my suffering patient's sake."
"Rest!" scorned Elizabeth, sobbing bitterly as her father
drew her from the room. The priest, after a whispered con-
ference with the doctor, followed them.
" If you will not try to rest just yet, my daughter," he sug-
gested, "would it not be a holy thought to watch before the
Blessed Sacrament, for the departing soul? To-night's beauti-
ful services carry a special blessing with them; and none of us
will be on earth to assist at the birth-Mass of another century.
Moreover, the walk to the church will refresh you."
Elizabeth, who was still in the street-toilette in which she
had arrived, assented, mechanically ; her father following her
with a curious sense of sudden helplessness, of submission to
some power invisibly asserted, yet which he was impotent to
resist. Reaching the crovded church, he hesitated in surprise
that Elizabeth should care to enter ; but at a word from the
priest, who parted from them at the door, an usher beckoned
her toward a reserved pew, and he had no choice but to follow
her. A strange awe stole into his heart as his roving eyes
discovered John Graves, kneeling beside an alcoved confession-
al. He admired the clear-brained, clean-lived, successful man
of millions, and his first impression of incongruity at seeing
him about to confess his sins to a fellow-man gradually softened
to a mystified wonder, to a perplexity born of a supernatural
glimmer of grace and light.
What if John Graves were right? he pondered, as the ser-
vice proceeded. What if the surpliced priest in the pulpit
were indeed the apostolic exponent of Christ's divine truth ?
What if the White Mystery on the altar were truly the Bread
of Life? What if, as the old century died and the new cen-
tury began, the Miserere and Te Deum of the choir voiced the
1901.] THE MOTHER OF JOHN. 525
sentiments due from creature to Creator, from human man to
God ? His thoughts returned to the bed of death behind him
to the woman born and bred to spiritual convictions, but who
had lacked the courage of them; and whose last conscious
words had been of bitter remorse haunting words which must
ring in his memory for ever, and seemed even now to challenge
his soul to choose between unrest and peace. He chafed
against the coercion of choice so suddenly overwhelming him ;
and with a man's instinctive effort to rid himself of pain rose
suddenly, and with a murmured, unheeded word to Elizabeth,
left the church. Nevertheless, the grace of God followed and in
due time vanquished him. Such was the good divinely wrought
by a penitent sinner's death.
Elizabeth sat staring fixedly before her, deaf to the sonor-
ous music, the splendid sermon ; blind to the altar-lights flash-
ing before her introspective eyes. She was face to face with
her guilty conscience, revealed to her at first by her disillu-
sion regarding Caveau and his ethics, and now again, clearly
and finally, by her mother's remorseful death-words. Her self-
ish anbition, her mother's worldliness were not both kindred
mistaken ideals : false standards, profitless service, leading to
identical ends? She could not evade death. Did she wish,
then, to die as her mother was dying? Her soul shuddered
its negative to the question. The logical alternative faced her.
Its unfamiliarity no longer startled her ; her week of revela-
tion had accustomed her to the Divine Vision. When false
gods crumble, the true God always beckons. Unconsciously
Elizabeth responded when, as the services ended, she made her
way to the chancel shrining the Christmas Crib.
It was a beautiful Crib, an imported work of art, realisti-
cally representing not only the Holy Family but also the
Kings and Shepherds, the singing Angels, the Christmas Star.
But, to the exclusion of all the rest, two figures held Eliza-
beth's gize ; the Virgin and Infant the Mother and Child.
Why did they alone allure her eyes? What was their message
for her? Only the message of perfected womanhood, had
Elizabeth known it; but her travailing soul still groped in semi-
darkness ; yet, little by little, it was infused with mystic peace.
The Virgin, type of innocence and purity, yet crowned as
woman by her holy maternity ; the new-born Christ-Child, in-
carnation of immortality at once the prophecy and fulfilment,
the promise and destiny of the universal human world ; what
was their lesson for her, as artist and woman ? That art was
well, yes, and a beautiful means to Divine ends; but not, as
526 THE MOTHER OF JOHN. (Jan.,
she had. maintained, in itself an end more vital than human
duty, and love, and life. No ! She had erred in holding it
her exclusive service ; erred in confounding the mocking " irn-
mDrtality" of mortal art with humanity's dream and desire for
eternal life; erred, above all, in dreaming the art-life, even at
its purest and highest, so potentially selfish in essence as to
m ike the individual personal achievement all ; the proxical,
nothing! Was not womanhood's art by nature transmissive,
whether maternally in the flesh, or prolific spiritually, project-
ing its ideal thought, communicating its inspired word, diffus-
ing its pure and beautiful deeds for the good of the world?
surely a mission to humanity present and future, infinitely
wider than the self-centred life can ever fulfil ! What was the
artistic patois of the ateliers to the word of tenderness by
which normal womanhood gives cheer to the child, sympathy
to her sister woman, and strength to the youth and man to
endure and resist the wounds and temptations of life? Poor
Elizabeth began to realize how selfishly she had failed woman's
general vocation. The revelation of her individual vocation
was yet to come !
She was startled from her reverie by the voice of the
priest. He was telling her that midnight Mass would soon fol-
low, and that when it was ended he would return to the bed
of death. Reading aright the spiritual emotion of her face,
his heart thanked God for it.
" Before the altar, my daughter, let me wish you a ' Happy
New Year,'" he whispered, "even though it seems to dawn in
grief. Happiness of spirit, which is the only true happiness,
inevitably comes through the cross. Your mother reaches
heaven through the darkness of death. Beyond your own tears
light is shining. It will guide you to the tribunal of peace.
God bless you ! "
Elizabeth bowed her head to hide her tears. The priestly
benediction touched not only her soul but her heart; her
woman heart so long suppressed and flouted, now straining
to yard the light he prophesied, light still invisible, yet sensi-
bly discerned. Hints of prophecy foreshadowings of the future
when revelled vocation should be fulfilled and consummated
seemed to subjugate incredibly the art which until so recently
she had served with all her life.
Tne Eyes of the Virgin-Mother revealed to her their
W3 n in secrets. Feminine genius was an attribute, a grace, a
gift, indeed ; but not to be mistaken for the just usurper of
woman's natural vocation. The single essential fundamental
1 90 1 .] THE Mo THER OF JOHN. 527
and crowning characteristic of ideal womanhood was purity :
the triunph of purity, the holy maternity of sacramental
marriage, or the spiritual motherhood of beautiful virginity,
maternal-hearted to all the world ! Was the artist less be-
cause she was also woman? Was art necessarily of the brush
and chisel, the pen and instrument only ? No ! The highest
genius was vision of soul, sentiment of heart, dream of intellect,
high, pure, and spiritual ; transmitted from godly generation to
generation by the ordinary vocation of active womanhood, as
well as by artistic consecration ; and immortal only as help-
ing heavenward the God-created, God-reflecting, and therefore
deathless human soul !
She gazed upon the Mother who bore the Light of the
world the Divine Artist, whose original creations the highest
human art but faintly and lifelessly reflects. Then her thoughts
reverted to another woman and mother, whose saintly name
she unworthily bore the Elizabeth who had borne not the
Light, but the John who gave testimony to the Light! After
Mary's, was not Elizabeth's the greatest of woman vocations ?
Yes, her awakened soul and heart acknowledged it ; but John
and Elizabeth, like Cdrist and Mary, were of the beautiful
past. Ah ! but were they ? The memory of the pure-faced
priest who had recently wished her a Happy New Year sud-
denly flashed before her. He who served the altar gave testi-
mony to the Light! Generation after generation of such Johns
were behind as before him, mothered in nature or in spirit by
daughters of " the blessed among women," alike the model of
the virginal and maternal state ! While the Light abided, even
unto the end of the world, the testimony of John would be
needed. Then what grander ideal could womanhood hold, even
art's Elizabeths, than the moulding in the Divine image, for
the Divine service, of a man-child's immortal soul?
"Are you ready, Elizabeth?" queried John Graves, as the
midnight Mass ended.
She lifted a face he scarcely recognized, so radiant was it
with happy prophecy behind its mask of tears.
Before the church door her maid and carriage awaited her ;
but emerging from the deserted vestibule into the light of the
stars of the New Century, Elizabeth whispered her inspired
answer.
" Yes, I am ready, John," she confessed softly.
" God bless you, dear ! " he responded reverently.
By the intuition of love the holy, he understood.
528
A NEW YEAR.
[Jan.
HEW
Across the lonely Valleys, wfjite With
snoW,
j 1 hey who are Waiting hear faint trumpets blow.
I hen in the darkless, thro' the awful night,
1 here com,es an, angel, heralding the light.
<And some there be wl~|o dread to
take her l^and,
e)he who comes forth from out an alien
land.
But wtyte, white, are all the
long highways,
white for us may be the coming days.
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE.
i. Aiken : The Dhamina of Gotama the Buddha; 2. Bou-
gaud : Divinity of Christ ; 3. Lechner: St. Benedict; 4. Brad-
ford: Return to Christ; 5. Donnelly: Sister Mary Gonzaga
Grace; 6. Ward: Eleanor; 7. Crawford: Rulers of the South;
8. Conway : Way of the World; 9. Henry: Princess of Arcady ;
10. Finn: His First and Last Appearance ; n. Ea?an : Guy's
Fortune; 12. Janss*n: History of the German People ; 13. Gug;genberger : Gen-
eral History of the Christian Era ; 14. Devos : Three Ages of Progress ; 15. Lee:
Life and Work of S/iak'speare.
Notable among new publications is a dissertation * pre-
sented td the Catholic University of America by a candidate
for the degree of Doctor in Sacred Theology. That it has
been accepted by the University faculty as satisfactory, is a
guarantee that the work displays scholarly research and original
thought. Beyond his academic success the author is to be
congratulated on having produced a useful and timely contri-
bution to Christian apologetics.
Modern unbelief, which has shown such persistent energy
in scouring every field of human thought and action for wea-
pons wherewith to injure the claims to a supernatural origin
advanced by Christianity, has not neglected to look for evidences
that might show the religion of Christ to be but a new com-
bination of elements found in ancient Oriental religions. With
this purpose some writers have addressed themselves to Bud-
dhism, which seemed to invite the judicious investigator with a
promise of rich results. Ransacking the vast accumulations of
Buddhistic literature from China to Ceylon, and pressing into
their service monuments of widely divided ages, neglecting the
most elementary rules of literary and historical criticism, some
of these inquirers have collected data which, when skilfully
arranged, make a mosaic that bears a startling resemblance to
Christianity. And since Buddhism is older than Christianity,
we are asked to accept as an irresistible inference the state-
ment that Christianity is largely indebted to Buddhism.
* The Dhamma of Gotama the Buddha and the Gospel of fesus the Christ. By the Rev.
Charles Francis Aiken, S.T.D. Boston : Marlier & Co.
530 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
The most important and fundamental assertion in this
charge against Christianity is that the Evangelists in relating the
history and teachings of our Lord have, consciously or uncon-
sciously, borrowed largely from Buddhistic doctrine and tradi-
tion. Father Aiken's purpose is to demonstrate the untenable
character of the grounds upon which the three chief advocates
of this view, Von Bunsen, Seydel, and Arthur Lillie, have
rested their arguments.
The book is divided into three parts : Part I., The Ante-
cedents of Buddhism Brahmanism ; Part II., Buddhism ; Part
III., The alleged relations of Buddhism with Christianity. The
last part, then, in which the author directly deals with his
thesis, is the essential portion of the work. Indeed, it might
withDut much injury be detached from the foregoing parts al-
together ; and if this were done we should have in it all that
is valuable in the book as /a Christian apologetic. Of course
it was imperative on Father Aiken to premise some account of
Baddhism, which involved a reference to Brahmanism. But
unless the exigencies of academic rules called for expansion of
the dissertation to a certain number of pages, the introduction
might have been greatly condensed. The work would have
thereby possessed more symmetry ; for there seems to be a
lack of proportion when over one hundred and fifty pages are
given to the introduction, while the essential portion occupies
only about one hundred and thirty.
The third part begins with a survey of the works of Von
Bunsen, Seydel, and Lillie; it proceeds to examine the resem-
blances and alleged resemblances of the Buddhistic religion or
philosophy to the Gospels. Father Aiken classifies these alleged
resemblances under three heads : Exaggerations of actual re-
semblances; Anachronisms; Fictitious resemblances. It is in
dealing with the second class that Father Aiken displays a
thorough spirit of historical criticism, and draws most happily
on the eminent authorities upon whom he relies, such as
Oldenberg, Tourner, Hardy Fergusson, and many others.
The value of the controversial portion is enhanced by the
fact that the author has not advanced against his opponents
any interpretations, theories, or conclusions of his own. He
rests upon the authority of scholars and scientific experts of
acknowledged standing. The reader, therefore, is not troubled
with any unsatisfactory wrangling over Sanscrit texts, obscure
points of archaeology, or interminable philological discussions.
Instead of advancing views which, however just, would be only
his own, Father Atken usually focuses on the weak points of
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 531
an opponent's arguments the adverse testimony of several
eminent scholars. Certainly it may be objected to this method
that in disposing of a controverted point by an appeal to
authorities, an author is exposed to the temptation of assum-
ing that when authorities differ, the preponderant weight lies
in the one whose views best serve his own purpose. And it
might be urged, too, that when some of the scholars whom he
cites are found in opposition to him, Father Aiken does not
show to their authority the same deference which he pays to
them when they are on his own side.
Many readers will probably be disappointed in not finding
in these pages any adequate setting forth of the immeasurable
superiority of Christianity to Buddhism. In his preface, how-
ever, Father Aiken apologizes for the absence of this feature.
He reminds us that all those Protestant writers who have
vindicated the independent origin of Christianity against Bud-
diistic usurpation hive dwelt too largely on the superiority of
Christian teaching, and have not adequately treated the matter
which he has taken up. Consequently Father Aiken, to use
his own words, contents himself with a brief exposition of the
inferiority of B-iddhism to the religion of Christ. Notwith-
standing this explanation, however, Catholics will regret that
Father Aiken has not taken advantage of his opportunity to
show the internal stamp of divinity in the religion of Christ,
and to do so by identifying the religion of Christ, on both its
intellectual and ethical side, with Catholicity. Considering the
present trend of thought among non-Catholic Christians, there
is but little to be gained by the Catholic apologist in represent-
ing the religion of Christ in an outline which might be called
the greatest common denominator of Catholicity and Protest-
antism. We should have gladly seen a goodly number of the
pages devoted to the exposition of Brahmanism reserved for
an adequate presentation of Her who vera incessu patuit Dea.
The reader will find that the work represents a very wide
course of study over all the fields involved in the question at
issue, together with genuine power of discrimination of histori-
cal values, as well as much deep thinking to bring the knowl-
edge acquired to bear upon the problem in hand. And no
impartial reader, having studied its arguments, can close Father
Aiken's book without being satisfied that the author has suc-
cessfully accomplished the task which he proposed to himself.
A very extensive and carefully classified bibliography appended
to the volume will be much appreciated by all who find an
interest in the study of Buddhism.
532 . TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
It is the constantly repeated testimony of those who are
following the movement of religious thought that the sects
are losing hold of all dogmas, even of the very central dogma
of Christianity, the divinity of Jesus Christ. In some cases it
meets with flat rejection, in others it is so modified and minim-
ized as to be no longer recognizable as the primitive teach-
ing that Christ is in truth and in a unique sense the Son of
God. We welcome, therefore, the new and very acceptable
exposition* of the argument in favor of the old and true
dogma. It is the first English translation of part of the sec-
ond volume of Monseigneur Bougaud's celebrated work, Le
Christianisme et les Temps presents. Monseigneur Bougaud's
method in this as in all his apologetical works is simply to
throw into attractive and readable form the accurate teaching
of pure Christianity, since he believes, with the wisest of our
modern apologists, that there is nowadays " much more ignor-
ance of truth than intelligent antagonism to it." In the pres-
ent work he attempts to accommodate his argument to the
minds of modern readers, making use of their acknowledg-
ment of the sublime and spotless humanity of Christ to bring
them to the confession of his divinity. The argument, in
brief, is this: Jesus Christ, on the admission of all candid stu-
dents of His character, was the noblest mind, the most loving
heart, the most perfect soul that history has to show, " a
Being more than human." That granted as the groundwork of
argument, it is shown that if he be such, he must be a "true
speaker," and his own testimony concerning himself must be
accepted. His own testimony is then shown to be that he is
God ; it is accepted, has been accepted and acted upon in all
the Christian centuries ; it has provoked alike the most vehe-
ment and self-sacrificing love, and, on the other hand, the most
fanatical hatred of which the human heart is capable, and
amid all the vicissitudes of religious thought it ever holds its
own so persistently and so successfully that unless it be true,
all Christianity and all Christian history is inexplicable. Of
course the argument is the standard and venerable one of
Catholic theology, but with the help of Monseigneur Bougaud's
devotional and oratorical style it takes a new aspect and re-
ceives a new force.
Hence we would gladly see. the book in the hands alike of
those who know the truth and of those who seek it. The
* The Divinity of Christ : An Argumint. Translated from the French of Monseigneur
mile Bougaud by C. L. Currie. New York : William H. Young & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.
thought of compiling and translating it was a happy one, and
it has been excellently carried out by translator, by editor, and
by publisher.
The translation of Father Lechner's book* nearly a half
century after the publication of the original is another sign of
the recently revived interest in everything Benedictine. The
translation made some time ago of the second book of St.
Gregory's Dialogues really furnished English readers with al-
most all the knowledge obtainable upon the patriarch of wes-
tern monasticism. And the Abbot Tosti's much-praised work
of a few years ago supplied a sufficiently scientific study of the
epoch in question to meet all requirements. Still, the loving
daughters of St. Benedict in England have done well to bring
before us this simple and devotional account of their great
father. It does not pretend to a critical character, and aims
rather at exciting devotion than at settling historical questions.
The translation is a free one, smooth and pleasant. Two or
three appendices are added, including a chronological table
which will be a great convenience to readers not thoroughly
well acquainted with the course of history of the fifth and
sixth centuries.
Dr. Bradford's new volume f makes no pretence of being a
scientific work. We may regard it, perhaps, as a set of dis-
courses based upon his general impression of current religious
beliefs. He writes smoothly, indeed, and pleasantly, but any
reader unacquainted with actual conditions will derive a false
impression from the book, owing to its author's failure to make
one or two very obvious distinctions.
First, Dr. Bradford should have remarked that he excludes
from consideration the doctrines and the members of the
Catholic Church; for we presume he recognizes the fact that
he really pays no attention to this portion of Christendom.
If it is his intention to include Catholics in his phrase " the
church," he has perpetrated blunders innumerable.
Taking for granted, then, that the writer is speaking only
of the non-Catholic world, we still insist on a further distinc-
tion. If "return to Christ" means increase of affection and'
devotion towards our Blessed Saviour, such increase may safely
be predicated of those earnest Protestants who have emanci-
* The Life and Times of St. Benedict. Abridged and arranged by O. S. B. from the
German of the Very Rev. Peter Lechner. New York : Benziger Bros.
t The Return to Christ. By Amory H. Bradford. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co
534 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
pated themselves from the distorted notions of Calvinistic an-
cestors. But to the religious leaders of Protestantism we can
attribute no other effort toward a " return to Christ " than a
curiously unfair cross-examination of all his highest claims.
In what sense the Protestant " Church " is returning to Christ
may be seen by any one who cares to read an article on the
subject published in the American Ecclesiastical Revieiv of Octo-
ber, 1900, and reprinted in great part in the Literary Digest of
November 10.
Dr. Bradford is earnest and means well. But he cites
Ritschl as an evidence of a " return to Christ " ! Let Dr.
Bradford's readers turn to the latest encyclical of Leo XIII.,
and they will find in it a very different conception of what is
meant by loyalty to Jesus. If it be as widely spread as it de-
serves, the latter publication will succeed in accomplishing all
the good results unattained and unattainable by books like
that before us. Its interest lies chiefly in its striking manifes-
tation of the deplorable weakness of latter-day Protestantism.
Never was it more evident than it is to-day that there is but
one Church of Jesus Christ. This first principle established,
and it will not take long to decide which of the claimants is
indeed genuine.
The life of a Sister of Charity, whatever may be its cir-
cumstances, scarcely needs any idealizing to make attractive
reading. But when the life is that of such a devoted and
saintly servant of God as the subject of this memoir,* and its
circumstances include such heroic work as hospital service in
the bloody times of the Civil War, and when, finally, the
writer of such a life has the literary skill of Eleanor Donnelly,
it must be invested with inevitable attractiveness. We venture
to say that no one who takes up this work with such expecta-
tions will be disappointed. The charitably inclined will be
glad to know that the proceeds of the book are to be devoted
to the interests of the orphans of St. Joseph's Asylum, the
scene of the chief work of the saintly woman of whose life it
tells.
It has been generally allowed that Mrs. Ward's latest
workf is her best. Here and there some one has censured a
defect or two, but on the whole the book has met with a wtl-
* L>fe of Sister Mary Gonzaga Gracr, of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de
Paul. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. Philadelphia: H. L. Kilner & Co.
\Eleanor. By Mrs. Humphrey Ward. New York: Harper Brothers.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 535
come that must be very grateful to the author. One easily
perceives that she has worked carefully upon it, and that, like
most of her writings, it embodies ideas cherished very fondly
by her. True, now and again she slips into a poor sentence,
but these slight defects are more than counterbalanced by
abundance of beautifully vivid description, by strongly dra-
matic touches, and by passages full of pathos. The author
knows her people and her scenery well, and her pages are
deeply enough imbued with the flavor of Italian landscapes
and southern skies to powerfully charm the many readers who
retain remembrances of the places described.
What there is of plot in the volume may be easily told.
Edward M misty in writing a book on modern Italy has en-
gaged as a collaborator his widowed cousin, the charming and
intellectual Eleanor. The latter is. gradually winning her way
to his heart when Lucy Forster, an American girl, intrudes
into their quiet life, and finally brings Manisty to her own
feet. The study of Eleanor during this time is the motif of
the writer. Indifference, suspicion, resentment, and jealousy
succeed one another in the older woman's soul as she perceives
her young companion's victory. Then comes the outbreak of
a violent nature hitherto self-restrained, then passionate plead-
ing, miserable surrender to selfishness, and a final struggle that
ends in complete renunciation. Though the pictures are mas-
terful, the writer seems sometimes to secure them at the ex-
pense of probability. Still, as a study in feminine psychology
the book certainly deserves high praise.
Less can be said for its presentation of historical and re-
ligious issues. Catholic reviewers, however, who criticise Mrs.
Ward with considerable bitterness for her portrayal of the re-
lations of church and state in Italy are wrong. She has un-
doubtedly done her best. If frequently she produces the im-
pression of unfairness and hostility to Catholicism, that is by
reason of her very natural tendency to judge things from the
stand point of her own religious views. She misrepresents only
because she misunderstands. Rationalistic and superficial in
her theology, she cannot be in a position to appreciate fads
as those do who are possessed of a faith that sees deep into
the life of things. Thus, quite unconsciously no doubt, she
neglects the most subtile and spiritual elements of the situa-
tion she attempts to describe. This perhaps explains also the
reason why Father Benecke is so decided a failure, and why
the turning point of Eleanor's career is so unsatisfactorily
536 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
represented. Mrs. Ward with all her cleverness, her learning,
and her art, is unable to guess what would happen in the soul
of a priest placed in a situation similar to Father Benecke's;
she is equally unable to depict with any vividness how an
Eleanor would react under sudden deep religious influences.
As to Mrs. Ward's views of ' Modern Italy," we were pre-
pared for sweeping statements; but really she must not ask
her readers to believe that all the intelligent and progressive
minds in Italy are in either open or secret sympathy with the
government, that priestcraft is the one great obstacle to the
construction of a " United Italy " worthy of place among
the powers of Europe, and that, overlooking a few official
blunders, one might summarily describe the incidents of recent
Italian history as noble and romantic efforts of a patriotic race
to throw off an oppressive yoke. Indeed, if the Catholic
authorities really have so much to answer for as she inti-
mates, it seems terribly and wantonly unfair to burden them
further with the intolerable incubus of a champion like Man-
isty i arrow, fanatical, vacillating, and irreligious. Mrs. Ward
may see in Catholicism only the perfection of a well-organized,
close monopoly ; but there is more. She may summon lofty
ideals out of the chaos of Italian Liberalism ; but will they
come ? In a word, if the author is well suited to describe the
physical, literary, and social Italy of modern times, she is, by
reason of her peculiar training, sympathies, and religious
cread, quite incompetent to give us a serious verdict on the
vital issues now dividing the Vatican and the Quirinal. Hence
she must be chided for a certain amount of bad art. We say
this rather regretfully, for in many places Mrs. Ward shows
an attempt at honest appreciation of what is praiseworthy in
Catholicism from a merely human point of view. An instance
in point is her view of confession. But mean she never so
well, she disappoints, nay, offends us. Among other things,
on the strength of a very vague and unsatisfactory allusion to
an opinion held by St. Thomas, she builds up a dark little bit
of casuistry that certainly should have been considered utterly
unworthy of a priest honest enough to have been crushed by
"the Roman machine."
So Father Benecke must be considered as unsatisfactory, at
the least. Lucy Forster is better, although she will be found
rather too "ideally" American and too "intensely" primitive
to please the realists. Alice might be easily suppressed, and
never missed. Manhty though on one occasion "his steady,
igoi.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 537
ardent look thrilled the hot May air " is so repulsively and
brutally selfish that we would be tempted to call him impossi-
ble were we not haunted by the recollection of having en-
countered him several times in real life, " one of those tem-
peraments to which other lives minister without large return."
So we must allow him to be well conceived and portrayed.
But Eleanor, ah ! Eleanor, with all her faults, is a daughter
of Eve drawn from life, with her clinging ways and her ready
sympathy, her love of her dead boy, and her passionate long-
ing to possess her chosen lover. We recognize her. Mrs.
Ward has achieved a success. We will not forget this new
heroine, or rather this new and vivid embodiment of an old,
old, familiar and changeless reality das ewige wei^lich.
Mr. Crawford has been accused of prolific writing. His
latest volume makes us grateful that the charge is justified.
For if Ave Roma regained for him what Casa Braccio lost, The
Rulers of the South * places him even higher than before.
Quite in the vein of the earlier work upon Rome, though on
the whole scarcely of so intense an interest, this new produc-
tion forces the verdict that its author has talent in what might
be called the field of imaginative history. As to the pub-
lisher's work, in this instance it is very fine. Out of the
numerous and really beautiful illustrations, a few lack distinct-
ness through imperfect focusing, but otherwise not a stricture
can be passed : all is artistically perfect. The three maps of
Sicily and Southern Italy and the chronological tables are
especially convenient for readers untravelled, or forgetful of
youthful lessons in geography and history. And an appendix
on the Camorra of Naples and the Mafia of Sicily presents us
with a most picturesque account of an organization concerning
which the world outside Italy " knows little that is even ap-
proximately true."
Through twenty centuries the author guides us the epochs
of Greeks, Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Saracens, Normans, and
Spaniards. It is a tale at once historical and romantic, realistic
and imaginative. Like all that has to do with the sunny land
of Italy, this story casts over us the strong spell of beauty,
tragedy, poetry, love, and religion. We are in a garden of
fragrant blossoms, and the guide's hand is ever pointing us to
new combinations of graceful form and rich color; for Mr.
* Tne Ruhrs of the South : Sicily, Calabria, Malta. By^Francis^Marion Crawford.
New York : The Macmillan Company.
VOL. LXXII. 35
538 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
Crawford, of course, makes it his aim to teach history not by
dry scientific methods but by a constant succession of word-
paintings. The impression left upon us is as vivid as it is
delightful ; we realize that Sicily indeed has been the Helen
of a European epos, the undying heroine of an unending ro-
mance, wooed, won, and lost by many lovers who have met
and fought and have conquered, or have been vanquished in
the struggle for the possession of her beauty.
Reading books like the volume before us is about as
pleasant a way of learning history as can be invented for the
general public. This characteristic, of course, limits the author
to a method that is literary rather than scientific. " Out of
the fathomless archives of southern history " he has selected
the material suitable for his purpose, making no pretence of
exhaustive and scholarly treatment of historical problems. He
has succeeded in accomplishing his end, for while some readers
will perceive not a few statements open to contradiction and
amendment, all must realize the charm of Mr. Crawford's style
and long to wander through the beautiful and memorable
places he has described, treading in the footsteps of great
Robert Guiscard, or the great Roger, Charles of Anjou, or the
lovely Queen Blanche.
Perhaps it may not be amiss to quote here from page 62
of volume the second, bidding our readers recall the fact that
whatever else Mr. Crawford may be he has never been called
"a bigoted " Catholic : " Half a lifetime spent among the peo-
ple of the south has convinced me that, in spite of all that
northern writers have said to the contrary, the Italian peasant
never really confounds the image with the holy person, divine
or human, whom it represents. ... A few questions asked
in his own language, and in terms comprehensible to him, will
suffice to convince any fair inquirer that he looks upon the
matter very differently."
As usual, we have found great pleasure in reading the
latest work* of Katherine Con way. In fact, we are of the
opinion that this newest product of her pen is her best, though
we hope and her success in this, her new departure, is one of
the reasons for our hope that it will not long remain her
best. For we cannot be made to understand, after reading
The Way of the World, why the author should not attempt,
with equal or greater success, something more pretentious on
* The Way of the Worla, and Other Ways. Katherine E. Conway. Boston : Pilot
Publishing Co.
1 90i.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 539
the same lines : a novel with a fully elaborated plot and a
more uniformly sustained dignity of treatment. But to the
book in hand. It is a story, told with much vivacity, of a
young artist almost " done to death by slanderous tongues,"
the unconsciously guilty wielders of which were none other
than her sisters in religion and society, fellow-members of a
typical religious literary club of women. The author in the
first pages pictures very skilfully with much humor, and we
imagine with but little caricature the petty doings and say-
ings, the tattle and prattle of the members of the club ; yet
when she comes to the more serious, we may even call it the
tragical element of her story, she shows herself as masterful
with pathos as with wit, and succeeds throughout admirably in
sustaining the interest of the reader by a swift-running, nervous,
attractive style. As we have hinted,' there may be an occa-
sional lapse from the dignity of treatment that the author must
needs have maintained if she had conceived her task more
seriously ; but as the tale stands it discourages criticism, for it
is eminently pleasing, while it lacks not many evidences of ex-
traordinary ability in story-telling and character-painting.
A novel .which awakens an interest in its very beginning is
always refreshing doubly so when this interest is sustained
Jthroughout. Such a book is the dainty volume which has just
appeared under the title A Princess of Arcady* The author
is of the ideal school, and the public is indebted to him for an
ideally charming romance. In the opening chapter he intro-
duces the reader to Hilda and Pierre, two children at play in
their river-island home far removed from the contaminating
influences of the world. We follow little Hilda through the
many vicissitudes of her early life, her consignment to an
asylum upon her mother's death, her adoption by Mr. Alexan-
der, and her later life of study in the convent of Our Lady of
Peace. By far the most pleasing feature of the book is Mr.
Henry's great power of description, for. he presents picture
after picture of striking vividness. Mr. Mott, the old gardener,
is as interesting a character-sketch as one could wish. Mr.
Henry deserves some praise, too, for his omission of those lurid
descriptions which lend so unwholesome a tone to much of our
modern fiction.
However, interesting as A Princess of Arcady is, there re-
mains room for adverse criticism. Mr. Henry, like many
modern authors, .has followed the fad of introducing a touch
* A Princess of Arcady. By Arthur Henry. New York : Doubleday, Page & Co.
540 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
of Catholic thought and life, with the usual result of betraying
an imperfect knowledge of both. For instance, the letter con-
cerning little Hilda, written by Mr. Alexander to Sister Pelagia,
mother superior of the convent of Our Lady of Peace and,
by the way, his former fiancee is for the most part sentimen-
tal gush, savoring of the old and hackneyed idea that the
principal virtue of a convent is that it provides a balm for dis-
appointed love. We doubt very much if such a character as
the author has represented Mr. Alexander to be would, after
thirty years of separation, address the lady in question, and
superior of a convent, as " Dear Betty," even though she had
been his betrothed; nor would he be guilty of the following:
"If thirty years ago you- and I had known ourselves, or under-
stood anything of life or the world, we would not have been
separated by a misunderstanding which was significant only be-
cause of the intensity of the love that caused it. ... The
church may be more to you than a home could have been.
But I doubt it. As for me, I am lonely and my life empty."
When Mr. Alexander meets Sister Pelagia at the convent, and
fails to recognize in " the wrinkled, faded face before him " his
"Betty," he exclaims, on being informed that this "Betty" is
dead, " She is not dead. When I die you may say a Mass for
her soul, and speak of her as you wish." We do not quite fol-.
low the author here, for certainly Mr. Henry, who is so impar-
tial toward Catholics, and such an ardent admirer of Catholic
influence in education, does not in this enlightened age enter-
tain the idea that the power of offering the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass is bestowed upon women who enter religion.
Those who have read Father Finn's books, from Tom Play-
fair to That Football Game, know his great power for writing
boys' stories. His latest book * confirms and adds new laurels
to his reputation, having been already recognized by reviewers
as his best production. It differs considerably from his former
books. While Phillip Lachance, a boy of ten " with a wonder-
ful voice," always remains the central figure of the story, yet
the unusual prominence of two much older characters Isobel
Lachance, Phillip's sister, and Professor Himmelstein, Phillip's
instructor makes the boolc a real departure from what we
have been accustomed to in Father Finn's stories. However,
the departure is an agreeable one, and successful. The charac-
ter of Isobel is somewhat too suppressed suggested rather
than developed ; and though the quaint old Professor Him-
* His First and Last Appearance. By F. J. Finn, S.J. New York : Benziger Brothers.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS.
melstein is extremely interesting, his dialect is a rather variable
quantity. The form of the book is attractive, the cover being
really very good, although it must be said that some of the
illustrations are at best second rate. A portrait of Father
Finn faces the title-page, and will please the many readers
who have come to look on him as a benefactor to the Catho-
lic youth of this country.
The story* of Guy Mortimer's adventures makes pleasant
enough reading for persons of simple taste. True, some of the
author's phrases recall those "poor but honest parents" and
those "firm but gentle answers " with which we have been
made thoroughly familiar. In other words, the volume presents
at least a trace of the amateur's handiwork. On the whole,
however, the story is sensible, interesting, and conceived in a
spirit of simple piety that is edifying.
The first two volumes of Janssen's History \ were trans-
lated into English four years ago ; we have now to welcome
the appearance of the second pair of the series. The worth of
the work as produced in the original is known to all. How it
impressed the non-Catholic world may be learned from the
testimony of the historical critics who, while undertaking to
answer it, admitted that the scientific method of the author
was of very high degree. Pastor, the worthy successor of
Janssen, is the editor of the German edition, and his name has
now become significant of science to the English reading
public.
The volumes before us deal with the earlier part of the
German Reformation, including a thorough treatment of the
terrible social revolution which came so near to overturning all
the inherited civilization and political advantages. Both in
substance and style the author's work is attractive, and the
translator has been able to preserve no little of the charm.
The book is not one fit only for advanced students but a
most readable and instructive volume of the kind to interest
all seeking authentic and moderately detailed information on
the epoch in question.
It is encouraging to notice that of late years English trans-
lations of German works are multiplying. The French have
long recognized the value of the writings produced by German
scholars, and the greater part of German books appear in
* Guy's Fortune. By M. B. Eagan. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.
t History of the German People at tht close of the Middle Ages. By Johannes Janssen.
Translated by A. M. Christie. Vols. III. and IV. St. Louis, Mo. : B. Herder.
542 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
French translations. Until recently we have not been equally
fortunate, but now it seems we are no longer to suffer so
greatly from this lack. These- translations, as they multiply,
will do something to remedy the defect so painful to students,
of ignorance of the German language ; still, it is to be hoped
they will recognize that not all the valuable works can be
translated, and that many translators have not the ability of
the writer who has given us the present well-appreciated
translation.
Volume the third of Father Guggenberger's History was
published a year ago; he now presents us with volume the
first.* In a previous review we stated that this work was
badly needed, there being a great lack of general histories
written in such a way as to do justice to the Catholic point
of view. The appearance of the present volume satisfies us
that its author is of just the kind of men who can supply this
lack.
This history is- intended for Catholic schools and reading
circles. We know of none better adapted for such use. It
will be of considerable value even to the student of general
history on account of its abundant references, and the com-
pleteness and brevity of its outline.
The author has divided his whole work into three parts
according with the triple character of the period treated.
In the first volume he considers the period of growth and de-
velopment of the church and the empires. In the second he
treats of the periods of religious upheavals from the beginning
of the fourteenth century to the end of the sixteenth. In the
third volume he considers the social revolutions from the
seventeenth century to the present time.
What it is of great importance to know, namely, the tre-
mendous influence of the church in producing and shaping the
civilization of the western world, is clearly and splendidly
brought out in the present volume. At the same time the
reader is made fully cognizant of all the details in both pro-
fane and ecclesiastical history, leading up to the triumph of
the church.
The tone of the work is commendably critical. The book,
moreover, contains genealogical tables, summaries of events,
and maps in abundance. Altogether the author's work may
be regarded as perfectly adapted to his end, and one cannot
* Gzieral History of th". Christian Era. Vol. I. By A. Guggenberger, S.J. St. Louis,
Mo.: B. Herder.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 543
help expressing the fervent hope that this improvement in the
line of history preludes something like a general attempt to
elevate and perfect all classes of books used as texts in our
schools and colleges.
Rither less encouraging than the work just now mentioned
is another recent historical publication.* This volume purposes
to outline the history of the church and to comment upon
ecclesiastical work and influence. Results are not satisfactory.
Though the writer tells us his book is not intended to be a
mere " chronicle of events," we must say that at best it is cer-
tainly no more than that, and at any rate it is far from being
a kind of chronicle to elicit praise. The writer's style lacks
clearness, his detailed accounts are too disconnected, the sub-
ject-matter might very easily be arranged to better advantage.
These faults apart, the book is remarkable only for a long list
of errata, far from long enough, however, to include all the
errors contained in the volume.
Among the neiv publications is a little volume f adapted for
the use of Shakespearean students. Besides giving a brief
sketch of the life of the poet, and describing the principal
events in his career, his character, influence, and out-standing
genius, it introduces the reader to each work of the great
author, and makes him acquainted with the sources, history,
general character, artistic value, and literary merit of each
composition. In a word, there is nothing of any interest about
Shakespeare that is not here at least suggested or indicated.
The bibliography is complete in its summary and just in its
estimate of various editors and critics. The chapter on the
"Study of Shakespeare" leaves nothing to be desired in the
way of a thorough and systematic examination of the author's
works. Other things treated of are autographs, memorials of
the poet, the history of Shakespearean drama, and the ex-
traordinary spread of Shakespearean literature. In spite of
great condensation of matter the writer's style is wanting in
neither perspicuity or grace.
Two recent books of verse,:}: Lyrics, by J. Houston Mifflin,
and The<Fields of Dawn and Later Sonnets^ by Lloyd Mifflin,
* The Three Ages of Progress. By Julius E. Devos. Milwaukee : M. H. Wiltzius.
t Shakespeare's Life and Work. By Sidney Lee. New York : The Macmillan Company.
\ Lyrics. By J. Houston Mifflin. Philadelphia . Henry T. Coates & Co.
\The Fields of Djzvn and Later Sonnets. By Lloyd Mifflin. Boston and New York :
Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
544 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
persuade one that, maugr Shakspere, the Muses believe there's
much in. a name, so partially have they bestowed the gift of
song upon the House of Mifflin. The former volume is a col-
lection of juvenilia, "lays of boyhood," by the late J. Houston
Mifflin. Their chief appeal will be to the gifted poet-painter's
friends ; nearly all the poems were written before Mr. Mifflin
attained much knowledge or mastery of versification, and though
the sentiments they lyrically record are pure and tender, the
century's ear is attuned to such finesse of technique, rhyme
is no longer sufficient charm. The fastidious reader now de-
mands, in a new volume of verse, the delights of mellifluous
syllables, happy rhythms, and these, preferably, in the mould
of novel metre.
The latter volume, The Fields of Dawn, gives more evidence
of the Delphic afflatus. Mr. Lloyd Mifflin's sonnets are so skil-
fully, though spontaneously, built that the use of a time-
honored verse form makes for his merit, not for his fault. In
truth, the making of such a delightful sonnet-sequence as The
Fields of Dawn is a poetic feat for which Mr. Mifflin deserves
no mean sanction from those past masters in the art Dante,
Shakspere, Rcssetti, and Mrs. Browning, though hereby is im-
plied no flippant comparison with the " House of Life," the
Shakspere or Portuguese Sonnets, or that peerless, most ex-
quisite " Vita Nuova." It is scarcely praise too impassioned to
pronounce every sonnet in The Fields of Dawn a perfect
pastoral, suggesting sometimes a sunlit landscape of Corot, and
anon Millet's peaceful meadows so simply and beautifully
humanized with the noble Brotherhood of Toil. The prime
merit of Mr. Mifflin's inspiration is that it is genuine; either
he follows Sydney's advice, " Look in your heart and write,"
or he notes the beauty immediately about him, going not
abroad and afar for his themes but finding them in his own
Pennsylvania his " own countrie," as he poetically proclaims
in a sonnet, " The Homeland " :
" Why should I seek for beauty or for ease
On alien shores afar removed from mine ?
What is Illyria, with her oil and wine,
Far Andalusia and the Pyrenees,
Or Vallombrosa when compared to these
Our native beauties ? Not the castled Rhine
So fair as Susquehanna, yet we pine
For restless travel o'er the illusive seas.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 545
Ah, rather pluck the rich Floridian rose
By Tampa or by Pensacola's bay,
And wander where the wild magnolia blows :
Or by the balmy sea-coast lingering, stray
Where Coronado offers soft repose
And cliffs of Candelaria greet the day."
The second volume of the series called " Dames and Daugh-
ters of Colonial Days " is Anneke* The author aims, as she
tells us in the introduction, to re-create a faithful presentment
of the ambitions, emotions, vicissitudes, struggles, and victories
which might have come into the lives of noble-minded men
and women living at the period of which she writes. The re-
sult is a well-told story of adventure, in which buccaneers,
naval battles, and the struggles of the early American colon-
ists with the Indians figure largely. In its course the reader
meets with the names of Rembrandt, Van de Velde, Van Rens-
selaer, Father Jogues, and others as familiar.
In keeping with this holiday season the volume is gotten
out with a very pretty cover design, and is illustrated from the
paintings of Rembrandt and other masters.
Mr. Lang, " England's Merry Andrew," as he is called,
gurely deserves to be saluted as Facundissima Poeta, as he is
of the most productive literary workmen of to-day. With
AVS, poems, translations to his credit, he is not content ; he
-t needs add to the infinite variety by editing several chil-
's books which rank among the most fascinating publica-
tions for juvenile readers.- The Grey Fairy BookJ\ a worthy
successor of the True Blue, Green and Yellow Fairy Books, is
a collection of tales from Lithuanian, Greek, French, and Ger-
man folk lore. Donkey-Skin, Dschernil and Dschesmila, The
Goat faced Girl and the Little Grey Man, and others of that
wonderful world of fairy and magic, dance through the new
book's pages in most amazing and beguiling fashion. The
happy fancy and fantastic illustrations of these old tales re-
told will be a delight to little folks and indeed to "grown-
ups," who are already indebted to Mr. Lang for his enjoyable
translation of that best of storytellers Homer.
Another book which makes an ingratiating appeal to readers
* Anneke, a Little Dame of New Netherlands. By Elizabeth W. Champney. New York :
Dodd, Mead & Co.
t The Grey Fairy Book. Edited by Andrew Lang. With numerous Illustrations by
H. J. Ford. New York, London, and Bombay : Longmans, Green & Co.
546 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.,
of divers ages is Abbie Farwell Brown's Book of Saints and
Friendly Beasts* In the legends of St. Bridget and the King's
Wolf, St. Lauromar's Cow, St. Cuthbert's Peace, St. Francis
and his Dumb Friends, and many others, Miss Brown illus-
trates in simple, beguiling diction the words of St. Guthlac of
Crowland : " Brother, hast thou never learned in Holy Writ
that with him who has led his life after God's will the wild
beasts and the birds are tan%e ? " Children as a rule are chary
of reading lives of the saints, as well they may be when some'
dry-as-dust style recounts incidents incomprehensible for imma-
ture minds. But Miss Brown has chosen examples which were
even as little children, making these examples attractive but at
the same time na'ively pointing other morals besides the Ancient
Mariner's :
" He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast."
Such a book as this of Saints and Friendly Beasts will be
more efficacious than Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals in restraining that malicious propensity of youth
which has made the Abused Cat and the Dog-with-the-Tin-Pail-
tied-to-His-Tail authentic stories of woe more ancient than the
myth of suffering Prometheus.
Miss Fanny Cory's illustrations are admirably adapted to.
the text.
Among recent notable appearances in the publication world
Doxey's edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam \ is par-
ticularly deserving of attention. The illustrations, one of
which appears upon each page, descriptive of the three verses
which it accompanies, are the work of Florence Lundborg,
who has given to her drawings a Quality of Oriental mysticism
which is unusually suggestive. The preceding and appended
pages of the book, which contain, respectively, Kearney's " Life
of Edward Fitzgerald," with Fitzgerald's essay on Omar, and
the notes, have specially designed caryatid pages. The paper
and artistic binding leave nothing to be desired. Altogether
it is a book to treasure.
We have also received from the same publisher a number
of poems by Howard Sutherland, contained in a dainty, brown
rough paper- covered little volume entitled Jacinta. Doxey
claims to have discovered Mr. Sutherland, but we, in all
politeness, have the impression that Mr. Sutherland has " dis-
* The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts. By Abbie Farwell Brown. Illustrated by
Fanny Y. Cory. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
t The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. New York : Doxey Company, facinta. Same
publishers.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 547
covered " himself not indeed as a great poet, but as one who
has expressed simply and feelingly much quiet sentiment.
This volume of Conferences,* given by the authoress to the
members of the League of the Sacred Heart, will help all
who are striving to lead a spiritual li/e. It is marked by
practical, not merely sentimental piety a piety drawn from
the best sources and based on an intimate knowledge of Holy
Scriptures. There is nothing exaggerated or misleading. For
those who live in the world its utility is rendered greater by
its being adapted for use in meditation, each Conference being
divided into suitable points for meditation.
Verily of the making of books there is no end. Here comes
one compiled by C. F. Carter on the wedding day in litera-
ture and art.f In the preface the author says that in litera-
ture the wedding day is a topic which artists and writers seem
to be weary of, and now that he speaks of it, it is a subject
that is seldom made interesting in literature, while, as a matter
of fact, in life a glimpse at the preparation for a wedding is
a most fascinating thing. The book is interesting simply be-
cause it contains extracts from books that we all love, such as
David Copper field t Lorna Doone, Jane Eyre ; also for its illus-
trations, reproductions of famous paintings. In collecting these
marriage-day masterpieces, we wonder why the compiler over-
looked the greatest of all Raphael's " Marriage at Cana."
OXFORD CONFERENCES OF FATHER MOSS4
In these Conferences Grace, the life of the soul, is treated
in relation to the other parts of the spiritual life : Faith js
sho,vn to be its Gate (Conf. I.); Prayer its Voice (Conf. II.);
Confession its Cleansing Work (Conf. III.); Communion its
Nourishment (Conf. IV.); Holy Mass its Fountain (Conf. V.) ;
Purgatory its Prison House (Conf. VI.) ; Hell its failure (Conf.
VII.); Heaven its Triumph (Conf. VIII.) The eloquence which
was a striking characteristic of the former series of Conferences,
delivered in the Summer Term of 1899, is no less marked in
the present course. A disciple of the Angelic Doctor, as we
believe every Dominican professor is bound to be, he does not
even notice the views of Suarez and De Lugo, but declares,
and we think rightly : " It is impossible to believe and see
* At the Feet of fesus. By Madame Cecilia. London: Burns & Gates, Limited; New
York : Benziger Brothers.
t The Wedding Day in Literature and Art. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co.
\ Oxford Conferences : Hilary Term, 1900. On the Life of Grace By Father Raphael
M. Moss, OP. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Limited. New York : Ben-
ziger Brothers.
548 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Jan.
at the same time." Following so closely the teaching of
St. Thomas in the subject matter of his teaching, we might
have wished that he had manifested more of his spirit in deal-
ing with opponents. St. Thomas somewhere expresses regret
that the adversaries of the truth do not put forth before the
world more fully the grounds of their hostility. Had the saint
lived in our days he would not have been able to make this
complaint : and perhaps a better impression upon the minds of
freethinkers and rationalists would have been produced than
by calling their views, however deservedly, foolish sophisms
adopted in obedience to strong passion or at the dictate of the
latest fashionable writer. True though this may be, it will be
taken as mere declamation by those who might have been
helped by a calmer and a more sympathetic, refutation of their
mistakes.
Nor can we think that either those who have the faith or
those who are to be brought to it will be helped by the tone
adopted by Father Moss in his treatment of the subject. True
though it be that faith requires submission and surrender to
God's word, yet it cannot be so difficult to make this sur-
render as Father Moss represents ; it is hardly the sacrifice of
the understanding and will which he calls it at least this is
not so striking a characteristic. If God has spoken, and if it
can be shown with certainty, as theologians prove, that God
has spoken ; if there is no conflict between faith and reason,
as the Vatican Council defines, arrd if theologians can show,
and do show, that in most cases not only is there no such
conflict but a wonderful harmony and agreement, while in the
cases in which mystery is left it is impossible for any one to
show with certainty that there is any such conflict, then we
think Father Moss goes too far when he insists so strongly as
he does on faith being self-surrender carried to its uttermost
limit, and as being so very hird to flesh and blood as to have
its model in Abraham's willingness to offer his son. Moreover
we know by sad experience that corruption of morals is only
too often associated with firmness of faith to allow -us to agree
with Father Moss when he makes this corruption in so un-
qualified a way an obstacle to faith.
But although we are unable to agree with Father Moss on
every point, we are able to commend these Conferences to the
study of those interested in religious matters ; perhaps our very
disagreement may be taken as showing that the treatment of
those well worn subjects is one which promotes thought and
excites interest.
Beginning with the present issue THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE
proposes each month to make mention of current magazine articles likely to in-
terest its readers. 7 his first instalment is meant to cover the last quarter of the
year just finished ; in future articles will be mentioned as soon as possible after
publication.
American Ecclesiastical Review (Dec.): The Latin text of the
Holy Father's latest Encyclical, De Jesu Christo Redemp-
tore. Bishop McFaul writes on the remedy for Catholic
grievances. The Editor comments on certain abuses
connected with " St. Anthony's Bread." The first part
of Luke Delmege, Father Sheehan's new novel, is con-
cluded. /
The Ave Maria (Dec. 8) : W. F. P. Stockley shows that the
weight of authority is against Anglican belief in the
essential character of episcopacy in the church.
Catholic University Bulletin (Oct.): Doctor Shahan considers the
History of Catholicism during the Nineteenth Century, con-
fining himself to Europe.
American Catholic Quarterly (Oct.) : Father McDermot, C.S.P.,
contributes a lengthy biographical sketch of the late
Lord Russell. Mgr. Campbell contributes a study on the
historic evidences relating to the Consecration of Virgins
during the first Christian Centuries. Father Cuthbert,
O.S.F., describes the influence of St. Francis of Assisi
on the thirteenth century revival of personal love for our
Divine Saviour. Bryan J. Clinch attacks the assertion
that the spread of " Anglo-Saxonism " is preparing the
way for Catholic progress. Father Clarke, S.J., considers
Principal Fairbairn's recent charge that the Catholic
Church is an obstacle to material progress. Father
Clarke's article gains a rather pathetic interest from the
fact that he died while this MS. was still in press.
American Journal of Theology (Oct.): Julius" Kaftan, the noted
Protestant theologian, describes how Kant has furnished
Protestantism with a new " theory of authority," fit to
replace the " worn-out Catholic theory."
International Journal of Ethics (Oct.) : Maurice Adams contrasts
Tolstoi and Nietzsche, and finds in the latter a " deplora-
ble tendency toward the Catholic ideal of asceticism."
5so LIBRARY TABLE. [Jan.,
The Month (Nov.): Father Thurston, S.J., continues his his-
torical study of the Rosary as a devotion, and discredits
the accounts of its strictly Dominican origin. (Father
Lescher, O.P., writing to The Tablet (Nov. 10), seems to
intimate that Father Thurston's arguments are being an-
swered in The Rosary Magazine of England.) Father
Tyrrell, S.J., contributes a most suggestive paper on
popular Apologetics, and promises a sequel. The con-
clusive proof of a wonderful miracle at Lourdes is pre-
sented by C. Lattey.
The Tablet (Nov. 3): An apologetic article is published review-
ing an Anglican volume on Primitive Tradition and the
See of Peter.
(Nov. 17): Frederick Lucas, first editor of The Tablet, is
defended apropos of certain passages in Purcell's Lijc of
Ambrose Philippe de Lisle.
(Nov. 24) : An article on the Uses of Controversy, evoked
apparently by Father Tyrrell's above-mentioned paper in
The Month (Nov. 3).
(Dec. l) : English text of the Holy Father's new Encyc-
lical ; a notice of the recent Anglican Conference, which
found it impossible to agree on any common belief as to
the Real Presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacra-
ment.
Dublin Review (Oct.) : X. Y. Z. answers the late Dr. Mar-
tineau's critique of the Notes of the Church. Father
Kent, O.S.C., writes in his usual powerful and instructive
way on Ritschl and theological development.
Australasian Catholic Record (Oct. Catholic Congress Number):
A representative group of contributors : Cardinal Moran,
Archbishops Redwood and Carr, .Bishops Hedley and
Delany, Father Hudson, C.S.C., and Father Elliott, C.S.P.
Mr. Mulhall contributes valuable statistics on the growth
of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Moran reviews the
century's history, and incidentally remarks that "Ameri-
canism " may be found in France more easily than in
the United States.
The Contemporary Review (Nov.) : " Fidelis," whose paper on
Reforms within the Catholic Church made a great stir last
summer, writes again on the same topic.
The Nineteenth Centiiry (Nov.) : L. C. Moraint treats of The
Vulgarizing of Oberammergau and makes himself ridicu-
1901.] LIBRARY TABLE. 551
lous by unpardonably stupid blunders concerning both
Catholic doctrine and recent historical facts.
Revue du C forge" Frangais (Oct. i) : M. l'Abb6 Gayraud gives a
conservative presentation of the recent tendency toward
a new method of apologetics. Father Vacandard de-
fends his method of investigating theological questions
in a historical way. Father Birot's magnificent dis-
course worthy of Archbishop Ireland is printed in full.
(Oct. 15): Father Beurlier makes a psychological study
of Quo Vadis in its recent French translation. Father
Firmin writes on the religious development of the Jew-
ish people and promises a continuation ; but :
(Nov. i) : Cardinal Richard prohibits further publication
of Father Firmin's article.
(Nov. 15): Archbishop Mignot writes on the necessity of
apologists keeping abreast of the times. Father Delfour
criticises M. Bourget's preface to a new edition of the
latter's works.
La Quinzaine (Nov. i) : M. George Fonsegrive, the editor, nar-
rates his flattering welcome at the Vatican recently and
outlines the policy of his magazine, mentioning that the
"Yves le Querdec " volumes are winning gre'at favor in
high quarters. A first instalment of the French transla-
tion of My New Curate is given by Professor Bruneau
(Dunwoodie, N. Y.) and M. Georges Ardant (Limoges,
France).
Revue Thomiste (Nov.) : The relationship of the priesthood and
the religious state is considered by Father Hugon, O.P.,
whose recent articles in defence of Religious Vows are
now published as a brochure.
Revue Be'ne'dictine (Oct.): Dom Baltus reviews Harnack's latest
volume, The- Essence of Christianity, and finds that its
author " leaves in doubt his belief in a personal God."
(Rev. W. Morgan in The Expository Times (Oct.) de-
clares that " one rises from Harnack's book with a
deeper sense of the high and enduring significance of
Christ's Gospel " ! ! !)
Etudes (Oct. 20): Father Dutouquet, S.J., writes on the Psy-
chology of Inspiration, and favors a theory allowing " a
maximum of initiative to the sacred writer and of liberty
to the exegete." Father Briicker, S.J., criticises Father
Bertrand's recent Bibliotktque Sulpicienne very severely.
552 LIBRARY TABLE. [J an -
(The same volume is reviewed favorably by Dom Baltus
in the Revue Benedictine, Oct.)
Bulletin Critique (Nov. 5): Professor Loisy gives high praise,
with some reserves, to Hasting's new Dictionary of the
Bible (Anglican). .
Le Correspondent (Nov. 10) : M. Henri Joly reviews the new
edition of Saint Teresa's Letters (edited by Father
Gregoire de Saint-Josepha, discalced Carmelite), contain-
ing sixty six entire and four hundred fragmentary letters,
hitherto unpublished.
La Civilta Cattolica (Nov. 17): An article concerning the influ-
ence of the Papacy on the moral condition of Italy ; it
would make splendid collateral reading for those who
are now absorbing the ideas of Marie Corelli and Mrs.
Humphrey Ward.
Zeitschrift filr Katholische Theologie (Oct.) : Father Nisius
writes on The Relation of Scripture to the Teaching- power
of the Church. Father Fonck, S.J., welcomes the first
volume of Studies on Anne Katherine Emmerich by Pro-
fessor Grotemeyer, the Orientalist, as proving the accu-
racy of descriptions given by the sainted stigmatica.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Oct. 22): Father Cathrein, S.J.,
treats of the higher education of women, approving of
it on certain conditions. (Readers will find in The
Forum (Dec.) an article by Anna Tolman Smith, show-
ing that the movement in question is at present well
under way in France.)
Souvenirs of the Opening of the New Year : CHRIST
BLESSING THE OPENING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY,
similar to the Frontispiece. Give them away in the
Sunday-school. Special terms for large quantities.
CONSIDER IT, YE WANDERERS OF TO-DAY,
THE CHRIST'S SOFT PITY FOR THE ERRING SOUL.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LXXII. FEBRUARY, 1901. No. 431.
\Vvts <yvit v~* i*
i^tK^" i\J , M,. v^o^<Ltx.xs o-f \o- A<WA '. ^
rt" toi W -iKt. twiUio, so .
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK, 1901.
VOL. LXXII. 37
562 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. [Feb.,
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE.
BY HON. JUDGE CORTRIGHT.
HE present writer has had more than ordinary
opportunities for studying the trend of the
great intellectual movements of the day. He
was born of old Puritan stock, in the early half
of the century. He passed through many of
the intellectual movements which characterized New England
in the middle of the century, and after wandering in various
pastures, hoping to find the truth, he came in his mature years
to the door of the Catholic Church. When he was a young
man there was nothing farther from his thoughts than to
imagine that anything of good could come from the Nazareth
of the Catholic Church. It was the church of a few wandering
laborers in his town, and it never dawned on him that there
was any intellectual life there that could satisfy the longings
for truth that were then the very breath of a New-Englander's
life. It was my privilege early in life to cut away from the
narrowing trammels of the orthodox creeds. My mind was
not tied to any definite form of religion, and consequently it
was free to investigate any new system that had any dignified
thinker for its exponent. One by one I took them up as they
came. Some of them held me for a few years, but they readily
palled on me. Finally my intellectual life came to a state of
hopeless agnosticism. It was then the consideration of the
Catholic system was forced on me by a peculiar congeries of
circumstances. The Confessions of St. Augustine fell into my
hands, and from the day that I entered the Catholic Church
to this present hour I have found peace for my heart as well
as rest for my mind.
My overlook is, then, of a half a century, and I find in the
public sentiment of the day some strongly marked phases, each
of which well merits careful consideration as a potent factor
in the present and the future of the race. They may be viewed
conjointly in what may easily be a more or less veiled correla-
tion. These phases of current thought are : the comparatively
new attitude of non-Catholics towards Catholicism ; the spirit
of unrest regarding the satisfactory solution of certain grave
] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. 563
sociologic problems; the apparently unreserved acceptance and
enjoyment of the purely material side of things, as the best that
life can offer ; and, in its relation to this practical materialism,
the seemingly contradictory and highly significant spirit of eager
inquiry touching intelligent existence wholly outside the domain
of matter. In the final analysis, and speaking with a reference
to the correlation mentioned, the first of these four is not
improbably a partial result of at least two of the latter three.
Nevertheless, for certain reasons, it shall have precedence of
attention in this article.
A SPIRIT OF UNREST.
Now, in the evolution of God's plan, in which humanity
must play its part, this spirit of unrest and this spirit of in-
quiry, as well as the new attitude of non-Catholics towards the
church, seem destined, in the very nature of things, to have a
direct, powerful, and favorable influence on the future of
Catholicism, more especially in the United States, where the
mental growth of the race seems to have attained its greatest
all-round development; and where, among other results, the
chief sociologic and other problems of the day consequently
assume a greater importance than is accorded them else-
where.
As to the first of these tendencies, none but the deliberately
or carelessly blind can fail to see the marked change among
non Catholics in regard to the church. Where Catholicism,
and all thereby implied, has been regarded with suspicion and
hostility, there now obtains, throughout almost the entire non-
Catholic community, a willingness to judge fairly such matters
as the church's doctrine and practice, and also a feeling of
respect and admiration for operative Catholicism. These latter
sentiments have been evoked by the many unquestionable evi-
dences that so far from being in opposition to human progress,
as has been so often erroneously alleged, the church's influence
makes wholly for advance along the lines approved by the
soundest thinkers of the day. And these commendable feel-
ings seem as strong among those who work for daily bread as
among those whose wealth and consequent leisure enable them
to travel and so perceive, abroad as at home, the innumerable
proafs of the church's agelong efforts to further the best in-
terests of the race.
Considered simply in its human aspect, what is the cause
of this great change in non-Catholic sentiment other than the
564 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. [Feb.,
observation of operative Catholicism ? The cause is undoubt-
edly to be largely ascribed also to that tendency towards inde-
pendent thinking and investigation which has made such notice-
able strides during the past generation. And such thinking and
inquiry are themselves largely results of modern education and
its methods. Of course, as intimated, the church, ever mindful
of her divine mission, has done her part ; not only by display-
ing, in the lives of her ever-increasing members, and in their
works, the spectacle of gospel teaching in practice, but also by
supplying a vast fund of information, oral and other, regarding
her doctrine and practices, in forms always easily available for
the honest inquirer.
CHANGED ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE CHURCH.
Is it, then, to be wondered at that, with an increased
knowledge of Catholicism, the watchers on the heights and far-
seeing thinkers are beginning to discover, even if a little late
in the day, that the only satisfactory solution of such great
questions as the maintenance of the marriage tie and the preser-
vation of the family, the nucleus of the life of the nation, the
proper relations between labor and capital, and the better dis-
tribution of wealth, cannot be obtained except by a more or
less practical recognition of doctrine that is essentially Catholic
and, therefore, essentially identical with the teaching of the
Gospel.
Even if the growing spirit of independent inquiry, and
of fairness towards the ancient church of their fathers, did
not in themselves lead to the conclusion just mentioned,
it would not be easy for the thinker to escape from it.
During the last decade more than one non Catholic of note
has borne testimony to the soundness of the church's views on
the great questions of the time, with an accompanying expres-
sion of regret that Protestantism had failed to hold the con-
fidence of even its own adherents as a guide in such matters.
The almost unanimous endorsement, by the most eminent
economists of Europe and America, of the present illustrious
Pontiffs encyclical on the proper relations between labor and
capital was probably the most striking example of such testi-
mony in recent years. If other proofs of the church's care for
the material as well as for the spiritual interests of the "plain
people," and, therefore, of the whole community, were lacking
and they were not the Pope's proposition that the wage-
e irner everywhere should be enabled to maintain himself and
igoi.] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. 565
his family in "frugal comfort," and to make suitable provision
for old age, sickness, and death, this showed the workers of
the world that the Catholic Church is truly the church of the
whole people, of whom the great majority are and ever will be
wage earners and dependents on these latter.
Again, when Catholicism inculcates resignation under the ills
of unavoidable poverty, and enjoins submission to those exer-
cising authority, except in cases where resistance is clearly
sanctioned by the higher law with which all human legislation
should fundamentally coincide, it has an enormous advantage
over any other form of organized Christianity in dealing with
such matters. The church can point to vast numbers of her
children who, in all the walks of life, and in all ages and
nations, have voluntarily chosen poverty and devotion to the
needs of the poor for their lot, in order to more closely
imitate their Divine Model ; and regarding submission to all
lawful authority, she herself speaks with authority which is
directly derived from the source of all law and order God
himself : Protestantism, on the other hand, can point to
few if any voluntary renunciations of worldly wealth and com-
forts; and, recognizing the so called tight of private judgment,
potentially nullifies in advance any deliverance made on vexed
questions of submission to the powers that be when, under
certain conditions, opinions are divided touching the obedience
due them. The latitudinarianism of belief which can exist con-
jointly with the most orthodox Protestantism, heavily discounts
the value of the latter's teaching on any subject. So that, as
intimated, even non Catholics are beginning to realize that in
a possible future social upheaval the conserver cf law and
order will be the ancient and mighty Church of Rome. With
her undisputed and beneficent sway over more than two hun-
dred millions of devoted adherents, and her indirect power
over those influenced by their example, she will again fill the
role in which she has so often shone resplendent since the
foundation of Christianity. Protestants themselves most loudly
complain that Protestantism does discriminate against the poor
man in dealing with him and his wealthy brother. And they
point to the true and unostentatious democracy of Catholicism
in this matter.
PRINCIPLE BEFORE EXPEDIENCY.
And it is Protestants who most loudly complain of the con-
spicuous lack of high moral principle, and the subserviency cf
566 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. [Feb.,
right to mere expediency, which to-day obtain to a dangerous
extent among non-Catholics holding high office. And, as a
corollary to this, there is a rapidly-growing belief that a true
Catholic holding some great public trust and called on to
choose between right and mere expediency would almost cer-
tainly act in the spirit of the Pope's memorable pronounce-
ment, " Non possumus," when deciding against the divorce
sought by the brutal Henry VIII. of England. Assuredly
such office-holder would but rarely if ever become the tool
of "corporate greed" or the "communism of pelf." When-
ever necessary he would remember he was the servant of all
the people, and not of a class or a clique. In fact, such an atti-
tude would be an almost inevitable result of his true Catholicism.
The church has neither respect for riches, nor contempt for
poverty. Her aim is the saving of souls ; not, as some non-
Catholics seem to think, the acquisition of world-wide power.
The answer given by the Superior-General of the Jesuits to
Cavour, when pressed by the latter to " disclose the secret of
the order, and of its marvellous success," admirably expresses
the true spirit of the entire teaching church : What doth it
profit a man to gain the whole world, and to lose his soul ?
To day the belief that this does express the true aim and spirit
of Catholicism is rapidly making way among the great mass of
the non Catholic community. And all indications point to its
continuous growth. The twentieth century will see a far wider
recognition of the church's priceless service to all humanity ;
her hold on the respect and confidence of even non Catholics
will grow and deepen with the years when it is still more gen-
erally recognized, as it will be, that it is her teaching alone
which can furnish an enduring and satisfactory solution of the
great sociologic problems of the day. So much for the rela-
tion between Catholicism and the unrest regarding the future
of the race which so strongly characterizes the spirit of the
time.
WHAT OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE GRAVE?
In the very nature of things, it may well be that the grow-
ing eagerness of inquiry touching a possible disembodied ex-
istence, which the writer proposes to consider before the
materialism of the day, will also have a strong and favorable
influence on the future of Catholicism. Of course this phase
of investigation exists almost wholly among non.Catholics, and
for very obvious reasons. The church, speaking with divine
1901.] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. 567
authority as the sole repository of the whole truth in revealed
religion, has, once and for all, solved for her members every
question regarding another state of existence where a solution
was either necessary or advisable. And as the properly in-
structed Catholic well knows, in accepting the church's dicta
in such matters he uses his God-given reason in a manner not
only eminently pleasing to the Giver, as thus fittingly recog-
nizing God's authority exercised through his church, but also
in a manner which can be proved to be eminently in accord
with the claims of reason, even when the latter is considered
wholly apart from its divine origin. But as every rule has its
exceptions, so, occasionally, a Catholic of more or less intel-
lectual prominence refuses to submit his reason to the church's
authority ; and, blinded by the pride of intellect, may even
temporarily withdraw from her fold. However, the rarity of
such defections, and their usual termination by a proper sub-
mission, serve to emphasize the rule itself.
But with the non-Catholic the case is very different. When
pressed by the demands of his higher nature, and indifferent
to or doubtful regarding ecclesiastical dicta, he ventures forth
into the vast and, to him, shoreless ocean of inquiry outside
material existence, he most truly resembles the ill-fated voya-
ger without chart or compass, to whom he has been so often
compared. His wanderings almost invariably terminate in one
of three ways. Finding himself confronted on all sides by con-
ditions which either obstinately refuse to accord with his theo-
ries at all, or else accord with these latter only in part, while
still baffling the earnest search for a satisfactory answer to his
inquiries, he gradually drifts into a species of agnosticism,
almost inevitably accompanied by a resolve to live for the
pleasures of the present alone; he becomes a downright athe-
ist, still with the same resolve ; or he gradually finds his way
into the fold of the one true church.
CATHOLICISM THE BEST SPIRITUALISM.
What careful observer can fail to see that the present wide-
spread popular interest in spiritualism, hypnotism, theosophy,
and the ancient religious cults of the Orient, is a striking
proof of the human soul's revolt against the mere materialism
to which so many modern writers point as the proper goal for
all human effort? And as good sometimes partially results
from evil, so even spiritualism and theosophy, despite their
errors and vagaries, have at least one good effect. They pre-
568 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. [Feb.,
pare the minds of their votaries for the acceptance of the great
mysteries of Christianity. It should go without saying that
the man who believes in the theory of an astral body, or in
the power to transmit, by hypnotism or telepathy, human wish
and thought, regardless of time and distance and other phy-
sical limitations, must be potentially in a more or less re-
ceptive mental condition touching such a great fundamental
doctrine as the Real Presence in the Eucharist, or the com-
munion of saints ; while the mere materialist rests content
with the protean evolution of his all sufficing protoplasm.
Now, for the very reason that Protestantism has no such
doctrines as the Real Presence, the communion of saints, or
prayers for the dead, it is far less in touch than is Catholicism
with the large and growing number who, with or without an
acceptance of revelation, pursue their investigations regarding
disembodied existence. The church, which alone holds and
teaches the whole of revealed truth touching the relations be-
tween spirit and matter, is the only agency on earth capa-
ble of properly directing and satisfying the deep inherent
yearning of the soul for knowledge of some form of disem-
bodied existence, either with or without reference to the ulti-
mate destiny of loved ones removed by death. When the
Prince of Wales and his consort pray at the tomb of their son,
as they did on at least one occasion, and when many other
Protestants concede there " may be something, after all," in
the doctrines of purgatory, prayers for the dead, and the com-
munion of saints, it is easy to see which of the two, Catholi-
cism or Protestantism, is the more in touch with the very sig-
nificant phase of current thought now considered.
And it is easy to see that the very materialism of the pres-
ent day will exercise, nay, is exercising, an influence not wholly
unfavorable to Catholicism, paradoxical though this assertion
may seem. It should be remembered that the materialism of
the present is largely different from that of the past, which,
necessarily, lacked many existing forceful suggestions of a
Creator in the works of the creature man. So numerous and
so great have been the achievements of the race in science and
art, during the later decades of the century, and so vast the
field thus opened to future research and triumph, that many of
even the apparently most materialistic are beginning to per-
ceive, dimly, perhaps, but, nevertheless, with an awakening from
the lethargy of their cult, that behind the well-nigh infinitely
varied phenomena of life, with all its comforts and conveniences
1901.] THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. 569
of the day, and the wonderful strides towards the removal or
lessening of purely physical obstacles, there would seem to be
some marvellous if unknown Power or Good to which humanity
should gradually ascend. And this vague perception of a great
truth, rather than mere idle casuistry, is largely responsible for
the spirit of inquiry touching a possible disembodied existence.
Hence the very enjoyment of the material side of life, when
properly directed, has a certain spiritual value through its sug-
gestion of the Unknown Good in another and possible order
of existence. But it is only the Catholic Church, with her
always clearly defined and consistent teaching regarding the
use of material things, and with the general accord between
precept and practice in relation to this subject observable
among her members, that can make the materialism of the
day really subservient to the uplifting of humanity. Unlike
Protestantism, she does not, on the one hand, injudiciously re-
pel the mere worldling by ultra Puritanical denunciations of even
those pleasures of life commended by common sense ; nor, on
the other hand, does she refrain from vigorously teaching, re-
gardless of who may hear, that all men are strictly accountable
to God for the use or abuse of the good things of life, and
that, at best, the riches, honors, and pleasures of this world
are but poor things to engage the eager pursuit of beings with
immortal souls. So that to-day a large and increasing number
of Protestants find themselves regarding the society sa/on, the
theatre, the ball, the latest novel, and Sunday recreation, from
the Catholic rather than from the Protestant stand-point. They
find that, touching all such matters, the attitude of the church
is eminently that of common sense ; and that while she teaches
a rigid adherence to right principles, she is far less concerned
with the letter of the law than with its spirit. Regarding the
subject of Sunday recreation, especially, a large and growing
number of non-Catholics are practically endorsing the Church's
view that " The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath."
Thus, the very materialism of the day, which, again in the
last analysis, is a misdirected enjoyment of the gifts of God,
which lacks many of the coarser features of the materialism of
the past, and which, for reasons already mentioned in this arti-
cle, is, as it were, compelled to a quasi recognition of spiritual
potentialities, this very phase of current thought will, in all
probability, have its share in the growth of Catholicism and
Catholic influence.
570 THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE FUTURE. [Feb.,
It is not, then, surprising that many among the more thought-
ful of other creeds look forward to a great increase of Catho-
lic prestige, and to large accessions to the church, during the
coming century. While, in the strictest sense, in the world
but not oj it, her profound and God-given insight into the
needs and aspirations of humanity ; her Christ-like sympathy
with the upward struggle of poor, fallen, blundering man ; her
divinely-modelled pity for his errors ; and, above all, her great
commission from above, as the guide and teacher of the nations :
all these, necessarily, bring her very close, in one form or an-
other, to the human heart. So that, in the very nature of
things, the rapprochement between Catholicism and the spirit of
the times will grow and deepen with the march of time ; not
because of any vital and impossible concession from the
church, but because, in the main, the progress of the race
is onward and upward ; and because God is over all, marking
the coming of the day of the final restitution of all things.
IQOI.] THE STORY OF A RIVALRY. 571
v".
THE STORY OF A RIVALRY.
BY ROSCELYN BAYARD LEE.
HE graduation exercises were over, prizes dis-
tributed, degrees conferred, and Father Baxter,
the prefect of studies, was lingering on a re-
luctant good by to his two favorite boys.
" Well, boys," he was saying, as he strode
slowly down the corridor between them, holding an arm of
each, "now that everything is over and no mischief can come
of it, let me say that you are the two B. A.'s whom I am
proudest to send out as representatives of the college, but
sorriest to lose. Now, on parting, I am going to make a
proposition to you no, I '11 make no proposition ; I am your
prefect still, and I impose a command. Phil., you rascal, you
managed to capture the philosophy medal from Rob. here by
the skin of your teeth; but Rob. won the debater's medal and
the essay prize ; so you are quits, and neither of you can exult
over the other as a prostrate conquest. Now, it is nothing
short of your friendly rivalry that has been the making of both
of you; and this leads me to my command my strictest if
my last and it is this : I want you in the life-work you are
about entering upon to be rivals still."
" O Father Baxter ! I won't be in it with Rob."
" Shucks ! Phil, there will be a bishop before I 've won my
first case. Give me an easier pacer, father. I 've been trying
to keep up with him for three years, and I 'm played out."
" None of your modesty now," put in their mentor with a
smile. " I mean what I say. You are to be rivals still, do
you hear? It will make men of you, and both of you need
it. Rob., you will never plead in anything bigger than a coun-
try court, unless you see your old competitor alongside flinging
you a challenge. It 's a pace that kills, you say. Yes, kills in-
dolence, but gives life to ambition, my boy. And as for you,
Phil., you will fall into the rut of mere parochialism when you
leave the seminary, if you can't look about you once in awhile
and say : ' Confound that fellow Harris ! I beat him for the
philosophy medal, ard there he is making himself famous at
the bar, and my biggest achievement, so far, is running a
church- debt society.'"
572 THE STORY OF A RIVALRY. [Feb.,
"Oh! but Father Baxter," interrupted Phil, with a laugh,
"I'm going to join a missionary community, you know; and
whatever else I do, I don't expect to turn the grindstone of
church-debt societies."
"That's all right," replied the prefect with a queer smile;
" there are grindstones in missionary communities too. If it
is n't of one kind, it will be of another. What you boys want
is stimulus; and competition, when sweetened with friendship,
is the best kind. Phil., you know you are a book-worm, and
are in danger of never coming out into the world of reality if
you only have enough to read. Rob., you rogue, you 're lazy \
and don't deny it. Give you a comfortable office and barely
enough income to keep it so, and you will smoke away oppor-
tunities at the end of a cigar in as devil may-care a manner as
you had when you walked up to get your diploma a half-hour
ago. Promise now, you are going to be rivals still?"
"Sure!" from both.
"Well, make it sure; and as purposes of amendment have
to be definite, listen to my directions. Once a year you are
to meet' one another and compare notes, understand? Then
send me a statement of results. I '11 make the decision, send-
ing to the better man an ' lo triumphe ' of felicitation, and to
the other, if he has idled, a regular ' In Catilinam ' invective*
Good-by, boys, and God bless you ! And remember your
promise."
During Phil.'s theological and Rob.'s legal studies there was
a running fire of correspondence, and the promised rivalry was
never allowed to retire from sight. At Christmas-tide Phil, re-
ceived his usual letter:
DEAREST PHIL.: How in the world are jou? Jove! I hope
you find less sawdust in your theology than I do in my law.
Only for my love for debate, I don't know but I 'd pitch the
stuff. But it 's great in our moot courts to spear the other
fellow on the spit of scholastic logic, and then toast him over
the fire of sarcasm. " Harris," said an old Prof, yesterday,
"if you were as clever in torts as you are in retorts you'd
make a lawyer." Not bad for a Drybones, was it? even if it
is n't fresh. But I 'm going to swallow the dose as a kid does
castor-oil : because the spoon is jammed down my gullet
there '11 be a dickens of a row if I don't ; and after all I know
it will do me good. And then I 've got to plug to keep in
sight of that " Excelsior " flag of yours. But I 'm after you,
my boy. Poor Father Baxter! and he never lived to see what
1901.] THE STORY OF A RIVALRY. 573
effect his last strange advice would bring about. I many times
think of the old days, Phil., and long for them. Often of a
night Kent's Commentaries or Pollock's History of English Law
slips from my hand, my pipe goes out, and I am back again
with you and the dear old bo>s in the days of yore. We
had a great class, didn't we ?
I suppose you are grinding yourself gray at divinity. I
hear fine reports of you. Going to be sent to the University,
they say. Guns ! that 's a lap on me already, but I '11 never
say die ; and if some day I kneel to kiss your ring, I '11 not
rest till you mark your ballot for me for President. Lots of
old-time affection. Your dear friend and classmate, ROB.
MY DEAR OLD ROB. : I have just returned to my room after
a Latin disputation on the terrifically interesting question, just
now, you will observe, agitated by all the newspapers: Utrum
valeat scientia media ad explicandam futurorum contingentium
cognitionem ? I was up ; blest if I 'm sure on which side I
argued. But this I do know, that I longed for your skill in
blarney. That spit of scholastic logic that one of your letters
spoke of came mighty near being my own axis of rotation
instead of the other fellow's. But, don't you know, I like
questions like these. No use talking, I'm an unpractical, use-
less dealer in dreamware ; a metaphysician who don't know
how to fry an egg, but can forget my dinner in discussing the
objective value of the categories of Kant. And there 's where
you have got the upper hand with me in Father Baxter's competi-
tion. Poor man ; the Lord give him a sweet rest ! You and I
ought to like him of all the world. This business of progress,
this rivalry of gross success to which he bound you and me,
is one wherein a rippling tongue, a iree hand, and a bold face
are a million miles ahead of ahem ! I 'm 'umble the ethereal,
the transcendental, the over-soul, you know, and all that sort
of thing. Well, Rob., how are you anyway? You said law was
not so interesting as it might be, I think. Confusion on you
lawyers! haven't I reason to know it? We are studying con-
tracts in "moral " ; lots of it is civil law merely, and not since I
read the latest popular frenzy in the novel line have I been
so kiln dried. But keep at it, old boy, for there 's a spectre at
your hind wheel, and it's your old friend. Vote for you for
President? Man alive, your shingle will be creaking for clients
when I 'm the besought of every pulpit from here to El Paso.
Good luck, dear, good old Rob., and God bless you ! Your
dear classmate, PHIL.
574 THE STORY OF A RIVALRY. [Feb.,
Phil, had been on the missions less than a year, and Rob.'s
shingle had " creaked for clients " more than twice as long,
when one day the young missionary, home for the Christmas
holidays, received the following letter :
December 21,
DEAR FATHER PHIL. : Hooray ! Can't stop now to tell you
what it is, but something great has happened. I've struck it
rich. Jove ! that Presidency may come true after all. I'll run
down to see you and mother to-morrow and stay till Christmas
Eve. But, my boy, strike your colors! You 're done for. Ex-
cuse my ebullition and my egotism ; but it is only to my dear-
est friend, and when he knows, he'll be more full of fireworks
than I am. Good-by till to-morrow, ROB.
Father Phil.'s wan face smiled tenderly, and his lips
whispered, as he laid down the note : " Dear Rob., God bless
him!"
"Well, Rob., I'm dying to know the grand news, and so is
mather," said Father Phil, next day, after an effusive greeting
to the mustached young barrister.
" Phil., it 's great. Read that," and Rob. drew from his coat
pocket an envelope with the official stamp of the State Depart-
ment in the corner. In a minute his friend glanced up radiant
with gladness. "Appointed first secretary to the legation at
St. Petersburg ! And the consular service has always been your
dream ! Rob., my best brother, I congratulate you. Mother,
help me tell him how happy I am. In such a position at
twenty four! Why, Rob., your fortune is made. Hardly a man
in years, you are already a man of state. I guess that finishes
me, judice Father Baxter. Think of it ! You off in foreign
courts, probably talking to the Czar of all the Russias, while
I am giving missions to the Melungeons of Tennessee ! Yes,
Rob., surrender is the word ; your pace is too swift for me.
Mother, your best dinner as a celebration."
"Where is Father Phil., Mrs. Desmond?" asked Rob. on
the morning of Christmas Eve as he came down stairs with
valise, hat, and cane. " I want to say good by ; my train leaves
in an hour."
" In his study with his morning mail," answered Mrs. Des-
mond. " Walk in ; you won't disturb him."
Whistling gaily, Rob. opened the door of the little library,
took one step across the threshold, and stood stock-still, his
face expressing astonishment and interrogation.
"Come in, Rob.," said the young priest in a soft voice.
i go i.] THE STORY OF^A RIVALRY. 575
" You have caught me crying, but no matter ; please pardon
me, but I just had to give way. I never felt so in my life.
This letter and card did it. Read them."
With a strange sense of reverence Rob. opened the pages
of the letter and read :
GOOD SHEPHERD CONVENT, Christmas
REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER DESMOND : Last summer,
you may remember, you gave us our retreat. Dear father,
you were very kind to us, and showed us every sympathy.
The good sisters in charge of us give us every tender care,
but people outside seem to have no warmth of heart for
us at all. Yet we need this perhaps more than others, and
are hungry for it. You, kind father, showed that you cared
for us, and your tender words we have never forgotten. So
ever since July, when you left us, we have all remem-
bered you in prayer, and have been keeping count of the
petitions and sacrifices offered to God for you, that he might
bless you and your work and reward you for what you did
for us. The enclosed card represents this spiritual banquet,
and we send it as our Christmas gift, praying our Infant King
to send you a happy festival and asking you sometimes to
think prayerfully of
Your dear friends and children,
ST. MARY MAGDALEN'S PENITENT CLASS OF THE GOOD
SHEPHERD CONVENT IN
In silence Rob. glanced at the Christmas card, tastefully
lettered in gold, and read :
Spiritual Bouquet to dear Father Desmond, as a Christmas
offering from his dear children of St. Mary Magdalen's Class.
Masses heard, . . . 200 Memorares, . . . 5.000
Holy Communions, . . 50 Aspirations, . . . 20,000
Visits to Blessed Sacrament, 1,000 Salve Reginas, . . . 5,000
Pater Nosters . . ' . 5,000 Hours of Silence, . . 200
Ave Marias, S.coo Beads, . . . 1,000
" Phil.," said Rob., after a long pause, " that is simply divine ;
let me kiss your hand, and never again consider a worm of
the earth like me your competitor in anything."
" No, Rob., I still say that, according to the standard that
Father Baxter most likely had in mind, you have won. But,
Rob. dear," and there was a light not of earth on the young
priest's face as he raised his swimming eyes to his friend's,
" Rob. dear, I would n't swap."
576 THE FIRST SNOW. [Feb.
HE RIIST SNOW.
BY ALOYSIUS COLL.
LL night I heard the penitent wind
Confess to autumn blast,
And shriven, as a soul absolved,
The world is pure at last.
Nuns at a shrine of crystal carved,
The pines are bending low,
Their fingers clasped in silent prayer
On beads of silver snow.
Beads that are told by morning winds
Like rosaries at Mass,
And counted, one by one, and dropped
To the white-surpliced grass,
To hide from winter's touch austere
Till May is come again
With the warm impulse of the sun
And kisses of the rain.
Then shall this morning's frozen prayer
Be melted to the plea
Which makes the laughter in the brook,
The singing in the sea.
It shall inflate the honey drop
Upon the lily tongue,
And cool the thrush's throbbing throat
When bursts the passion song.
To marsh and meadow it shall bring
The magic kiss of dew,
The lilac and the marigold,
The rose bud and the rue.
So winter, with its breath of ice,
And breast of frozen sea
Brings back the summer and the sun,
The love and song to me.
THE WOMEN OF PROVENCE PRESERVE THE ANCIENT TYPE OF BEAUTY.
THE PORT OF COFFINS.
BY E. C. VANSITTART.
" Presso ad Arli, ove il Rodano stagna,
Plena di sepolture e la Campagna."
(Ariosto : Orlando Furioso, canto xxxix. 72.)
LONG tramp in Southern France is replete with
interest. The high-roads, dusty enough, are gen-
erally bordered by feathery tamarisk hedges,
whose dull pink blossoms impart a curious tint
to the landscape in the distance. In the heart
of Provence, however, rarer objects break the tedium of the
day as, with an autumn sun at his back, the traveller marks
VOL. LXXII. 38
578 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
the slow passage of the mile-stones. On either hand stretch
flat fields of stunted vines, now glorious sheets of ruby red,
scarlet, or golden hue, with here and there a silvery olive
to enhance the depth of color by contrast ; lavender reeds,
and rushes, with a stray horn poppy and a thick-leaved suc-
culent herb, with a distinct saline flavor, cover the unculti-
vated patches, the whole crossed by sombre lines of cypress-
trees, cut into gigantic hedges which serve to break the bitter
blast of the mistral, whose gusts carry away the shepherds'
huts, and have been known to delay if not stop the passage
of railway trains. Habitations are rare, and only once and
again a group of quince, pomegranate, fig, and almond trees
mark the existence of a mas, as they are termed. In the
height of summer the pools (for we are but a few inches
above the blue Mediterranean, and on ground where its waters
once flowed) dry up, and become glistening patches covered
with a snowy efflorescent crust left by evaporation; other bare
tracts of gray stony desert intervene, over which roam the
dun colored sheep of the region, cropping the stunted but
highly flavored herbage which the September rains have coaxed
into being. Yellow jasmine, sea narcissus, yellow asphodel,
" sourde salicorne" and the sweet alyssum, rosemary, not to
mention the whole fragrant family of thymes, are to be found,
each in due season, and are known and loved by the solitary
shepherds who, wrapped in tattered brown cloaks, lead their
flocks to and from the distant mountain pastures to these
lower feeding grounds.
" How dreary !" is the usual exclamation; but this wondrous
region holds many surprises for those who care to seek them :
here and there comes a canal or a branch of the mighty
Rhone, or a hidden depression shows a valley with umbrella
pines, myrtle, and oleander, fertilized by a purling stream with
now and then a tuft of maidenhair fern. Eastern of aspect,
its beauty is of a peculiar type, and intermingles with the
desolation caused by howling winds sweeping on unchecked by
woods; yet the very silence of its reaches is full of expression,
and its sunsets are wondrous.
Such, then, is the setting in which, on the banks of the
Rhone, lies the ancient city of Aries ; from afar its rusty old
belfries, towers, and weather-stained ramparts are discerned
against the sky. Once a kingly city, it now slumbers peace-
fully, dreaming of past glories ; the narrow, winding streets,
the beautiful Arle'siennes in their picturesque costumes, the
190 1.] THE PORT OF COFFINS. 579
magnificent Roman remains all lend a peculiar charm to
Aries. There was a time when emperors and kings sought to
be crowned here ; for awhile it even bore the name of Con-
stantinopolis, when the Emperor Constantine destined it as his
capital ; afterwards, when Byzantium was chosen in its stead,
he made Aries the seat of the prefect of the Gallic Pretorium,
with Spain and Great Britain under his jurisdiction. The
grand old amphitheatre built by Augustus, the Greek theatre,
and the church of St. Trophimus with its lovely cloisters and
A ROMAN COLISEUM AT ARLES.
beautiful portal, above which Christ sits enthroned, surrounded
by hosts of saints and angels, a perfect specimen of Gothic art
all claim attention ; but in none of these lay for us the
supreme attraction of Aries : all its history, royal and imperial,
pagan and Christian, is contained in the few acres of ground
occupied by its cemetery, Les Alyscamps (a corruption of Elyscei
Campi), for this necropolis is unique in the world ; within this
privileged God's acre generations of Christians have rested
after generations of pagans.
It was Chateaubriand who said : " I have never in all my
wanderings met a place which attracted me more to die in
than Aries"; but his words no doubt applied more to the
City of the Dead than the City of the Living.
Going down the Rue des Penitents Gris, we reached the
Public Gardens ; then, crossing the high-road into a. lane along-
580 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
side the Canal of Craponne, we were suddenly plunged into
solitude and silence. Before us stretched a long avenue bor-
dered on either side by tall poplars, and lined with innumera-
ble sarcophagi, grave-stones, and monuments; the brilliant sun-
sh'ine cast bands of checkered light and shade across this street
of tombs ; no sound save the breeze rustling the leaves of the
old trees overhead, or the song of a bird in the branches,
broke the quiet of those whose mortal bodies sleep here after
"life's fitful fever." Side by side they rest, Christians and
pagans, in the same mother earth, under the same blue sky,
and the sunlight smiles impartially on their graves ; all differ-
ences are lost, for are not they one and all children of the
same Father? Since the foundation of Aries, in pagan times,
its dead have rested here, and in every age this cemetery has
bsen reputed peculiarly sacred, and burial within its precincts
was eagerly sought.
Several avenues led to the heart of the necropolis, each
lined with magnificent Roman tombs, heroic cenotaphs of the
time of Augustus, and ornamental urns of the era of Con-
stantine ; indeed, the Gallo Roman canopies of heathen days
still stand beside the gigantic urn dedicated to the consuls
who perished, martyrs to their patriotism, during the great
plague of 1720. Previous to the Revolution of 1793 the prin-
cipal features of the original plan were still preserved, and
during the twelfth century we know that it contained no less
than nineteen churches and chapels, many of the latter belong-
ing to noble families of Provence, and that the monks of St.
Victor were its guardians. Little by little, however, most of
the monuments were removed to the museums of Rome, Paris,
Lyons, and Marseilles; the Middle Ages had respected these
dwellings of the dead and refrained from touching them, but
nineteenth century progress and civilization did not hesitate
to lay sacrilegious hands upon them, and to remove them from
the spot to which they were so well suited. Finally, fifty
years ago, the railway cut up a great portion of Les Alys-
camps, taking away much of its peacefulness and beauty, so
that what now remains is but a fragment of the past.
The one remaining thoroughfare is the avenue of poplars
already referred to, which leads to the Church of St. Honorat,
and is, as a French writer puts it, like the " pagan prologue,"
for at the church it opens out " into a green lawn shaded by
trees and littered with hundreds of sarcophagi a spot in-
finitely quiet, touching, and impressive."
Tradition relates how Trophimus, one of the seventy-two
IQOI.]
THE FORT OF COFFINS.
"THE AVENUE is LIKE A PAGAN PROLOGUE."
disciples of our Lord, alluded to by St. Paul in his Epistles
(II. Timothy iv. 20; Acts xx. 4; xxi. 29), when they went preach-
ing the Christian faith throughout the world, having visited
Aries, induced the inhabitants of that famous city, by the force
of his example and by his powerful preaching, to embrace the
true faith and discard their hideous idolatry of false gods, to
whom they even sacrificed young children. Having been con-
secrated Bishop of Aries by St. Peter and St. Paul, one of his
cares was to dedicate to the true God the pagan cemetery which
faced the rising sun, and was situated on the banks of the
Rhone. For this purpose, the legend goes on to relate, he
called together the bishops of neighboring cities, and having
582 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
raised an altar of earth according to the text of the Old Testa-
ment, they began the service amid a vast throng of people who
had assembled, when Christ Himself appeared and blessed the
cemetery ! According to a popular superstition, he still annu-
ally visits the spot on the night of All Saints to celebrate the
Mass, surrounded by the bishops who were present at the
first consecration. On the place where the Lord appeared he left
the marks of his knees, over which Trophimus placed the stone
altar now enclosed in the little chapel of La Genouillade
(built in 1529). He also built a church dedicated to " The still
living Virgin " Sacellum dedicatum Deiparce adhuc viventi (as is
testified by a marble slab bearing this inscription which was
sent from Aries to Rome), in which he was interred, by his
own express desire; in the sixth century, the edifice having
fallen into decay, it was replaced by the still existing building
dedicated to St. Honorat.
Of the numerous private chapels only two now survive, that
surnamed Du Duel, and the chapel of the family of Porcellets.
The former was erected in 1521 by the victor in a duel fought
to the death, and dedicated to St. Accuse, patron saint of the
victim. Attached to this building is the beautiful ruined arch
of St. Csaire, one of the original gates of the cemetery. The
present chapel of the Porcellets goes no further back than
1419, but the original building must have been dated several
centuries earlier. The now empty interior is closed by a strange
grating consisting of six iron pointed arches superposed upon
each other, beyond which it attracts no attention. The illustrious
family of the Porcellets, now extinct, had taken for its device the
vainglorious motto : " Genus Deorum, delude gens Porcella Mail-
/ana" (First the race of the gods, then the family of Porcella of
Maillane). The first member of the family known to history
was the Porcellus who lived towards the middle of the twelfth
century, and was father of William Porcellus, who joined the
Crusades in 1191, fought under the standard of Richard Coeur
de Lion, and saved that monarch's life by an act of chivalrous
devotion which rendered him the prisoner of Saladin. The
William of the "Sicilian Vespers" was the third of that name,
Lord of the Bourg of Aries and of other lands and cities,
Baron of the Kingdom of Sicily, etc. Charles of Anjou, brother
of St. Louis, who appreciated his valor and wisdom, gave him
the title of his Chevalier Familier. He it was who represented
Charles as governor of Sicily when, on Easter day of the year 1282,
the church bell gave the signal for the massacre known to his-
tory as the " Sicilian Vespers," when eight thousand Frenchmen
THE PORT OF COFFINS. 583
were brutally murdered. " One man alone was spared," says a
contemporary writer, " Provengal by birth, called Guillaume de
Porcellet, who in the government of the place he commanded
had always distinguished himself by his equity, his moderation,
his gentleness and pity, and who on this occasion owed his life
entirely to the extraordinary impression his virtues had produced
upon the minds of the people." He was not only preserved
from death, but sent back in a Sicilian ship laden with gifts.
THE DOORWAY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. TROPHIMUS, COMPANION OF ST. PAUL.
The church of St. Honorat is a curious structure, half
Gothic, half Byzantine in style ; its belfry, an octagonal tower,
with a double row of arches, has a domed roof of Eastern
type. The open space around is covered with long grass and
wild flowers strewn with grave-stones ; pines, birches, a fig tree,
and a large plane-tree overshadow them. There is a very
ancient crypt and some private chapels, and the unfinished
nave still contains a number of sarcophagi and Gothic tombs,
though the greater part have been removed to the museum of
Aries, leaving the interior desolate and abandoned.
Even in the Middle Ages, despite the devout credulity of
the " faithful," the torch of faith had need of being reanimated
from time to time ; thus, we find Archbishop Morosio com-
plaining that " this church, founded by the great St. Trophi-
mus, enlarged and endowed by Charlemagne, was in danger of
584 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
falling into ruins, and could not be suitably restored without
incurring great costs." In a pastoral letter, addressed to the
whole Catholic world, he again recalls how here " rested the
body of St. Honorat, the relics of the holy Bishops Hiliary,
Aurelius, Concordius, Eonius, Virgilius, and Rotlandus ; of the
blessed martyrs Genie's and Dorothea, virgin and martyr,
not to speak of other holy bodies whose souls now enjoyed
the fruition of the vision of God." He cited the antiquity of
this cemetery " blessed by apostolic men, and by seven of the
disciples of our Lord, Trophimus, with various other bishops,
in whose presence Christ appeared in Person at this consecra-
tion, as is testified by Marcella, servant of Martha, in the
second book of the Acts of her life, written in Hebrew. Here
too Mary Magdalen deposited several holy relics which she had
brought from Jerusalem, and which worked divers miracles."
Corpses interred here were held to be safe from all attacks of
the devi', and burial in Les Alyscamps was so earnestly de-
sired that Marechal Gervais de Tilbury, who wrote in the
thirteenth century, relates how the dead were sent hither from
Lyons, and many other distant cities, the ccffins being en-
trusted to the river's current, the droit de mortelage, or price
for burial, being deposited in a sealed coffret affixed to the
coffin. No sacrilegious hand touched the dead on their jour-
ney to Les Alyscamps ; it was sufficient to launch them on
the Rhone, on whose stream they floated down to Aries, with-
out oars or rudder, with no other guidance but that of God ;
however violent the wind might be, they never went beyond
that quarter of the city called La Roquette ; here they halted
before the cemetery, caught in an eddy, neither advancing
nor receding till the monks of St. Victor, charged with the
funeral rites, drew them to shore and gave them burial. When
the boatmen on the Rhone saw one of these ccffins floating on
the water, they saluted it by uncovering their heads and mak-
ing the sign of the cross, persuaded that the guardian angel of
the departed guided it across the sandbanks, with his protect-
ing wings outstretched like sails.
Many legends and superstitions gathered round Les Alys-
camps, clothing it in a poetic garb ; some of these are recorded
in an ancient chronicle couched in quaint old French phrase-
ology and written on parchment, now entirely worn out, but
transcribed as far back as 1687 by the priors of the convent
in which it was found. Thus, it tells how "Miracles took
place daily, among which is to be related a remarkable one of
a barrel which floated down the river without other guidance
THE PORT OF COFFINS.
585
ANCIENT CHURCH OF ST. HONORAT, LES ALYSCAMPS.
than that of God, and passing between the castles of Tarascon
and Beaucaire, going along with the current of the stream, the
servants of the castle of Beaucaire brought it to land ; having
opened it, they found inside the body of a knight, and a large
sum of money for his burial, whereupon they took out the
money which was in the said barrel, and put back the knight
inside. Then they tried to start the barrel again on its
journey down the river, but all their efforts were vain ; they
never could push it sufficiently far to make it reach the water ;
on the contrary, it rolled perpetually in front of the castle,
without moving from the spot, which thing having attracted
the attention of the Count of Tolose, lord of the said castle
of Beaucaire, he caused the barrel to be seized and examined,
and recognizing the abuse that had been committed, he ordered
the thieves to restore the money even to the uttermost maille.
This having been done, the barrel once more floated down the
river as before, and came to a halt at Aries, before the holy
cemetery, where it was honorably buried."
" In the said cemetery and church was buried St. Honorat,
Archbishop of Aries and Abbot of the monastery of Les
Le"rins, which is an island in the Mediterranean. It is to be
586 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
remarked that this saint having died at Aries, and being buried,
as we have said, in this cemetery, the brethren of his order,
envious of his holy body, went to Les Alyscamps with the
design of carrying it away to their monastery. When they
^arrived at the said cemetery to execute their purpose, as they
were about to take it up, all the bodies of the deceased lying
there arose by the will of God, and cried out : " It is not right
that you should take away our holy patron from us." Which
vision and voices so amazed the monks that they left the said
body in its grave. Some time after, being reassured, and having
taken courage, they returned to possess themselves of the said
holy corpse, and as they were in the act the bodies of all the
dead arose, and called out more loudly than before : " It is
not right that you should take away our holy patron from
us"; whereat they fled in terror, and never again ventured to
return thither. It is not to be wondered that the voices of
angels were often heard singing melodiously in this holy place,
as was testified by the blessed Quirin, Bishop of Uzes, in his
life-time, and by several other well-known persons who affirmed
they had heard them. Here too it was that, while the
Emperor Constantine was contemplating the beautiful monu-
ments, an angel appeared unto him, and pointing to a cross of
fire in the air, said : " In hoc signo vinces."
Special " indulgences and pardons " were granted to devo-
tions performed at Les Alyscamps. Originally the necropolis
covered an extent of about the third of a league, but "after
the body of St. Trophimus was removed to the town, in 1152,
the glory of Alyscamps began to wane, and its ancient
sarcophagi were carried off to distant museums, even to those
of Rome. In the courtyard of the Louvre in Paris stands a
neglected sarcophagus, and two magnificent white marble
basins presented in 1640 to the brother of Cardinal Richelieu,
Archbishop of Lyons. Marseilles possesses more than one tomb
from Aries. A heavy load of these monuments, despatched by
the king to his ministers and governors of provinces, was
wrecked under an arch of the Pont St. Esprit. This custom
of presenting the tombs as gifts began under Louis XIV.; in
the Chronological History of Aries we read, under the date of
1634: ' Melchior Mitte de Chevrieres, Marquis de Saint Cbau-
mont, lieutenant-general in the place of the king in Provence,
made his entry into the city of Aries, where the consuls made
him a present of a silver bassin with two aiguieres, and thirteen
ancient tombs."
When, in 1848, the railway destroyed the greater portion of
THE PORT OF COFPINS.
587
THE ARCH OF ST. CESAIRE, ONE OF THE ORIGINAL GATES OF THE PAGAN CEMETERY.
Les Alyscamps, the finest remaining monuments were removed
to the museum at Aries, which occupies the now disused Gothic
church of St. Anne. The " Christian Museum " at St. John
Lateran in Rome holds nothing finer than these sculptured
sarcophagi ; side by side they stand, pagan and Christian ; in
many cases the Diis Manibus on the heathen tomb has been
transformed into Deo Optimo Maximo, and the monogram of
Christ, the vine, fish, ark, dove, and other symbols of the
primitive church roughly cut out in the marble, thus proving
that Christians used the empty pagan sarcophagi, by consecrat-
ing them to the " one true God."
On'one of these there is a touching inscription in Latin to
the " most beloved and innocent child," a certain little
" Chrisogenea," daughter of Valerius and his wife, who died at
the age of three years, "of rare sweetness, a source of nothing
but joy to her loving parents," during the whole of her brief
588 THE PORT OF COFFINS. [Feb.,
life time. On the lid of the marble sarcophagus is carved :
"Pax Sterna" and a palm branch. Close by, in a leaden
coffin, may be seen the remains of a Roman maiden (removed
hither from the Church of St. Honorat), with the gold orna-
ments found in her tomb. She too was the joy of her parents,
and died young, as the inscription on her sarcophagus tells us.
Hours might be spent deciphering the inscriptions and studying
the sculptures on these tombs. That of the priest Commodus
is one of the finest : it is richly sculptured, with a representa-
tion of Christ enthroned with the twelve Apostles. " The
majority are early Christian, ornamented with reliefs in good
design and execution, showing that Roman art survived after
the extinction of paganism. The subjects most commonly re-
presented are : the creation of Adam and Eve, the passage of
the Red Sea, Moses striking the rock, the history of Jonas,
the sacrifice of Isaac. On one is seen an oil-press and olive-
gathering."
When Dante came to Provence the world wide fame of
Les Alyscamps was at its height, its extent unimpaired, and he
speaks of it in his Inferno (canto ix. verse 112) in immortal
lines, comparing it to the sad cemetery of the city of " here-
siarchs." Wandering there, in the solitude and silence, in the
company of tombs, we might as some one has said be pass-
ing through Dante's Purgatorio, and expect to meet one of
those sweet spirits who " wept in singing " over poor Pia dei
Polomei, " whom the Maremma unmade," or Matilda, " who
went singing and gathering flowers by the side of the stream."
No place speaks more forcibly of the shortness of human
life, of change and decay, of the vanity of all earthly great-
ness, than -does this God's acre; but its peacefulness, its quiet-
ness, the holy memories which hallow it, make it one of those
"blessed fields" in which rest so well weary mortal bodies
awaiting the great Resurrection morning, when they shall arise
renewed, when the corruptible shall put on incorruptibility, and
the mortal immortality. There is no gloom or sadness about
these Elysian Fields; the atmosphere of supreme restfulness
that enfolds them holds in itself the promise of better things
to come in the Great Hereafter. The legend of the coffins
floating down the river comes to us as a parable : God grant
that so our frail barks, protected by outspread wings, may glide
into that safe haven where outstretched hands of Divine Love
and Forgiveness will draw us into the shelter of Paradise, and
give us rest after life's mortal journey !
1901.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 589
THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE.
BY EDWARD F. GARESCHE.
* T was a fine, moonlit night in June ; the air soft
with summer, the depth of sky unbroken by a
cloud. Under the quiet moon the pike road
wound, broad and white, over meadows and
wooded hills, leading away into the misty dis-
tance towards Baltimore.
Presently on the silence there broke a faint jingle and
clatter, softened and far away, and the rhythm of horses' hoofs
ringing on pebbly soil. Louder and louder it grew until the
grinding of wheels mingled with the clatter of hoofs. A
yellow ray from a lantern swept above the brow of the hill,
and the stage from Philadelphia Town rattled over the crest
and rumbled down the grade beyond. It was an ungainly
vehicle, that needed its four stout grays to drag it over the
sandy roads and rocky fords. It had a driving seat before,
where old John the driver ruled his champing steeds and dozed
on his way up the long hills. Behind this were two benches
of wood, without cushions or backs, and thereon sat two
travellers, enjoying as best they might, from behind the looped
leather curtains, the hazy beauty of the scene without.
One was a testy-looking old gentleman of sixty or so, with
bright and beady eyes, a grim expression, and a most wonder-
ful nose being in fact a sort of bulb, of scarlet color en-
trenched behind which formidable barrier he seemed to look
forth on the world with secure defiance. He was clad in a
snuff colored suit, with a white waistcoat of broad expanse,
and carried a heavy cane, with which he was accustomed to
emphasize his remarks by striking it vigorously on the floor.
His fellow-traveller was a man of fewer years, well knit and
neatly clad, whose features bore a stamp of shrewd good
humor and keen intelligence, which his clear eye confirmed.
The two sat opposite one another on the broad wooden
benches ; the elder gentleman staring solemnly out of the
window, his chin on the knob of his cane. The other's pene-
trating glance now roved over the moonlit loveliness without,
now rested on the stern face of his companion ; on which, by
590 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
the light of the lantern above them, could be perceived a very
forbidding sort of a scowl.
At length a ruder bump than usual drove the cane upward
with such force that the old gentleman's mouth was jolted
sharply open, and he, as though the impetus had started
some hidden spring within him, suddenly straightened himself,
rapped his cane pretty briskly upon the floor, and called out,
in a tone as sharp as the snapping of dry sticks: "Ahem! I
say, master printer ! " Franklin started, and turned an inquiring
gaze on the face of the speaker. The old man nodded his
head slowly, squinting at him from sparkling eyes. " You '11
be wondering, I warrant," said he, "what brings old Jonathan
Hardscull a posting hither so fast when he should be biding
at home in the counting house on Chestnut Street. Eh, sir?
Speak out wi* 't ! "
" It must truly be an urgent errand, Master Hardscull,"
said Franklin, " that calls you so far from home ; but what its
nature is, it doth not concern me to wonder."
" Natheless, you should know," said the other. " Thou 'rt
the wisest man of thy years in the Pennsylvania colony, and
't would ease my mind not a little, friend, if thou 'dst uphold
me in what I 'm venturing on. Though, mind ye, 'tis not my
way to change my mind for any other man's; an' we differ,
there 's an end on 't."
"So be it," said Franklin; "I do not ask your confidence,
friend Hardscull."
" Mayhap that 's why I offer it, sir," said the other dryly.
"You know my son William?"
Franklin nodded. "A fine young man," said he, "albeit
somewhat wild and headstrong yet."
" Yet ! " echoed the other loudly ; " when will he mend,
think ye ? Why, at his age I was first mate of a brig, with
half the worry of the ship on my shoulders; ' yet,' say 'st thou ?
Ay, and for too long a ' yet ' I fear me."
"'Tis a fault excusable in youth," said Franklin. " I warrant
you were a hot-headed fellow once yourself. -What of the tale
they tell of the French sloop that you and your men ran
away with while the crew were off ashore?"
"Tut! tut!" said the other, smothering a smile. "But to
say sooth, sir, though I can bear, as you say, some tinge of
rashness in young bloods, the sprig hath carried it too far
too far! and he shall smart for it!" The last words were
made emphatic by sundry raps with the cane, and it was in a
IQOI.] THE FORBrDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 59!
voice hoarse with temper that the fiery old fellow continued :
" Eh ! confound it, what wi' his wild pranks ye mind the
time he hung a jesting placard on the very lintel of the State
House? and his mad whims he went once to sea for a year's
voyage, and left naught but an ill-writ note to tell me that he
was gone ! I was sore enough tried with him before. But
t'other day comes my lad into the counting-room, swinging his
riding whip, calm as a daisy, and says he : ' Father, a word in
private, please.' ' Say what thou hast to say here, lad,' says I.
'Here's no one but Henry the clerk, who's been stone deaf
these ten years.' But no, he would have it that some one
might come in upon us ; so I went with him to the little
office behind. Then says he, glib as a lesson learned, only getting
very red from collar to hair. ' Father, I love, and mean to
marry, Mistress Mary Cole, the attorney's daughter of Baltimore.'
"Whiles ye might have counted a score, sir, I could not
say a word. Then I came down on him. 'Ye blundering,
blethering blockhead!' says I, 'how dare ye say such a thing
to me ? Hast forgotten, sir, that for these twenty years
thou 'st been affianced to Dame Margery Clifford?' 'That be-
trothing is none of ours, sir,' says he, as ready as you please,
* and we are both of us of a mind to override it. It would be
a shameful and intolerable thing, sir, if our fathers' fancy, con-
ceived when we were but infants, should warp our whole
lives where we would not'! Ha! ha! heard ye ever such
sounding speech from a stripling?
" He held his purpose, though, confound him ! like a stub
born sprig, as he is. And I told him at last ' this with a
terrific fusillade from the cane 'that if I had to travel all the
way to Baltimore to stop the thing, I'd do it ! That he must
and should marry Margery Clifford, or ne'er marry at all!
" With that my lad grows pale, sinks into a revery and
bites his finger-nails for full a minute ; then says he, ' Well,
father, it grieves me sore to go against your will. But I've
fixed the day for our wedding.' 'So ho!' said I. 'And when
will it be, sir?' 'On the sixteenth day of June, sir, next ap-
proaching.' 'Now, I swear!' cried I, my anger getting upper-
most, 'that it shall not be then; no, nor on any other day
while I live. And I warn you, sir, that if I do not hear from
you before the thirteenth day of June that you have broken
off this confounded folly, I '11 travel post-haste to Baltimore
myself, and forbid the match at the altar. We '11 see then if
good Master Cole '11 give you his daughter.'
592 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
" Whereupon he makes me a low bow, and steps forth wi*
*s head held high in the air, like a trooper of horses. From
that time not a word passed between us until two days agone.
Then my lad meets me at the door, all booted and spurred,
and says he, with a mighty fine bow, but his voice a-trembling :
"'Father, this morn I ride for Baltimore; my chest hath
already gone by the coach. Do you still propose to thwart
me, sir ? '
"'William,' quoth I, 'so sure as you set forth this day, I
follow you to morrow ! '
" ''Tis a long ride, sir,' said he, glancing up at me. ' I travel
by the coach, sir ! ' I answered. He hung his head and had
almost wept. ' Father, father,' said he, ' for the love of Heaven
spare me the pain of thwarting you ! If you follow me, you
follow to your own undoing. I am a man, sir, and what I
will do, I will do ! '
"'You are my son, sir,' said I, 'and must obey me. Go,
and I swear I '11 follow you ! ' Then the boy stood erect,
slapped his whip on his boot, and quoth he, as gallant as you
please, looking at me the while with such eyes ! faith ! it was
as though I stared in a mirror 'Come, then,' said he, 'and
'tis at odds between us ; and on your head, sir, be the blame
of this unnatural strife ! ' And he swung into the saddle and
was off towards the pike, leaving me staring after him, mouth
agape, like a two weeks apprentice ! "
The worthy gentleman came at last to a full stop ; and
resting his chin on his hands again, gazed ruefully at the placid
moon sailing over the tree-tops. At length he brought his
eyes down to meet the clear glance of his fellow-traveller.
"Well, sir," said he, "what d'ye think of it?"
" Will you pardon me some questions ? " answered Franklin.
" Ay, ask away."
" To begin with, how know you that this ceremony of mar-
riage is to occur, time and place and all, as your son said ? "
" Never hath a lie crossed his lips ! " said Hardscull impa-
tiently. " Headstrong though he be, the lad is true as day.
A man confound him ! every inch of him."
"Then why have you not writ to the worthy attorney, tell-
ing him of your prohibition ? "
"Writ! I did not dream that the lad would carry it
through, till Wednesday morn after the post was gone ; you
know that they deliver naught of a Sunday. And as for send-
ing, sir, why, it hath ever been a maxim with me rather to go
190 1.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 593
than send. ' Who sends, loses,' and you may put that in your
calendar, sir ! "
Franklin bowed. " One question more," said he. " How
doth our young friend hope to gain his livelihood without
your aid ? "
" He hath his mother's property," Hardscull answered ;
" which the lad hath well turned in trade since his majority. So
he hath a competence to make him independent. Ho ! master
driver, what inn is this?"
" Tis Bush Tavern, your worship," quoth old John, twist-
ing himself about in his seat. " Will your honors alight for a
dram while the horses are changing ? This is Bush Town, sirs,
and Abingdon hill lies just beyond."
As he spoke the coach rumbled onto a space of cobble-
stones before the tavern, and John, throwing his reins to a
hostler who hurried forth, trotted into the brightly-lit hall, to
follow his own suggestion in the matter of " taking a dram."
The inn to which they had come was a square, low, ram-
bling building, coated with gleaming plaster, after the fashion of
that day. You may see its counterpart still in some of those
ancient houses, which still contrive to stand, in the ruined dig-
nity of age, along the old roads of Mar) land. Before the door
stood a mighty oak, which shot, clear of the roof, huge, knotty
branches, each alone of girth for an ordinary tree. And of a
sunny summer's afternoon, when the close, green turf was dap-
pled with sunshine and shadow, when the bustle of barnyard
and stable came forth on the breeze, and the flocks of white
geese and fluffy chicks ran and cackled before the door, it
looked as cheery and comfortable a resting-place as tired
traveller need wish to see.
Even now, with the cold moon weaving its mournful spell
of light and shade upon it, through the oak leaves, there was
a world of merry invitation in the glow and laughter that
streamed from the small paned windows and echoed out at the
doors. The two passengers, however, were in no mood to join
the rustic groups at the tables, and chose instead to stroll back
and forth on the close-cropped lawn.
"Art sure," said Franklin, walking with bowed head, "that
thy remonstrance will avail, to-morrow morn ? "
" Ay, sure," quoth Hardscull. " Look ye, sir : Master Cole,
the attorney I know him well is a very punctilious man, and
sensitive of the good esteem of other men. Now, do you think
that such a one will suffer his only daughter to wed my son
VOL. LXXII. 39
594 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
when I protest and forbid it before the whole congregation ?
Never, sir! "
" True, true," murmured the other ; " we are called the
coach starts." And they hurried forward to take their places
again. A crack of the whip, a chirrup, and the fresh team
sprang forward, and never eased their rapid trot, over sandy
hill and through splashing brook, until they set hoof on the
first long slope of Abingdon hill. Then old John the driver,
casting one careful glance at the white stretch ahead, and one
at the ears of the leaders, bobbing slowly as they shouldered
up the grade, settled himself comfortably in his seat, and went
to sleep as he had done on almost any moonlit night for well-
nigh all the term of his drivership.
But his nap was not to last, as it usually did, until the first
lurch of the coach over the hill-top awoke him. For he sud-
denly sat straight again to hear the voice of one of his pas-
sengers raised in angry tones.
" Why, sir, what d' ye mean ? Would you uphold a son in
going against his father's will ? "
" Remember, I pray you, Master Hardscull," returned a
quiet voice, "your confidence in the matter was unsought by
me, and you asked my honest thought of it. Well, sir, you
have it. To my mind you have no right to lay this prohibi-
tion upon your son."
" No right, sir. And what, then, of his having been affianced
to Mistress Clifford?"
" He hath rightly said, he is not bound by it."
" Now, confound you both ! " began the testy gentleman in
tones so warlike that old John deemed it politic to bring
about a diversion, lest blows should follow and his coach gain
an evil name. So, thrusting his head as far back towards the
window as his stiff stock would allow, he bellowed forth, for
lack of anything better to say: "Ho! this is Abingdon Hill,
sirs ! "
" Ha ! what ? " exclaimed the startled Master Hardscull,
swallowing the rest of his wrathy speech, and well-nigh chok-
ing on it. "Well, confusion seize you! what of that?"
" Why, sir," says honest John, rubbing his head to stimu-
late its slow action, " you must have heard o" Abingdon Hill,
your worship ; why " with a sudden thought " 't was here
Black Richard made his last stand, and was ta'en ; come
Michaelmas, 't will be a year agone."
"Ha! Black Richard a desperate rascal, eh?"
1901.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 595
" Nay, there your honor 's i' the right," quoth John, much
reassured ; " yet a bold, dashing lad great shame that e'er he
took to th' road, sir. He would 'a' made a soldier beyond
all ! "
" And it was just here, you say, that the rogue was caught? "
" Ay, sir, I mind the scene as though 't had been yester-
eve. Poor Dick had been uncommon frequent o' late wi's pis-
tols, and robbed a justice as came this way o* a purseful o'
bright pieces. So what does the worthy do, when he 'd got
home again, but stir up a grand fume and flurry about the
" Stoppage of Commerce and Impedyment of Traffick " by a
bold highwayman known by the name o' Black Richard, o'
these parts.
" So one bright night, like this 'n, as my coach drew up at
Bush Tavern, there came forth three as ugly-visaged villains as
ever ye 'd wish to see. And when I asked 'em by what right
they made so free o 1 my coach for, bless you, they had climbed
in without so much as saying 'by your leave ' 'We're consta-
bles, old bird,' says they, ' and we 've come out to catch that
fine rascal of yours, Black Dick of Abingdon Hill ! ' * Ye have
a large task, my men,' said I, ' and I wish ye joy o' it ! ' But
in my heart, sirs, I was grieved, for 't was just such a night as
Dick would choose for one o' his pranks."
" Ha ! faith, you talk as though you loved the man," cried
Hardscull, interrupting.
" Why, ' loved ' is too strong a word, sir," returned John,
" but there were few young fellows hereabouts that I felt kind-
lier for nor Dick ; and as for robbin' me, if that 's what your
honor 's thinkin' of, why he would as soon 'a' stole from 's
own father! Well, those three ill favored villains were the only
passengers that night, and, as I was saying, my heart beat
louder as we came along here aways. So I broke out and
sang the ' Ballad o' Bold Dick Turpin,' to warn him, if might
be. But 't was not to be ; for just as we had come within
ten paces o' yon black bunch o' pine-trees I heard the click
o' a quick hoof on the stones, and, like a shadow, from the
dark forth shot Dick on his tall gray mate wi 's long black
cloak around him, and his bright-barrelled pistols flashing
straight before. Ah, me ! a gallant sight. ' Stand ! ' quo' he,
'and deliver! Up wi' your hands, sirs, every one o' ye!'
Crack, crack, crack came the constables' pistols from either
window the ruffians had held them cocked beneath their
cloaks all o' the way. Two o' the bullets missed him clean,
596 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
but t'other shattered his right arm at the shoulder! Quick as
a thought he fired wi' 's left, and winged one o' the constables
in the cheek, and, dropping the pistol, turned his horse to flee,
but alack ! one o' the fellows inside had snatched another pis-
tol from 's belt, and firing, broke the mare's off hind leg.
Then they rushed out and dragged him down and bound him,
an' threw him in th bottom o' the coach beasts, they were,
and not men ! And to hear his weepin' and wrath for the rest
o' the journey was enow to make ye cry yourself. And full
half o' 's sorrow was for his good gray mare, that lay in the
road wi' a bullet through her heart. The farmers wondered, I
warrant ye, as they passed that way i' the morning. And they
hanged him ere ever his arm was healed poor boy! at Balti-
more Town ! "
" And was he," quoth Hardscull, with a tinge of anxious
interest in his tone " was he the only highwayman that ever
haunted the roads hereabouts?"
Old John laughed loud and long. " Ho ! ho ! No, no,
your honor; there'll never be lack o' them while there's as
great a profit in the thing as now. But of all Black Richard
was the prime. The rest are but unskilful louts, that are like
to shoot a man unintended like, from sheer nervousness and
want o' courage ! "
" Ha ! pox take me for an improvident fool ! " groaned
Hardscull. " A brace of good Spanish pistols lay ready on
my counting table, and I forbore to strap them on, because,
forsooth, that addlepate, my son's man John, happeneth in,
and noddeth his head at them sagely, and sayeth ' that the
roads were so safe, and free o' rascals o' these days that
't were folly to carry such gear as them.' Confusion seize the
meddling knave ! And I '11 warrant me you have no fire-arms
at all about you, friend Quaker, or you, John o' the box ?"
" Nay, not I, sir," said Franklin. " I have scarce fired
one thrice in all my life." " Nor I, sir," echoed John, rum-
bling with laughter. " Such toys be only for gentlefolks,
soldiers, and rascals. Poor and honest men like me have lit-
tle use for them, ^ave now and then to knock over a hare
or a partridge ! "
Master Hardscull hereupon relapsed into gloomy silence,
and gave himself up to meditations of no rosy hue.
So the old coach rattled along through the misty, moonlit
night, for full half an hour of silence, broken only by the dis-
tant owls and mournful whip-poor-wills. Then old John, find-
1901.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 597
ing himself in mortal danger of dropping off to sleep again,
and encouraged besides by the reception that his last attempt
had met with, bethought himself of another episode of the
road, and introduced his account of it as follows: "Asking
pardon o' your honors," said he, "we're a-coming to Ha-Ha
Creek ? "
"Hey? Ha-Ha Creek?" quoth Master Hardscull, suddenly
diverted from an anxious scrutiny of the shadows on the road
before them. "Well, what horror was acted there?"
" Ay, your honor may well call it a horror," said John,
shaking his head solemnly ; " and so your worship 's heard o'
the thing ! I might 'a' known 'twas widely told."
"I never heard it, man!" said Hardscull sharply, "but
your last tale prepared me for a worse one after ; well, what
of this Ha-Ha Creek, then out with it ! "
" 'T were a dismal thing," said John, as the coach began to
lumber slowly down the long hill that led to the stream.
" Not over twenty years ago afore I began to drive here
there was a band of roving Indians o' the Susquehannock
tribe they were that still loitered around in these parts, steal-
ing and marauding whenever they dared, folks say, over the
whole countryside. One gloomy night 'twere in a time o'
fearful heavy rain, when the tiniest stream was roaring and
swollen with water and yon creek you see how long and steep
the banks are here was flooded beyond all bounds. The
driver of those days was a bold man, over given to desperate
risks ; but as they neared yon slope, and saw how high the
water was swirling, and how swift it looked, and flecked with
drift and foam, he drew up on the brink, and asked his pas-
sengers if they 'd consent to turn back with him and bide the
morning.
" But one old, crusty gentleman would insist on going on,
and while they quarrelled with him, a fearful howling and
shrieking came from the wood behind, and a flight of stone-
tipped arrows, that rattled on the coach and wounded the
team ! And the horses, mad wi' fear and pain, leapt forward
and splashed far out into the stream. The coach floated for a
breath's space, and then turned over on its side, and was
swept down the swift current, the horses struggling and plung-
ing, the heavy coach bobbing up and down like a cork in the
grip of the racing swirl, and the poor folks within a-screaming
like mad, till the water stopped their cries. Ah, that was a
terrible thing ! There were six souls in the coach that night,
598 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
and only Bob, the driver, came safe out o' it by rolling off 's
seat and steering down stream for shore, where he lay all
night for fear o' the Indians. He never was a sane man after
it, and oft dreamed it over again in 's sleep."
" These Susquehannocks," said Franklin, after an interval
of silence, " are long since driven away, eh, my good man ? "
" Well, sir," answered John, " all but a scamp or two i' the
wilder woods. There'll never be another such a happening as
this o' Ha-Ha Creek, God be thanked ! "
The coach rolled on down the bank, and the four splashed
into the swirling borders of the stream. " 'Tis high enough
now for all comfort," quoth old John, as the hubs sank under,
and the water poured in on the feet of the travellers. An in-
stant later and they were in the midst of the stream, the
horses half swimming, the heavy wheels grating on the gravelly
bed. Then, responding to their driver's high-pitched encour-
agement, the four grays strained their broad haunches, and
dragged the coach from the water with a rattle of hoofs and a
scurry of stones. As they gained the gentler slope above
there shot from behind a coppice of pine a muffled form, on a
tall, gray mare. A brace of shining barrels flashed in the
moon, and a deep voice cried: "Stand and deliver! Up with
your hands, sirs, every one of you ! "
The horses shied aside and stopped. As though they had
been automatons, moved all by a single spring, the three on
the coach raised each his hands in the air Master Hardscull
taking even the precaution of thrusting his out of window !
Old John, in particular, was deeply moved and trembled with
horror. " O Lord, Lord ! " faltered he, " 'tis the ghost o' Black
Richard come back again! Lord 'a' mercy! Lord 'a' mercy!"
But the actions of the apparition were far from ghostlike.
" Range ye along the road, my masters ! " quoth he, still in
the same deep and muffled tones ; " and take care that ye
hold your hands well up in the air my pistols are light o' the
trigger ! "
The three clambered awkwardly forth, and stood in a line
in the pale moonlight, while the black-masked highwayman,
leaping from his horse and slipping the bridle reins over his
arm, rifled their pockets of wallet and purse. Old John the
driver's deep receptacles yielded nothing of more value than a
big-bellied flask, an ancient pipe, and some Virginia tobacco,
which the robber silently returned. But the wallets of the
travellers bulged with rich promise.
1901.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 559
Finally, when he had assured himself that they had not a
weapon among them, he relaxed his keen glance somewhat,
and with the warning " Stir, if ye dare to die ! " turned to the
coach and four. Then there occurred a thing which, going be-
yond all his experience, shocked old John to the very last ex-
treme. For the robber, with a rapid hand, unyoked the horses
from the coach and stripped them of their harness. Then
turning their heads towards home, he struck them, one by one,
with his heavy riding stick, so that they plunged out and gal-
loped down towards the stream again.
One after the other the frightened beasts swam and
splashed through the water, and the noise of their rapid hoof-
beats died slowly into the distance as they stretched away for
the stable of the inn. Then the highwayman looked up, to
meet the gaze of three angry pairs of eyes.
"What means this?" said Franklin, who stood nearest the
robber ; " you are not content with stripping us of our sub-
stance, you abandon us upon the highway a score of miles
from our goal."
"Silence, sir!" thundered the robber, moving his pistols
threateningly and glaring at them through the holes in his
mask. " 'Tis wholesome enough beneath these summer skies ! "
Then leaping suddenly on his horse, he struck its flanks with
his spurs and galloped swiftly away over the crest of the
farther hill.
" Merciful Heaven ! " cried Hardscull, tugging from his fob
a huge silver timepiece which the highwayman had spared, and
squinting at it by the moonlight. " 'Tis four of the clock,
and at seven they will be wed ! O for a horse a horse ! "
"As well cry for the four of them ! " quoth old John, look-
ing ruefully toward the spot where they had vanished. " Nay,
nay, my masters, yon is the scurviest turn that ever was
played on the road. You must either bide here, or wade the
stream yonder, or walk into Baltimore Town ! "
"How far? how far, my good man?" quoth Hardscull
eagerly.
" Even as this gentleman hath said," returned John, " a
matter of twenty miles or so and long country miles they be.
But ye may do it, sir, in five hours, an' ye be light enow o'
foot ! "
Hardscull groaned. "Then back for the horses," said he;
"and haste! I will wait here. Five pounds to you, goodman,
an* you drive us into Baltimore ere seven of the clock ! "
6oo THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
" Methinks you are now in no case to offer gratuities,"
said old John drily ; " but bide here, and I '11 make such
speed as mine old enemy, the rheumatics, will allow me. But
Tom, the hostler, must drive the rest o' this journey. To go
along unwarmed after wading a stream o' night, goes ill wi'
my years, sir ill wi' my years." So mumbling, the old fellow
set forth at a stiff-legged trot down the hill-side, while the two
travellers clambered back into the coach with solemn faces.
Franklin, like a philosopher, muffled himself in his great-
coat, and composed himself to sleep away the hours. But
Hardscull, consumed with impatience, now bemoaned the loss
of his wallet, now fretted at the insolence of the robber and
the futility of his journey.
It was near the hour of five, and the spreading light of
dawn already wavered in the east, when the noise of the return-
ing team echoed down the road. A young fellow of twenty-
five or so, clad in homespun jerkin and leather boots, bounced
along on the back of one of the leaders, and pulling up by
the coach, he set himself briskly to work at harnessing his
horses again.
" Where 's the driver, boy ? " said Hardscull, peering out of
the window.
" I' bed, sir, at the tavern," answered the boy, grinning
from ear to ear, "and swears he'll not stir till sundown, come
what may. He was near borne away, sir, by the current o'
Ha-Ha Creek. It took 'im down full fifty yard, sir, an' wet
'im dreadful; 'e was as muddy and draggly a sight as you'd
ever see! And I be Tom, the 'ostler, sir, come to drive ye in-
to Baltimore Town." So saying, having fastened the last strap,
he climbed into John's broad seat and gathered up the reins.
"Hark ye!" said Hardscull as the coach lurched forward,
" bring me to the door of the Episcopalian meeting-house ere
seven of the clock, and you shall have ten pounds for it ! Do
you hear ? "
Never in all its years of service had the old coach so rattled
and swayed and bounded over the stones as in that mad drive
through the dawn. Tom the hostler was shaken as in a hopper,
and the travellers within rattled about like the proverbial peas.
They said never a word, however, but held each as tightly as
he might to either window frame, and watched the flying pan-
orama of countryside unroll: fields and roads and streams ; white
farm-houses and their clustering barns; and broad meadows
sparkling with dew, all in the soft, misty light of the early morn-
1901.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 601
ing. They dashed into the town with a clatter of hoofs that
struck showers of sparks from the cobblestones.
"To the meeting-house! to the meetinghouse!" roared
Hardscull from the window, his voice harsh from excitement.
They sped around corners at breakneck speed ; they scat-
tered the cackling geese ; they frightened the vagrant curs, and
startled the early citizens. But alas ! when they came at last
in sight of the meeting-house, Hardscull's watch, which he held
before him, marked near the hour of eight. A stream of
worshippers decently clad citizens, in all their morning fresh-
ness were just issuing from the door, and Hardscull groaned
as he saw them : " Too late ! too late ! "
The sweating horses dug their hoofs into the street, and
the coach stopped short at the door, when, even as Master
Hardscull was leaping from the step, there came forth, behind
a row of blushing youths and maidens, Master William him-
self, smiling and content, with his rosy bride on his arm.
His eye fell on his father and he flushed. Then, starting
forward, " Father," said he, "you are too late ! We are already
wed. Do not carry your anger further ! Welcome your new
daughter, sir: Mistress Mary Hardscull!"
From the violence of his passion the blood surged to
Hardscull's face, and he made a gesture of angry refusal.
Then his eye glanced from his son to the bride.
Now, Mistress Mary, the attorney's daughter, was esteemed
the fairest maiden in all the province of Maryland. And as
Hardscull gazed on the beautiful and amiable face, her clear,
bright color, and soft wide eyes, in which the coming tears
were glimmering because of his hard-heartedness, his rooted
resolution quite gave way.
"You dog!" quoth he, bending his brows at William to
conceal his new emotion, " I see now whence came all your
cursed stubbornness! But fear not, my dear!" this to the
trembling Mary "your tears have overcome me; wilt kiss thy
husband's father?"
"And wilt thou, sir," quoth Mary, curtseying prettily and
beaming into a smile, "since thou 'rt too late for our wedding,
at least, sir, honor us at the feast ? "
" Oh ! ay, of course," said Hardscull very heartily. " And
look ye, here's another guest for ye good Master Franklin,
who had near quarrelled with me on the road hither because I
swore to part ye.
"But, William, hearken to me awhile, till you hear what a
602 THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. [Feb.,
sorry thing yes, faith, a most outrageous thing chanced on
our way. Do you pay the honest driver here a couple of
pieces for the speed he made to stop your wedding Ha ! ha !
ha ! and- I '11 tell you as we go nay, do you walk between
us, pretty daughter how we were stopped and robbed, sir;
robbed upon the open highway! Heard you ever the like?"
William and his bride listened to the graphic tale which
followed with certain signs of an inclination to laugh at the
most thrilling portions of it, which, fortunately, his worthy
father did not perceive, but which were not lost to the ob-
servant eye of Franklin, who followed behind them with smil-
ing Master Cole ; and by the time that they had reached the
gate of the attorney's dwelling Master Hardscull had talked
and laughed himself into a hearty humor that was a joy to
see. At the wedding feast the guests all swore in unison that
there was no pleasanter, jollier man than the groom's good
father in all of his Majesty's colonies.
Then, when the wine was on, he needs must tell all over
again the tale .of the lonely robber who betrayed them; when,
with much clinking of glasses and drinking of toasts, they all
exclaimed what a great pity it was that he had missed the
wedding, but how very fortunate that he had come, at least,
in time for the rejoicings ! Whereat Franklin grew purple
with laughter, and winked at William in a manner that had
been like to cause that gay young man a convulsion. In fact,
so long and heartily did he roar out that his father rather
wondered at it, and said within himself, " Faith, I never knew
before that the lad had so much sense of humor in him."
At length, when the company had risen from the table,
with their hearts warmed and tongues loosened by good cheer,
and were making the very andirons clatter with noise and
mirth, William led Franklin aside into a separate chamber.
"Good sir," said he, "a thousand thanks for your friendship!"
" Nay, never mention it, lad," said Franklin. " Only thank
God, who softened thy father's heart. And hark ye, do not
presume too far on his present humor; 'tis a reaction, mind
you."
"Nay, sir," said William, "but I must presume further on
your friendship. Would your conscience forbid you, sir, from
compounding a felony ? "
" Why, lad," said Franklin, looking at him with a keen and
humorous eye, " an' even a highwayman repent and restore, I
could find it in my heart to forgive him ! "
190 1.] THE FORBIDDING OF THE MARRIAGE. 603
"You have guessed it, then!" cried William joyfully,
fumbling in his pockets. "There is your wallet, sir ; my father's
shall be forwarded to him from Virginia. Master Cole, who is
learned in the law, knoweth all, and hath absolved me. He
saith that my deed lacked the animo furpndi whatever that
may mean and his Majesty's mails go not by that coach. So
that no trouble can arise. Be secret, sir, and I thank you ! "
So, on the morrow, old Master Hardscull, and William and
Mary, journeyed back, all together, towards Philadelphia, in
the same old coach, with Tom the hostler as coachman. And
as they passed a certain dark coppice of pines, near Ha-Ha
Creek, there was great descriptive eloquence on the part of
Master Hardscull, and great appreciation thereof on the part of
his companions, and great hilarity until the journey's end. So
that old John the driver, who took command again at the
tavern door, could scarce recognize in this gay old fellow his
crabbed and surly passenger of the former night. And, in fact,
the Hardscull mansion, on Chestnut Street, had never so echoed
with laughter and joy in all of its staid existence as after
bright Mistress Mary came there to rule.
The clerks in the counting-house stared to see old Jonathan
Hardscull actually smiling to himself, over his littered desk.
As for William, who now had a desk there too, he laughed
the whole day long.
And when, one morning, there came in with the mail a
bulky package from Virginia colony, which turned out to be
nothing else than the wallet which the highwayman had taken,
with all its contents intact, old Jonathan only looked queerly
at his son, who happened just then to be writing away with
wonderful industry, and said never a word.
Only, at those anniversaries of their marriage which William
and Mary never forgot to celebrate, and when good Dr. Frank-
lin seldom failed to sit by old Jonathan, radiant among his
grandchildren, it was really wonderful what a roaring merri-
ment would seize the whole assembled company, and go rippling
around to the very humblest guest, did any one chance to
mention, with a quizzical air, even the simple name of " High-
wayman ! "
SONG OF THE SEA.
BY JULIAN E. JOHNSTONE.
FOR the roar of the sounding sea
And its bounding, pounding thunder,
As it rumbles and rolls, and fills all our
souls
With feelings of awe and of wonder :
And O for the dash, and the flash, and the crash
Of its waters awhirl in the bluster,
When the billows are black in the thunder-storm's track
Or are lit with the thunder-light's lustre !
For I'm far from the sea, and I long, long to be
Once again on the back of the ocean,
And to feel all its power when the thunder-clouds lower
And to watch its tumultuous motion :
To see the light shine on the leaden sea-line,
And list to the sea's hollow singing,
When the waters spit wrath in the thunder's black path,
And the winds in the canvas are ringing!
O better one hour of a life full of power,
O better an hour on the ocean,
Than a year in the calm and the shade of the palm
That the winds scarcely stir into motion.
For action is best, and this thing they call rest
O it wearies me, stifles, and kills me :
And I yearn for the sea, and the wild life and free,
For its music inspirits and thrills me!
606 THE CHURCH AS SHE is, [Feb.,
THE CHURCH AS SHE IS, AND AS WE PRESENT
HER.
BY W. F. P. STOCKLEY.
[OME articles have lately appeared in the Ave
Maria, written by a priest who cares not for
controversy, but who loves
" To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse,
By good ensample, this is his bisynesse " ;
and who utters forth his spirit in sympathy with the church's
offices, in her adoration, in her gladness ; in her terrors, and
sorrow, and turning to God in penitence : in her naivete", so
to speak, and heartfelt poetry.
Father O'Kennedy writes as if many of us English-speaking
Catholics said the Divine Office, and even met to say it in
common, as Abbot Gasquet says Englishmen of education and
honorable standing were wont to do with the Little Office in
the days before Henry the Eighth ran riot in the Garden of
the Lord. But may it not rather be said of us, that we have
not so much as heard if there be any Office. For the priest
indeed, yes, we have heard of the Breviary. But what is it?
How many of our educated, college-bred Catholics know much
of its contents?
And as to the Little Office, which laymen might say in
part, which would make such an inspired form of morning
and evening prayers as the American bishops suggest by giv-
ing " Offices " as their first form in their official Manual of
Prayers for the Laity, that book which surely ought to banish
unauthorized books with many fancy devotions what propor-
tion of our people, in "this most common-schooled, and least
educated country in the world," knows or cares anything about
this utterance, by which the soul can say under God's own
guidance, " Seven times a day will I praise Thee, by Thine own
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs : thus will I sing and
make melody in my heart to the Lord"?
For, do we think what we mean by the church, and all
that it implies ? Or rather, do we turn to account the faith
that is really in us? Perhaps some converts value all the more
IQOI.] AND AS WE PRESENT HER.
the sense of the absolute, of the ultimate, which their submis-
sion has given them, in the church that is, in God with us.
By no possibility, I think, can any non Catholic, whether be-
lieving all the Catholic doctrines, or denying them more or
less, have any idea whatever of what, to a Catholic, is the
speaking of God to him thus, hie et mine. There is no greater
instance of how the same word may hide difference in ideas
than in the word " church " thus variously used. -No wonder,
I often and often think no wonder pious Protestants talk of
putting the church instead of Christ ; no wonder philanthropic
Ritualists storm at " High-Churchism " ; that is, as they mean,
at giving shell for substance, stones for bread, historical dis-
quisitions, antiquarian awe, reverence for mere edifices, theories
about half understood men of ages past, the cut of our ances-
tors' clothes and vestments, discussions on their commentaries
on Holy Scripture or on creeds, bits of mediaevalism, bits of
primitivism, and all this dreadful weary talk to living or dying
souls to day, in need of a present Saviour.
But if the church is our Blessed Saviour, so to speak ; if we
go to Miss because he tells us ; if we fall at his sacred feet in
the confessional, and hear his merciful words melting our
hearts ; if we make the holy sign, and use holy ceremonies,
and accept devotions, not because we like them, not because
we ourselves fully understand them, or because we want to
teach others, or bring back a " church '' oh, a plague on the
"church" then, says every natural poor soul: in the name of
life and death, and of the sanctity of every soul, cannot you
leave me alone with God ? If you are the voice of God ; if
when with you I am in the Everlasting Arms, and if, then,
/ am, and Time ceases, or I tread beneath me the waves of
Time, and see into the life of things ; if I see things as they
really are : if the Mass is Calvary, the Cross of Christ the
measure of the world ; if when there I have all things brought
before me, the unfathomable mystery, the explanation as far
as God has willed to give it, the limits assigned to our reason,
the enlightening of reason by faith, the burdensome yet joy-
ful exercise of underpinning (may one say?) of faith by reason,
if the church is this ; if when I seek the knowledge of reli-
gion I meet Almighty God, my Judge yet my Redeemer ; if
I meet him, and not men's opinions about him, then indeed
the church is heaven upon earth, and man's great guide, where
he studies and learns, where he humbles himself yet grows, if
he will, in the knowledge of all understood relations, where he
6o8 THE CHURCH AS SHE ss, [Feb.,
can be sure that he knows God's will, and where conformity
to her spirit will fit him to try the spirits whether they be of
God.
A Catholic, therefore, if he prays according to the mind of
the church, knows that he is praying in the manner pleasing
to God. The Holy Mass, the Rosary, the Stations of the
Cross, the Angelus, the practice of meditation, the daily read-
ing of the Holy Scriptures, devotion to the Sacred Heart, and
endless thoughts of Mary, the shield of the Incarnation in
these he knows he is walking humbly before his God, and
fencing himself lest he turn into the easy path of the self-
deluder, or even of the hypocrite.
Now, if English-speaking Catholics knew more of the Psalms,
especially those most often used by the church, and thus recom-
mended by God ; if they early learnt by heart the Te Deum,
the Benedicite omnia opera, the Benedictus Dominus Deus
Israel, the Jubilate Deo, the Magnificat, the Nunc Dimittis ;
not to say the hymns in the office, by which the Everlasting
has willed his creatures to praise him for so many of our cen-
turies in his new covenant in time ; if many of them were even
led on further to the longer and more varied Divine Office, to
follow the heavenly beauties of the church's feasts and fasts,
joying with her joys and grieving with her sorrows, would
they not be taking further steps marked out for them in the
path the saints have trod ?
There is nothing surprises one of us ordinary Catholics
more, as he goes on learning, than to find the use the church
makes of the psalms, and of the like passages of Holy Scrip-
ture. For indeed we do not follow the church ; nor are we
guided so to do. I speak in general, and not without support.
As, for instance, in a recent number of Le Profiagateur, an ad-
mirable little " Book Notes " published with episcopal approval,
I think, in the diocese of Montreal, a priest-religious is quoted,
from his new book on the use of psalms and prayers accord-
ing to the church ; in which book he suggests that seminaries
and clergy do not sufficiently guide us Catholics in the right
way.
But indeed, as was said, what is very astonishing is to read
Father O'Kennedy writing as if somehow many of us Catholics
knew what he was writing about. Or to hear your parish
priest speak in sympathy with the service for the day, and
frequently to hear the introit alluded to, and the note it
strikes ; to have attention called to repetitions of the tone in
I9OI.] AND AS WE PRESENT HER. 609
gradual and communion ; and to listen to quotations from col-
lect and post communion as if these were in hand and in
mind of the hearers when you know that hardly one in the
congregation has ever seen a missal in English, or has had the
means of seeing one ; or has ever had explained to him the
sequence of the church's services ; that is, except as some-
thing which he has no means of grasping.
Mayhap he will go on for months without hearing the
gospel read in English at Mass; he will never hear it, unless
at the sung Mass ; nor will he ever hear the epistles, whether
hard to be understood or such as he who runs may read.
That there is an introit, a gradual, or anything else of the
sort in the service, his choir will never suggest to him ; and if
he is in the choir, his books will too often have no transla-
tions, and he will sing with the mouth and without the under-
standing ; the psalms for Vespers he will not vary ; why
should he ? though the church directs variation for priests
and people about him have resigned themselves to a sense
that shall I say ? the church is mistaken in her manner of
worship.
Reverend fathers, and brethren, this was not the spirit that
formed the church's chant in barbarous ages ; as the means at
our disposal might not unfairly call the days of St. Ambrose
or of St. Gregory. It was not this perfunctory manner that
cared to form the offices of God, or that made the church the
home of beauty, the consolation of the longing for what is
perfect, the teacher of noble things by eye and by ear, the
utilizer of God's natural good gifts in his supernatural wor-
ship, and all else that the Catholic Church once was, and of
what, alas ! our English-speaking churches to-day are too often
but the sad caricature.
It is not want of means ; it is want of will.
" Give all thou canst, high Heaven rejects the love
Of nicely calculated less or more."
And now one is led to say this apropos of the movement
to day towards the church. We are not speaking of the won-
derful piety which unlettered Catholic people show ; if others
of us equal it ever, we shall do well. We are not speaking of
the worship round the altar at the end of a week of work and
trouble ; let any exiled Protestant visit the nearest church
" after all, the only thing that can be called a church," as
Thackeray said, when passing one such home of the Blessed
VOL. LXXII. 40
6io THE CHURCH AS SHE is, [Ftb.,
Sacrament let him rest his soul, as in the dusk of these Sat-
urday evenings he is one with the other laden souls, by thou-
sands meekly kneeling, as they are led by the lamp of the
sanctuary, and prepare to open their souls, as that God of
love commands, in his confessional.
" Kind Shepherd, turn his weary steps to Thee."
Oh! let him not go, till to him also Thou hast lent Thine ear.
We are not speaking of those things.
But we are speaking of all these appeals by means of
noble words of prayer and praise consecrated by the use of
ages, and touching us by the historic sense, by the artistic, by
the poetic; and raising our intelligence as well as our heait;
strengthening, ennobling: drama it is, not melodrama; rousing
to acts, not sentiments ; nourishing with facts, not fancies,
in all this use of the natural in things supernatural the Catho-
lic Church is a past mistress.
And in this the children separated from her often know her
mind better than do her own. That is what one is led to say.
For the Holy Father is above all men anxious for the re-
turn of the wanderers, whose fathers robbed them and turned
them into the desert of men's vagaries good and bad. And
he has specially addressed himself to the Anglican Church.
Now, it is a sadness to many Anglican converts and it is
very often a justification, so called, to many who refuse to be
converted that in the eclecticism of the myriad-minded assem-
blage in which they strayed were heard far more of the songs
of Sion than they hear in the ordinary life of God's own
world to which they have been led out of the confusion.
The daily offices of the Anglican Prayer book, those debris
of the offices of the church, contain Te Deum, Benedicite,
Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, and the Psalter, and
the Collects. These, together with the Epistles and Gospels of
the Missal, are the daily, or at least the weekly, sounds in the
ears of all who attend what here are called Protestant Epis-
copal services.
Add the hymns. Christmas has "Adeste Fideles " well,
we all know that ; and in Latin ; and even as Protestants,
have not many sung the incomparable sounds of the original?
But have we "O Filii " at Easter? I mean, do we ordinary
Catholics associate these words of God with His Resurrecticn ?
Or had we " Vexilla Regis" at Passiontide, while our separated
brethren were singing in heart and in voice, at home and in
1901.] AND AS WE PRESENT HER. 6ll
church, "The Royal Banners forward go"? Have we, in the
old sense, all " Pange Lingua," or "Adoro Te devote"? and
how many can repeat, with the .understanding,
"Before the ending of the day,
Creator of the world, we pray " ?
As a humble-minded Sister of Charity said who for long was
in an Anglican sisterhood : " Of course I know the church's
hymns" (the hymns of God's own church)" far better than the
nuns here." Except whom? The converts. And why? Be-
cause it was as Protestants they inherited as Catholics.
Catholics are disinherited. Do not let us forget it, in as
far as it is true.
" I like its intelligible services," said concerning Anglicanism
one who did not heed God's invitation to please him rather
than self. But when we are looking at men as they are, and
at the religion that uses natural means for reaching their souls
(and means so noble), the religion whose great priest said he
made himself all things to all men, is it not to be thought of
much and long that so little is done to make God's service in-
telligible even down to its very smallest details ?
A good priest writes to Catholics of the holy words used for
the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer. But the people prob-
ably never heard before of the feast, nor of the words ; cer-
tainly they never heard them ; and certainly they have no
means offered them of seeing them again. The proper of the
Mass is omitted by our Catholic choirs, so astounding in
themselves, indeed, but more astounding still in the license
accorded them, notwithstanding Rome's binding laws. The
prayer books not containing the proper seem to have vogue,
and to have little check put on their circulation, notwithstand-
ing episcopal sanction of a liturgical book, and notwithstanding
the many protests against new inventions in devotions, things
that " breed like vermin," as one distinguished and devoted
author-priest does not hesitate to say.
To him, and to all like him, we appeal, and we say, name
the anti-Catholic books, and the anti-Catholic devotions ; for
such in a real sense they are ; if they hinder what the church
wishes, and pander to those who should learn from the church,
and not teach her.
It is true the Protestant prayer-book may be patchwork,
but it is often better to have the good colors in patches than
612 THE CHURCH AS SHE is, [Feb.,
not at all ; better a window made up of broken pieces of ex-
quisite old glass, than a new false-colored daub. The Anglican
book speaks with the " stammering lips of ambiguous formularies."
True. True it was formed when " faith splintered into opinions "
at that awful catastrophe of the Reformation. Anglicanism in
its stiffness and other Protestantism in its sentimentality were
"the relics respectively of the outer and of the inner life of the
Catholic Church " all that is true ; and much more to the
same effect. The author of those sayings knew well their
truth ; it was Cardinal Manning. Yet was it not this large-
hearted and sympathetic minded man of uncompromising Popery
who urged us never to forget the real conditions of those whom
the church is now calling home ? Think of the services they
love : they are your own ; they are the voices of the saints ;
they are the Gloria of the angels, the Credo of the popes and
councils, the Pater Noster of Jesus.
How will they realize that the words are torn from their
setting, that the offering is all gone from the Mass, that the great
Sacrifice of the children of the New Law is gone itself : that
service in which all could join, when young and old bowed with
their innocence and their penitence, their hopes, their fears;
the feeble dragged themselves to meet the Lord, the blind
needed not bodily sight, nor the deaf their hearing ; none need
read ; yet those who read have the great words of all the
ages to guide them : oh ! who can exhaust the marvel that ever
the Mass was formed among men ? But It is God, the
Almighty.
Yet these things are not known to those who, however, do
hear His other words, though as it were confusedly, these
words by which He has willed to add to the riches of His
mercies in the Catholic Church.
" Are these words ever used in the Catholic Church ? "
said an excellent English middle-class convert ! What words ?
He meant the Te Deum, the Psalms, and the rest. Oh, the
pity of it ! And might he not have been in many an " English-
speaking" Catholic church, and never hear the Church's Ves-
pers, never hear the Psalms?
And even in a New York church where are such Catholic,
and therefore such noble, Vespers as fill the soul with knowl-
edge of a great adoration, as if we were at Mass even there
no one that I saw had a book to follow the Psalms ; nor was
any notice put up, I think, to guide the Catholic worshipper.
Is it not worth while again to recall what trouble those take
I9OI.] AND AS WE PRESENT HER. 613
who have the shreds of our services in guiding those who take
part, and in making the services " intelligible " ?
I hope this does not excite mere opposition. That is far
from what would be seemly in this writer. I know that God's
poor are with us, and nowhere else ; that not all the dreams
of mortals have united our race as has God Himself in the
Mass. I know that the less educated care little for the offices
as used by Protestant Episcopalians, and that those among
them who seek the poor say, Restore the Mass ; that is the
only means of bringing them in.
But still, we are Catholics ; we are not here to teach the
church. We find our true account and happiness in obeying
her ; and she has her office, her psalms, and hymns, and spiri-
tual songs ; and let us return to her better way, with rejoicing of
spirit.
In England, the Catholics of the days when kings and
foreign mercenaries beat down God's House fought and
died for Matins and Mass. They loved the Divine Office.
We might love it more. We can now read, all of us ; we have
means of learning through books denied to those heroes. Yet
in their age it was Saint Teresa that said : " I would die for
one of the ceremonies of the church." Think of it, we in our
paid pews listening to boys gabbling, not the Confiteor Con-
fiteDr Deo omnipotenti but a few words thereof, at which we
might hang our heads in shame, if not die. Then to hear
words sung such words ! juggled with, up and down, every
way, omissions when and where our composers will. No offer-
tory, but a fancy solo, that terrible forbidden fruit of lax
Catholicism. As to hymns, cut out verses, for no one knows
what is being sung. And as to Benediction, let those pray
who can, and veil their faces, and try to adore ; for, as said a
dispenser of the Holy Mysteries, 'tis then that, when angels
adore round the altar, the devils would seem at times to take
possession of the west gallery to mock at them.
O that west gallery ! and the fans, and the comfits, and the
salutations and gossip in My Father's House of Prayer, and
the expense of spirit in a waste of shame ! Is the ignorance
triumphant over the uncharitableness oftentimes really anything
more than that? And at Mass; and at Benediction.
O bishops and priests of the church to whom we humbly
appeal ! we do not know half your difficulties ; we are not
your judge. Yet we sometimes think ah ! if only the
practice in the church was nearer to her wish ; if seminaries
614 THE CHURCH AS SHE is, AND AS WE PRESENT HER. [Feb.
fitted all the ministers of the altar to be the despots in the
choir, so that your people might know what you mean when
you speak to them of the glory of the Spouse of the Lamb,
and that those children not of the fold, whose worship was
forced on their fathers, but to them now has become dear,
might find in their true home not only all that is needful for
their salvation, but also all that happiness in religious worship,
that instruction in times and seasons established for man, that
knowledge of God's written word and of the words he placed
in the mouths of his saints, by which men's souls and minds
are so powerfully weaned from resting in time and sense, and
in the folly of feeling them to be lasting. Thus, with the
echoes of her services in our hearts, we shall, in God's own
ways, interest ourselves in things that are holy, and shall hallow
this poor world in which we live so grand, yet so helpless in
its vanity. Thus shall be said to us, in a sense supernatural,
to .which reverent poetry leads us and oh ! how in our best
moments we long that to us this may be said truly
"Thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies."
MARTYRHOOD.
HAST thou wherewith to sound a soundless sea?
Then come into this human heart with me,
And we will fathom his deep martyrhood
Whose fate it is to be misunderstood.
ARTHUR UPSON.
MURILLO.
'THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN."
BY MARY F. NIXON-ROULET.
N the quaint old church of La Magdalena de-
stroyed by Soult's soldiers in 1810 Murillo
was baptized, and the old record reads: " Bar-
tolom6 Estevan Murillo. Born in 1617. Baptized
in La Magdalena on New Year's Day, 1618."
The family was good but very poor, and his parents, with
true Spanish piety, wished him to become a priest. They soon
saw he had no vocation, for the little, dark haired lad covered
all his school books with drawings, and made sketches on the
white-washed walls of his tiny bed-chamber. His father decided
616 " THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN" [Feb.,.
that, if he was to follow his natural bent, he must be an artist,
and accordingly placed him under the tutelage of Juan de Cas-
tillo, his uncle. This great man had studied art in the fair
city by the Arno, and brought from the Florentine school chaste
designing and cold, pure coloring.
From him Murillo learned purity of conception and dignity
of arrangement, and his own genius supplied the warmth of
coloring and glowing imagery which, with his fervid imagina-
tion and deep religious feeling, made him the greatest painter
of mediaeval Spain.
There were in fair Seville, gleaming upon the Guadal-
quiver's banks like a topaz in a silver setting, three schools of
painting. One was presided over by Castillo, one by Herrera,
and the third by Pacheco, the art critic of the Inquisition, who
had been the teacher of Alonzo Cano and Velasquez. The
pupils were taught grouping, coloring, and exactness by means
of bodegones y small pictures of game, fruit, and vegetables, which
were often sold for signs to tavern-keepers in Andalusia ; and
many of these were wrought by Murillo's brush.
Students posed for each other they were too poor to have
models and the teachers held their classes in their own
homes.
When Castillo moved to Cadiz in 1640, Murillo, left with-
out master or patron, poor, his parents dead, turned to the
Feria for his support.
The Feria was a weekly market, held in the plaza in front
of the Church of All Saints, and was visited by peasants, gyp-
sies, monks, and dozens of impecunious artists. These poor
fellows were forced to earn 'a few pesetas by any means in
their power. Often they would paint a picture to order while
the buyer waited and haggled over the price. These pictures
" while you wait " were scarcely of the highest order, and in
after years the sentence " una pintura de Feria," when applied
to an artist, was used as a term of contempt.
Should, a Feria painter happen to have the wrong saint on
hand, it was easy enough for the facile brush to turn a St.
Christopher into St. Isidore, or a St. Anthony into the Holy
Souls These votive paintings were sent to Mexico or South
America by merchants, who sold them to the poorer churches
of the New World, where devotion excelled either the artistic
taste or the resources of the people. One excellent result of
the Feria was that the artists learned a bold, off hand dex-
terity which, when supplemented by good instructions, later
.]
THE PAINTER OF HE A YEN."
617
developed into marked facility. Such was the case with the
young Murillo, and in 1642, when his friend Moya returned
from Flanders, fired by the accounts and the wonderful stories
of the painters of the Van Dyke school, the Sevilian deter-
mined to go abroad to study, and made enough at the Feria
to pay his expenses as far as Madrid.
There, befriended by the great Velasquez, Murillo had ac-
SEVILLE SHOWING CATHEDRAL AND GOLDEN TOWER.
cess to the galleries of the Buen Retire and the Escorial,
meeting Zurbaran, Perada, Cano, and many other famous
artists.
He remained in Madrid until 1645, spending his time in the
closest study of the old masters, copying their works and draw-
ing and modelling from life, so that the warmth of coloring
should be coupled with correctness of design.
He then returned to his beloved Seville, always a favorite
place with Murillo, and it is no wonder that so fair a city
should enthrall the beauty-loving mind of a great artist. Even
in romantic Spain there was little to compare with Seville :
city of churches and palaces, of a cathedral unequalled by any
in the world for Gothic tracery, shadowy arch, and stately
aisles. Richer than St. Mark's Campanile or Giotto's far-famed
618 " THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN" [Feb.,
tower beside the Arno was Seville's Giralda, the graceful
Moorish clock tower whose Arabesques and Saracenic traceries
smote the blue sky like filigrees of frost enchantment. More
brilliant still gleamed the famous Golden Tower beside the
rippling Guadalquiver, where the orange-laden gardens of the
Alcazar breathe fragrance and freshness, and
" There is a clue
Of some strange meaning in the rose scent rare."
" Quien no ha vista Sevilla
No ha vista una maravilla,"*
says the proud Sevilian, ever boastful of his city, and Murillo
loved every stone in its walls, every nook and corner of " la
Terra del Santissima."
The Maestro s first great work was upon the noble convent
of the Franciscans, near the Casa de Ayuntamiento. He spent
three years upon these pictures, portraying St. Francis, St. Diego
of Alcala, St. Clara, and many others ; and this was the begin-
ning of his fame. These pictures were painted in his first man-
ner, the frio, or cold, and it is far from being as beautiful as
his later or calido (warm) or the vaporoso (misty) style.
Unlike that of many artists, Murillo's married life was
peculiarly happy. His wife was Dona Beatriz de Calvera y
Sotomayor, a woman of title and wealth, and she presided over
his home with grace and dignity, bearing him three children
Gabriel, Caspar, and Francesca, who became a nun. Several
of Murillo's most beautiful Madonnas are copied from the
high bred features of his wife, and his sons often posed for the
Baby our Lord and little St. John.
About this time Murillo painted his famous St. Anthony,
one of the most exquisite pictures ever produced by mortal
man. The saint is kneeling with the Baby Christ clasped close
to his breast, the darling fat baby hand patting his cheek, a
cloud of little cherubs hovering about, one with the lilies, the
saint's emblem of purity. The face of St. Anthony is one of
mingled strength and sweetness, such as one occasionally sees
now in a Spanish cathedral in fair Andalusia, where piety is
not yet dead and faith is still a living force.
The flowers in this picture remind us of one of the stones
of Murillo's lilies. They were so naturally painted in one of
* " Who has not visited Seville
Has not visited a marvel."
1901.]
" THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN"
619
ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA.
his pictures of St. Anthony that some one said to a French-
man that the birds flew in at the cathedral windows and
pecked at them.
" Vraiment ! " said the scoffing Gaul. " Then the priest
must be very badly painted, or the birds would be afraid."
" Not so, sefior," said the Spaniard quickly. " How it may
be in your country in truth I know not, but in Spain the
birds and the monks get along very well together?"
One of Murillo's critics said that his St. Anthony's flesh-
tints were so perfect that they seemed to have been painted
son sangre y leche (with blood and milk).
The warmth of coloring in this canvas is marvellous, the
outlines are perfect, the grouping most artistic ; but it is the
620 " THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN" [Feb.,
religious spirit of the picture which is most wonderful, and
this is shown in all of Murillo's work. He was one who
" Strove, in toil and want and cold neglect,
To show a heedless world, with brush and pen
And chisel, fragments of their vision fair,
And to interpret to their fellow men
The deepest passions of the human heart ;
These now are blessed with clearer light, and know
The full fruition of their earthly dreams,
And loftier raptures of creative joy."
It is not strange that an artist should paint spiritual pic-
tures who never began a religious picture without fasting,
prayer, and even scourging himself, lest he portray aught dis-
pleasing to God or calculated to lower instead of elevate the
morals.
Murillo followed the advice of that old archbishop who
wrote, in quaint black letter :
<xw
n
o
or pevntc on/ ^'ma^es, he stall $o t
a. prieste, and shry/e frim AS cUne
as if he sfooUe ftjait dye, n4. take
oj
the
specially to fraye ^or fiym >
e mo.^ ha^e grace to make c.
anJL dlsvoui* ma.. **
" THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN"
621
ST. JOHN OF GOD (MUNICH MUSEUM).
Very different from his lovely and lovable St. Anthony,
with its warm, clear colors, its cherubs, its flowers and light,
is a picture scarcely less celebrated, the San Juan de DiosJ*
The " Father of the Poor," or, as the Spaniards call him,
" The Good Samaritan of Granada," is robed in a dark cowl,
standing in the pillared portico of a church. At his feet
crouches a cripple, his pitiful face upraised in beseeching that
the saint may lay his hands upon him and heal him. In the
background two novices, with sweet, boyish faces, watch the
scene, and the distance shows a motley crowd of maimed and
*St. John of God.
622 " THE PAINTER OF HEA YEN" [Feb.,
halt, gathered around a onetime cripple, who, by means of
the saint's intercession, is walking without crutches.
The play of light and shade is marvellous, the contrast
wonderful, the execution fine, the coloring superb, the acces-
sories well carried out ; but it is the face of San Juan which
first catches, then holds the attention. It is so strong, so pure,
so noble that once seen it is always remembered. The han-
dling of the painting somewhat recalls the style of II Spag-
noletto, but its spirit and essence is Maestro Murillo's own.
Similar in expressiveness, yet different in conception, is
Murillo's " El Tinoso," removed from Seville by the vandal
Soult, and now in the Madrid Gallery.
Queenly St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a white tissue veil upon
her head, bends to wash the sores of a leper. About her are
groups of disgustingly diseased beggars, while the court ladies
hover in the background, one sweetly sympathetic, another half
wondering, half disgusted.
This picture illustrated the contrasts of life which the
Maestro loved to portray : health and sickness, brilliance and
squalor, and the spirit of penitential charity so dear to the
Spanish heart. Of this painting Caen Bermudez said that the
Queen Elizabeth was equal to Van Dyke's best work, the boy's
face was worthy of Paul Veronese, and the old woman recalled
Velasquez.
The queenly chastity of St. Elizabeth is little like the
brilliant and glowing beauty of Murillo's Magdalen.
This famous picture, now in the Madrid Gallery, is especial-
ly wonderful in its warmth of coloring and a certain tragic
intensity. One very much wonders where Murillo found his
model for this picture. This Magdalen is not at all of the
usual type. She is more like the Italian Guido Reni or Titian,
not Andalusian, scarcely Spanish. She is painted in the
master's best manner, in the calido style, and is as marvellous
in an artistic way, and also in expressing devotion, as any of
his religious paintings.
Murillo did not confine himself to the higher classes for his
types. As a genre painter he was celebrated, and many of his
best paintings, from a purely artistic point of vitw, are of low
life.
" Art is the child of nature ; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother's face,
Her aspect and her attitude,"
190 [.]
" THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN''
623
ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY (ACADEMY OF ST. FERDINAND, MADRID).
and Murillo was a child of the great mother. To his truly
artistic soul all nature was abundantly supplied with beauty,
and he saw as many possibilities in the lazzaroni upon the
Guadalquiver's quays, and the flower girls, ruffians, gypsies,
and ragamuffins, as in the high-born seiiora or the gay caballero.
His children are among his best efforts, whether he painted
beggars or cherubs.
His beggar boys are especially famous, and none of the
pictures of these is more charming than that of " Two Beggars."
The happy little scoundrels Spanish beggars are always happy
are lolling in the sun, a puppy beside them, a basket of
oranges their food. One is about to swallow a bit of melon,
624
" THE PAINTER OF HEA YEN'
[Feb.,
refuse from some great house, and the dog looks wistful, while
the other boy smiles tranquilly, sure his turn will come next.
Both faces wear the gay insouciance of the Andalusian ; the
kind of a lad who thanks you as prettily when you do not give
him a copper, with " Perdone, por amor de Dios," as when
you give him a peseta.
The children are typical "amis des peuples"; careless,
merry, dirty, if you will ; but, ri import ! they are happy, the
sun shines, "God's in his Heaven, all's well with the world."
Very unlike these jocund, earthly little fellows are Murillo's
portrayals of St. John the Baptist, one of the Maestro 's favorite
subjects.
THE BEGGARS (PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH).
" THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN:
625
ST. JOHN BAPTIST (VIENNA MUSEUM).
In the St. John in the Madrid museum our Lord has
dipped up water from the brook in a shell, and gives it to the
boy saint, a sweet expression of solicitude on his dear little
face. St. John carries his cross and scroll, with the words
"Behold the Lamb of God," and a lamb crouches at his bare
feet, while sweet baby angels, with hands clasped in prayer,
hover above the peaceful scene. This picture is one of Murillo's
daintiest productions, so tender and so suggestive in its deli-
VOL. LXXII. 41
626 " THE PAINTER OP HEAVEN." [Feb.,
cate religious imagery that one counts it as from one of those
who
" Shine so near to Truth's great heart,
The brightest star Truth has in her dome
Keeps them alive ; and will, till time is done,
Fill them with stronger light than fire or sun."
Different, yet altogether touching, is the solitary St. John
of the Lamb. Alone in the wilderness, the forerunner of the
Messias stands protecting with his baby arm the Lamb of God,
carrying .his own cross bravely. In his earnest eyes there
lingers not a trace of self, and he seems to be
" A soul alight with purest flame of love,
A heart aglow with sweetest charity,
A mind all filled and this is rarity
With even balanced thoughts, his eyes above,
Yet saw the earth in its dread verity."
The custom still prevails in Seville for each family to buy
a lamb for its Easter feast, and in the old market one may
easily note to-day some such chubby little urchins as Maestro
Murillo sketched ; the purity of his genius refining them into
idealized loveliness.
St. John with the Lamb is one of the most exquisitely
faultless paintings in the world, but still lovelier are the
Maestro's pictures of our Lord as a child.
Of these one of the most remarkable represents our Lord
as alone in the rocky wilderness, his little bare feet cut and
bleeding from the rough paths, his little boyish figure, bathed
in light, well defined against a dark Spanish background. The
exquisite boy face, so spiritual and so tender, is raised, the
eyes gazing heavenward as if seeing things strange to mortal
ken. The sweet lips are slightly parted, brown curls frame the
wistful countenance with its wise and rapt expression, and
above the Child God the Dove, the Holy Spirit, hovers gently,
while a nimbus of heavenly light radiates from the form. Of
all Murillo's pictures of the Child our Lord this is the most
replete with that spirituality which was the keynote of the
painter's being, for he was one who
" Reached fame's goal,
And left us glory shining from his soul."
1901.] " THE PAINTER OF HEAVEN" 627
His was a wonderfully pure life, and his pictures are but
the exponent of his rare soul.
He died in 1682 from an injury received while painting his
famous " Marriage of St. Catherine."
He was buried in the Church of Santa Cruz, beneath Cam-
pana's picture of the "Descent from the Cross," the picture be-
fore which Murillo had been wont to sit for hours, gazing with
tears in his great brown eyes, until he said to a friend, " I am
waiting till those holy men have taken down our Lord."
His will, a quaint old document, showed the real spirit of
the man. After a deposition as to his sanity, he says :
" Firstly, I offer and commit my soul to God our Lord, who
created it and redeemed it with the infinite price of His blood,
of whom I humbly supplicate to pardon it and bear it on to
peace in glory." And then follow his bequests.
" VIVE MORITVRVS "
they carved upon his tomb, and few men have lived or died
better than this Spanish painter. Nothing more worthy can
be said of him than Viardot's words : " Murillo comes up in
every respect to what our imagination could hope or conceive.
His earthly daylight is perfectly natural and true, his heavenly
day is full of radiance. If in scenes taken from human life he
equals the greatest colorists, he is alone in the imaginary scenes
of eternal life. It might be said of the two great Spanish paint-
ers that Velasquez is the painter of earth, Murillo of Heaven."
PAIN.
LIPS to the shadow stream
In silence leaning,
We are too near the dream
To read its meaning.
ARTHUR UPSON.
628
FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. [Feb.,
FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE.
BY THOMAS O'HAGAN, M.A., Ph.D.
STRANGER visiting the Canadian Province of
Quebec, or, as we shall designate it here, French
Canada, realizes at once that he is among a
people differentiated in life, language, institu-
tions, and customs from the inhabitants of On-
tario, Nova Scotia, and the New England States. He feels
about him the atmosphere of French life and thought, and
finds himself face to face with one of the most remarkable
phenomena of modern times the phenomenon of a people
planted upon the banks of the St. Lawrence nearly three cen-
turies ago maintaining in fullest integrity their homogeneity
amid the disintegrating influences of altered political institu-
tions and the resistless sweep of Anglo-Saxon speech and com-
mercial domination. It is a phenomenon which contradicts the
very philosophy and teachings of history, for were it to accord
with the teachings of history then the English conquerors who
replaced, in 1759, the Bourbon lilies with the ensign of Great
Britain should have long since absorbed and assimilated the
conquered race. But the French of Quebec have resisted all
assimilation. Nay, more. They have not only continued to
flourish to increase and multiply within their own original
borders but they have spread from east to west, leaving, as a
writer has recently said, the literal imprint of their footsteps
on the geographical chart of America from New England to
the base of the Rocky Mountains, and all over the Mississippi
Valley.
Nor has their progress stopped here. Not content with
physical advancement, they have gone further, and founded a
literary microcosm of their own created a literature with a
color, form, and flavor all its own, which must be considered
in itself a greater marvel than even their material preserva-
tion.
As you move amongst the people of Quebec come in con-
tact now with descendants of the old seigneurs, now with de-
scendants of the coureurs de bois, now with the habitant, you
naturally ask yourself the question, Whence came these people ?
1901.] FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. 629
Of course every one knows they came from France, but from
what part of France did they come and under what influence?
How did they acquire their present characteristics as well as
their present form of language, and why are not some of the
different patois spoken in France heard in Quebec ?
It is interesting to compare the beginnings of the three
chief groups of French settlement in America : the Louisiani-
ans, Acadians, and Canadians. The French colony of Louisiana
was practically founded during the first half of the eighteenth
century ; French Canada during the seventeenth century, and
Acadia, which originally included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
and the State of Maine, between 1636 and 1670.
As to the beginnings of French Canada, the first settle-
ment was made at Quebec about 1608. Between 1535, the
date of Jacques Cartier's arrival in Canada, and 1600 St. Malo
navigators visited the lower St. Lawrence to barter with the
Indians, but none of them remained as settlers. The first
French settlers to remain in Canada hailed from Normandy.
In fact, the province of Normandy in France contributed
more to the early settlement of French Canada than any other
portion of France. After the collapse of the Hundred Part-
ners, about the year 1662, Paris and Rochelle came in for a
certain share of interest, as they were creditors of the expir-
ing company, and soon immigrants were arriving in French
Canada from the neighboring country places of those two cities.
The chief provinces in France to contribute to the early set-
tlements in French Canada were Normandy, Perche, Maine,
Anjou, Touraine, Poitou, Guienne, and Gascony. This, then,
is the basis of early settlement in French Canada.
Now, when we consider the language of the French Cana-
dians we notice that it has one marked characteristic uni-
formity. There is no patois used by the educated French of
Quebec. Obsolete words are used words that belong to the
seventeenth century but these do not constitute a patois. In
fact, they add to the picturesque power of the language, du-
plicating the resources of the tongue, just as a Shaksperean
or Miltonic word of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
adds to the picturesque power of the English language of to-
day.
There are many reasons why patois, or slang, did not en-
graft itself on the language of French Canada. In the first
place, nearly all the women who came from France to Canada
were educated, and furthermore there were schools established
630 FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. [Feb.,
in the colony for girls as early as 1639. When you add to
this the influence of the clergy an educated body it can be
readily understood why the language of the educated French
Canadian is one of marked purity and grace.
It is quite amusing to hear people of Ontario who cannot
frame a sentence in French speak of the French language of
Quebec as a patois. This is absolutely false. The French
language spoken by the educated classes in Quebec differs but
little from that spoken by persons of the same degree of edu-
cation in France. Cultivated persons use good, and ignorant
persons use bad French in Quebec as well as in France. Nor
is it among French people alone that this discrepancy is ob-
servable. Take, for instance, an educated New Englander or
Southerner, and compare his language with that of a Tennes-
see mountaineer or an Indiana Hoosier, and you will quickly
realize how many-tongued the American people have become,
and into what depths of degradation the language which Shak-
spere and Milton and Emerson and Lowell spoke has sunk
among uneducated classes in certain quarters of the American
Republic. In this connection there was probably more than
hurnor in the remark of Artemus Ward, that he spoke seven
different languages: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massa-
chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Delaware.
A highly educated and very intelligent French Canadian
lady, after a considerable residence in France, has assured me
that she found the speech of the common people in Quebec
better than that of the common people in France, and that of
the best Canadian speakers equal to that of the best French.
It should be noted that the language brought to Quebec
by the higher class in French colonial days was largely that of
the French court, and that brought by the lower classes largely
that of Normandy, which was good. Again, the number of
professional men officers, priests, lawyers, notaries, and others
has always been extremely large in Quebec in proportion to
the population, and the modes of speech of so many educated
persons must have had some influence on the language of the
rest.
We are told, too, that as early as the seventeenth century
there had been a good deal of literary culture centring around
the city of Quebec, the capital and chief city of the new
colony. Writers of the seventeenth century have expressed
the opinion that French Canadians could understand and ap-
preciate a dramatic play as well as the Mite of Paris. Nor is
1901.] FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. 631
this any marvel, since we know that theatricals were common
occurrences in Canada, and that the " Cid " of Corneille was
played in Quebec in 1645, and the " Tartuffe " of Moliere in
1677. This was many years before the Puritan of New Eng-
land or the Cavalier of Virginia countenanced or encouraged
dramatic performances. In this respect French genius and
French taste on the banks of the St. Lawrence differ little
from French genius and French taste on the banks of the
Loire or the Seine.
Of course it cannot be denied but that provincialisms,
localisms, and corruptions have become grafted upon the
French language of Quebec especially among the uneducated
classes. Mr. Ernest Gagnon, the author of that interesting
volume Les Chansons Populaires, cites some strangely incorrect
expressions which are in vogue among his countrymen. For
instance, a French Canadian habitant desiring to say "Wait a
moment and I will go with you," says Espe'rez un instant ma
y aller quand et vous.
In some of the parishes, too, of Quebec, where the Aca-
dians expelled from Nova Scotia settled, there are many ex-
pressions in vogue not found elsewhere, and the pronunciation
is somewhat peculiar. The same thing is noticeable among
the Acadians who have settled in Louisiana, in the Valley of
the Teche.
As English trade and commerce have pushed their way
into Quebec, many English words have become incorporated
in the French language. Take, for instance, the expression
used by Americans, to switch a train the English use the
expression to shunt. Now, the French Canadians form a verb
from this which gives the form shunter. Such an expression
as // est malaise" a beater He is hard to beat may be heard
in Qaebec. Nor would our French Canadian habitant recog.
nize potatoes as pommes de terre ; he would call them patates.
He would not say II fait froid aujourd'hui, but // fait frttte
aujourd'hui.
Yet notwithstanding these corruptions and Anglicisms the
French language, as spoken in Quebec, holds its original purity
very well. It is far from the truth to say that the language
spoken by the common people of Quebec is a patois. It may
be rude and ungrammatical, as might be expected, but it is
not by any means a patois. It may be more the French of
two hundred years ago than that of to-day, but it is still
French, and not bad French either.
632 FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. [Feb.,
Let us now for a moment glance at the literary microcosm
which the sons of Racine, Corneille, and Moliere, of Chateau-
briand, Victor Hugo, and Lamartine, have in the splendor of
their genius created upon the banks of the St. Lawrence. The
first literary expression of French Canada was that of oratory.
Though the French Canadians were guaranteed certain rights
and privileges by the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Constitu-
tional Act of 1791, the English governor and his executive
frequently attempted to ignore those to ignore the will of
the people, and as a consequence the French were for many
years made to feel that they were a subject class and that the
yoke of Britain was upon their shoulders. Nay, more. The
English governor did not even stop here. He attempted to
make the Catholic Church a creature of the state, and it was
only after many years of strife and struggle that the saintly
and heroic Bishop Plessis won for himself and his successors
that freedom of action in things spiritual which belongs inher-
ently to the office of a bishop of the Catholic Church.
Now, what is the soil of French Canadian literature? It
blossoms from three centuries of daring deed, bold adventure,
noble discovery, heroic martyrdom, generous suffering, and
high emprise. No wonder there is manifest to-day in French
Canadian literature the lineage of courage ; no wonder it is
full-orbed and rounded in its expression, reflecting the glory
and splendor of the past, and inlaid with the dreams and hopes
of the future.
What a mine of inspiration there is in the history of
French Canada! Fit theme indeed for poet, novelist, histo-
rian, and painter! Behold the background of its national his-
toric canvas !
"There is the era of discovery and settlement, represented
by Cartier, Champlain, and Maisonneuve ; that of heroic resist-
ance to the Iroquois through a hundred years of warfare, repre-
sented by Bollard and Vercheres ; of daring adventure in the
pathless woods, by Joliet and La Salle ; that of apostleship
and martyrdom, by Brbeuf, Lallemant, and Jogues ; that of
diplomacy and administration, by Talon, the great disciple of
Colbert ; that of military glory, by Tracy and the lion-hearted
Frontenac ; that of debauchery and corruption, by Bigot and
Penan ; that of downfall and doom, by Montcalm and Levis."
I think it was Dr. Johnson who laid down the principle that
however much statesmen and soldiers may achieve for the re-
nown of their native land, the chief glory of a country lies
1 90i.] FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. 633
with its authors. Now, this is especially true of French Can-
ada. We have already noticed that French Canadian literature
began with oratory. The intellectual activities of the people
found scope in debate, in discussion in behalf of the rights of
the people, in legislative halls and throughout the country.
Canada from 1791 to 1840, and indeed to 1867, was in a forma-
tive condition. These many years, big with problems of legis-
lation, gave birth to a galaxy of French Canadian orators
whose mantles are being worthily worn by their successors in
our own day.
There were the Papineaus, the Taschereaus, the Vigers, who
in turn were succeeded by the Chaveaus, the Lafontaines, and
the Dorions, and later by the Chapleaus and the Lauriers.
The late Hon. Mr. Chapleau was a veritable Mirabeau in ora-
tory. His fine physique, noble bearing, well poised head, and
rich, resonant voice made him the Demosthenes of our Cana-
dian Parliament. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the present prime min-
ister of Canada, belongs to the academic school of orators to
the school of Richard Lalor Sheil and Edward Everett, and
is not unworthy in the splendor of his oratory of the fine
spirit and grace of his masters.
In the pulpit such names as the Colins, the Racines, the
Paquets, the Bruchesis, and the Lafleches do honor to the very
best traditions of the pulpit oratory of Old France.
Perhaps there is no part of literature that presupposes more
intellectual vigor in a young country than that of history and
biography. French Canada is rich in both. Quebec may in-
deed be proud of the work done in this department. Consi-
dering the circumstances under which it was written and the
resources at his command, Garneau's history of Canada is a
remarkable performance. Then we have Ferland, who followed
in the wake of Garneau and worked on a different plane. His
is a work of invaluable importance. Owing to the author's
premature death it was, unfortunately, left incomplete. The
histories by Garneau and Ferland supplement each other very
nicely, and the details which they have left untold or unde-
veloped are supplied by the monumental work of Faillon his
L? Histoire de la Colonie Franqaise dans la Nouvelle France, and
the still later admirable volumes of Benjamin Suite's L'Histoire
de Canadiens Franqais. The chief of French Canadian biogra-
phers is Abb6 Casgrain, whose life of the Venerable Mother
of the Incarnation is one of the finest biographies ever written
in Canada. Mention should also be made here of this author's
634 FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. [Feb.,
work, Un PZlerinage au Pays dEvangeline, which was crowned
by the French Academy.
It is due to the French Canadians to say that they have
done more to preserve the historical records of Canada than
all other Canadians together. Something has been done to
this end in Nova Scotia, but very little in Ontario. As a re-
sult of this Ontario has so far furnished but one first-rate
Canadian historian William Kingsford while Quebec has pro-
duced three historians of acknowledged character and repute.
The truth is, there is more Canadian patriotism to-day in Que-
bec than in any other province of the Dominion if Canadian
patriotism mean a true appreciation of Canada's past and pres-
ent the preservation of her historical records and monuments
not the paltry rhetoric and swaggering idiocy of those who
drain their throats from morn to eventide with shouts for the
" Old Flag " and its imperial piracies. It is this true Canadian
patriotism that has made Quebec the wealthiest literary por-
tion of the Dominion.
The doyen of French Canadian literature, indeed of all
Canadian literature, is unquestionably Sir James Le Moine, of
Quebec. This venerable author, who for services rendered to
Canadian letters was knighted by the Queen on the occasion
of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897, is now in his seventy- fifth
year, and is of Scotch and French extraction. He began his
literary career in 1862 with the publication of a volume entitled
Legendary Lore of the Lower St. Lawrence. Our gifted historian
and antiquarian has published in all some thirty volumes. His
beautiful manorial home Spencer Grange, situated at Sillery,
near Quebec, has been for years a shrine to which literary
pilgrims from the old and new world have directed their
footsteps. There have been entertained in past years the
historian Parkman, Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, George
Augusta Sala, W. D. Howells, Goldwin Smith, Charles G. D.
Roberts, Gilbert Parker, Professor Henry Drummond, and many
others eminent in letters. Parkman owes much in his brilliant
series of histories to the data which he found in secure keep-
ing at Spencer Grange, and acknowledges this in the preface
of one of his volumes, while the two most distinctly Canadian
novels, The Golden Dog and The Seats of the Mighty, would
never have been written had it not been for the facts supplied
by this gifted, industrious, and painstaking Canadian historian
and archaeologist.
In the domain of French Canadian fiction the historical
1901.] FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. 635
romance, as might be expected, predominates. In its literary
expression French Canada resembles French Louisiana, in that
it is strongest in the departments of history and poetry. The
venerable De Gasp may be said to have led the van in the
department of fiction with his Les Anciens Canadiens, which is
a vivid epitome of life at the seigneuries and among the habi-
tants in the early days of French Canada. An excellent trans-
lation of this work has been made by the Canadian poet and
novelist Charles G. D. Roberts. Then we have Bourassa's
Jacques et Marie, a novel dealing with the destruction of Aca-
dia, " Home of the Happy," and the banishment of its pious
and faithful inhabitants.
It is, however, when we enter the garden of French Cana-
dian poesy that we are beset with an embarrassment of riches.
Herein it is that French Canadian genius has truly flowered.
What rich blossoming from Voltaire's Quelques arpents de neige !
Wolfe snatched the Bourbon lilies from the brow of New France
when he climbed the heights of Abraham on that memorable
September morning in 1759, but the genius planted beside the
St. Lawrence and nurtured by the noble heart of a Champlain,
a Frontenac, a Laval could not be quenched, neither by eclipse
of empire nor the chilling sceptre of alien sway. In the
academic groves of French Canadian song the first strong
voice to lead the choral service was unquestionably Octave
Cremazie. His muse is classical. No other Canadian poet has
written such war songs. Take, for instance, his Le Vieux Sol*
dat Canadien and Le Drapeau de Carillon. There is a fire and
spirit in the lines which stir the heart like the blare of a
trumpet.
Of the living French Canadian poets of to-day the greatest
is certainly Dr. Louis Frechette, who enjoys the distinctive
title of the French Canadian laureate. Indeed, I am not sure
but Dr. Frechette is the greatest poet Canada has yet pro-
duced a poet worthy of rank with Lowell, Whittier, and
Longfellow in new world literature. Dr. Frechette is a demo-
crat of the democrats. He is known to his countrymen as
" Le rossignol de la democratic." In his young days he is
now about sixty he was both journalist and politician. He
began in life by studying law and was admitted to the bar in
1864, but as in the case of Shakspere, Chatterton, Walter
Scott, Macaulay, Guizot, and Disraeli, what began in a flirta-
tion with law ended in a marriage with literature.
Frechette is a truly national poet. The source of his in-
636 FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. [Feb.,
spiration, unlike that of Crmazie, is found, not in the Quebec
of the past but in the Quebec of to day. It is of Montreal as
it now is, and the glories of the Niagara and the St. Law-
rence, that our poet sings. His greatest work is the tragedy
of " Papineau," which was crowned by the French Academy in
1881. Another of his poems full of fine lines and lofty senti-
ment is his " Discovery of the Mississippi." Dr. Frechette has
translated into French Howells' Chance Acquaintance and Cable's
Old Creole Days. In social life Dr. Frechette is a most charm-
ing man, his gifts of heart and grace of manner delighting the
many who come within the radiance of his friendship.
Pamphile Le May is another of the inspired singers of
French Canada. He is about the same age as Dr. Frechette,
and has done literary work of a high order. His poetry
differs from that of Crmazie and Frechette. It lacks the
lightsome joyousness found in the work of the latter. There
is in the poetry of Le May something of the spiritual music
of Chopin and Liszt. His magnum opus is his translation of
Longfellow's " Evangeline." This is a remarkably clever work.
It is said that Longfellow himself considered many of Le
May's French Alexandrines superior to his own hexameters. Le
May has also translated into French Kirby's historical novel
The Golden Dog.
Perhaps the most national poet in French Canada is
Benjamin Suite. His muse is lyrical and he confines himself
almost solely to the songs of the people. Suite is a veritable
Father Prout in the skill and cleverness with which he trans-
lates English and Scotch songs into French. Crmazie has
been characterized as the Hugo, Frechette as the Lamartine,
and Suite as the Beranger of Canada.
But what of French Canada of to-day ? I have been speak-
ing of its glorious and romantic past, and of the literature
which has its root in that past. Is Quebec of to-day in touch
with modern life and thought and advancement ? Assuredly
it is. The virtues which make a people great and the progress
which subtracts not from the moral growth of a people
these abound in the hearts and homes of the French Canadian
people of to-day. There is less crime in Quebec I speak of
crime which shakes society in proportion to its inhabitants
than in any other province of the Dominion. Again, where on
this continent can you find a more temperate people than in
the province of Quebec? They indeed have solved the tem-
perance problem and need no prohibitory law, while the purity
1901. FRENCH CANADIAN LIFE AND LITERATURE. 637
of their social life knows not the breath of suspicion. All this
is the fruit of their fidelity to the Catholic faith and its teach-
ings. The late venerable Bishop Lafleche, of Three Rivers,
told me some two years ago that he regarded French Cana-
dians as better Catholics than their kinsmen in France, and
Pope Pius IX. once told a French Canadian bishop that he
considered French Canadian Catholics as his most faithful
children in the church.
Those who slander Quebec in the press and on the plat-
form do not know its prelates, its priests, and its people. If
they would visit its centres of life, its universities, colleges and
convents, its sweet and pure country homes, its prayerful
shrines, its altars of devotion then would Truth henceforth
reign where Falsehood has had its throne.
Toronto^ Canada.
638 TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. [Feb.,
TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING.*
BY WARD HUNT JOHNSON, C.S.P.
[T seems almost a truism to say that in order to
understand any writer thoroughly it is necessary
to know something of the circumstances under
which he lived and wrote, and yet this is a mat-
ter which is constantly forgotten by students
and critics. In no case is it more often overlooked than in
studying the Scriptures, and especially St. Paul's Epistles. So
entirely are his letters the product of circumstances, so abso-
lutely is the understanding of their real meaning dependent
on knowing something of those to whom they are addressed,
that it is safe to say that, taken from such surroundings, the
true signification of the epistles is not to be determined. This
is one reason which makes especially valuable such a book as
Abbe" Fouard's new volume, The Last Years of St. Paul. With
great care, with masterly grasp of St. Paul's life, the author
gives his readers a series of vivid pictures of the times and
persons of the epistles, and so enables them to reach a clear
understanding of these letters. Just because he does set de-
tails forth so plainly we gain a knowledge of St. Paul's charac-
ter, a knowledge of his friends and disciples, and a conse-
quent light on his teachings which makes them wholly intelli-
gible.
But if St. Paul is only to be understood by reference to
his surroundings, nevertheless his works have a permanent
value because they deal with problems and questions which
human philosophy ever asks. His works are fundamentally
human in that they meet these problems, and so, even had the
church not stamped them as inspired, they would still hold
place among the great contributions of human thought to the
settlement of human doubt. Thus it is that the epistles are
modern. The thinking of the world repeats itself ; to-day its
questions are those of yesterday, though in a new phraseology
and in novel terms. And so it happens that the very errors
St. Paul met and overcame, the very questions to which he
* The Last Years of St. Paul. By the Abbe Constant Fouard. Translated by George
F. X. Griffith. New York and London : Longmans, Green & Co.
1 901.] . TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. 639
gave an answer, are those which now are as rife in the world
as then, and which demand response from the modern Chris-
tian, even as they did from his predecessor of a thousand
years ago.
There were two parties two sets of difficulties, rather
which St. Paul had to meet among his converts ; and to them
two groups of his controversial writings are directed. These
two parties were the Gnostics and the Judaizers the rational-
ist, in modern terms, and the ultra-conservative. To the first
he addresses the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians ; to
the last is written the Epistle to the Hebrews. A short but
clear description is given by Abb Fouard of the Gnostics
and their allies, the Essenes. The philosophy or religion of
these men, so far as it had a form, was a curious mixture of
the savage cults of Phrygia, turning now to a barbarous
asceticism, now to a no less barbarous sensuality, and a de-
generate following of the Jewish law. In Phrygia, between
224 B. c. and 187 B. c., Antiochus of Syria had settled two
thousand Jewish families removed from Babylon, and these
had engrafted their own conception of Mosaism upon people
who had produced such an abomination as the worship of
Cybele. New moons, Sabbaths, circumcision were mingled with
unnatural lust, castration, religious prostitution, while over both
was spread an asceticism which refused meat and wine, denied
the possibility of marriage, and abhorred the sacrifice of blood.
Then there were added the worship of angels, an excessive
reverence toward Moses an adoration of his very name ter-
rible initiations and secrets of esoteric wisdom known only to
the elect. Fouard says (p. 49) very well that the problem of
the existence of evil, the belief in evil as inherent in matter,
was the cause of all this mad and fanatic religionism. Of
course such men, if they accepted Christianity at all, could
do so only in some perverted form. Since matter was evil,
obviously a God of goodness could not have union with it
through an incarnation directly ; the only way such a mani-
festation could be possible would be through a descending
series of beings, emanations of the divine nature, each losing
something of the fulness of deity, until a point was reached
where a bridge could be made to the evil nature of the crea-
ture.
These, then, were the problems St. Paul had to answer in
his epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians ; these were the
difficulties : first, that matter was essentially evil ; second, and.
640 TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. [Feb.,
in consequence, no immediate union could exist between God
and man.
In answering he granted, tacitly, that matter was, as at
present found, mingled with evil ; the whole creation groans
and travails under it, being beneath a curse. But there is no
evil in matter itself, for God is Creator ; all things were made
by him and for him for him, since from all eternity he pre-
destinated men for himself as his sons, that they might be
holy and blameless before him. Matter is not evil, nor is
human nature in itself; but evil comes from the misdirection
of human will : it is Sin. To do away with sin in man there
was need of a re-creation, of gathering humanity again under
a new head, and this new head is the crown and consumma-
tion of God's natural creation ; it is the blending of the human
and the divine. He willed to gather together in Christ all
things, both those which are in heaven and those which are
on earth even in him. It is by this union that God makes
possible the disappearance, the annihilation of evil i.e., of sin.
" Even when we were dead in sin hath he quickened us."
This quickening can be effected only by one who possesses
a divine life in himself. It is not wrought by some inter-
mediary, some angel or aeon separated by infinite gradations
from the source of life, but by one in whom dwells the pleni-
tude, the fulness of divinity who is none other than God Him-
self. It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness
dwell. And yet this fulness must come into contact with the
creature ; so it must dwell in a bodily shape (Col. ii. 9), made
even of matter as is ours.
Christ's divine life is poured into us; we are made com-
plete (Col. ii. 10) in him, for he is the Head through whom
comes life.
This process of assimilation must go on more and more
until men reach a likeness to divinity; until they attain the
measure of the perfect man, even to the fulness of Christ, who
is himself the fulness of God.
Such we take to be the general teaching of these two
epistles, and such we take to be Abbe" Fouard's explanation,
although perhaps in passages it is not quite as lucid as it
might be.
I said that St. Paul met and answered modern difficulties
and doubts. Of course, nowadays there are no sects calling
themselves Gnostics, there are no Essenes ; but there are
rationalizers, free-thinkers under whatever name they may be
1901.] TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. 641
men who believe they have a monopoly of all real knowledge
and philosophy, and who, in consequence, despise us for our
ignorance ; there exists a misguided asceticism outside the
church, and there is, generally, among non-Catholics, a disbe-
lief in the Incarnation which has its roots, ultimately, in a
kind of dualism. To meet these errors the modern missionary
can use no better weapons than the Epistles ; he must, like
St. Paul, emphasize the fact that the church possesses a
gnosis most true and infallible ; he must dwell on the Incarna-
tion as bringing God actually into the race, leavening the
human with the divine, and so affording a base for, and a pos-
sibility of a supernatural ethic infinitely above mere created
virtue in comparison with which, as St. Augustine says, the
loftiest virtues of the philosophers are but as vices.
If the object of these two epistles was to show that matter
was not evil, since it was the creation of God, who also by an
incarnation and by the infusion of his divine life had done
away with the accidental evil of sin ; that it was one God who
was both creator and redeemer of his creatures, the object of
the Epistle to the Hebrews is likewise to display the unity of
God in his moral dealings with man. The God of Sinai and
of Calvary is the same, and the revelations of himself, conse-
quently, have a unity, a necessary connection, for Christianity
and the sacrifice of Christ is the reality and the consummation
of the Law.
The Jews, to whom the epistle was written, were amazed
and confounded at the Gospel. How could it be this contra-
diction the Law laid down for ever now to be set aside : the
commandments there now to be superseded ? And Paul an-
swers their question, settles their doubts, by showing the Law
and its ceremonies to be a shadow, a type, which was fulfilled in
Christ. It is the same God who is the author of both, and
only in acknowledging that can difficulties be solved.
Now, the amazement of the Jews at God's apparent con-
tradiction is the same amazement which the gentile Gnostics
felt as they looked upon the world. They beheld evil every-
where : they saw it in the ferocity of natural law ; they saw
it, even more, in man himself. How was it possible to reconcile
the contradiction, to believe that the God of nature was the God
who became man ? St. Paul answers them by showing that there is
no real opposition between God and nature ; that the evil of sin
is not something positive, but a lack of divine force, which is
done away with when that divine life is infused ; and that the
VOL. LXXII. 42
6 42 TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHIKG. [Feb.,
key to this difficulty, as to that of the Jews, is the unity of God :
the Creator and Redeemer are one. That great truth solves all
problems now. It is the gospel of the twentieth century as
well as of the first. We, too, behold men amazed with
doubt because they find an apparent contradiction in God's
teaching ; they see a thousand sects, and each claims to have the
truth. True, God is one and his truth must be one. To that
one Truth, the Church, all adumbrations of it must be gathered,
and must, in it, be swallowed up. The various sects of Chris-
tians possess the parts, of which the whole is in the church. Let
us recognize their use ; let us see them not, of course, as
sanctioned or established by God, but as used, in his provi-
dence, to bring men to Christ the pedagogues carrying the
books they cannot rightly read and leading souls to the church,
to that wise mother who can explain the books and teach little
ones all there is to know.
Abbe" Fouard's treatment of the questions as to what com-
munity of people the Epistle to the Hebrews was really written,
and by whom, is good. His view is the generally conservative
one. In regard to authorship, he thinks that while the sub-
ject-matter is St. Paul's, the form is due to Barnabas. That
Barnabas was the author is the opinion of Tertullian ; but there
is this objection: that Barnabas was from Cyprus and had no
connection with Jerusalem, while the writer must have known
well the ceremonial of the Temple and the general feeling of
the priests of the holy city. Again, the style is quite unlike
that of the epistle which we know to be of Barnabas.
That St. Paul did not actually write the epistle is general-
ly agreed. Here are found words not used in his other writ-
ings, figures and technical terms; the style is much more
Greek than in his acknowledged works, and there is an absence
of the breaks anacolutha which so distinguish him else-
where. Most Catholic commentators, as Abbe" Fouard says,
agree with Estius, that while to St. Paul is due the thoughts,
the ideas, the composition and " ornaments " are another's.
In fact, the opinion of Origen, as given by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl n
vi. 25), is still good today. "The style," he says, "is not the
Apostle's ; for he acknowledges that he writes like a foreigner ;
but the epistle is really Greek, as any one competent to judge
would acknowledge. However, the thought is not inferior to
the Apostle's, nor are the words and in this, too, any one
would agree who should diligently read his letters. I think
while the thoughts are the Apostle's, the diction and composi-
190 1.] TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. 643
tion are some one's else ; it is like the work of one who wrote
from memory the Apostle's words, or meant to comment on
his master. Nevertheless, if any church holds it as Paul's she
is to be commended, for our ancestors were not reckless in
attributing it to Paul. But who really wrote it down, God
only knows. Of the writers whose remains have reached us
some ascribe it to Clement, others to Luke."
St. Jerome says (Ep. ad Dard.) he has received it as St.
Paul's, but that it does not really make any difference who
wrote it since it has been received by the church.
Another much debated question is, To whom was the epistle
sent ? The general tradition is that it was written to the Jews
of Palestine. Such is St. Chrysostom's opinion, and this is
adopted by the Abb6 Fouard. The latter gives no argument,
but it would seem that a good case could be made out against
the generality of modern scholars who contend that it was
written to the Jews of Rome, from internal evidence. Ob-
viously it was written to persons familiar with the Temple to
priests, and Acts vi. 7 speaks of " the great company of
priests " gathered at Jerusalem. Again, of 32 quotations made
from the Old Testament 16 are from the psalms, with which
hymns the temple priests would be better acquainted than with
any other writings in the world. Deductions from the Scrip-
tures, in fact, mark this epistle more than any other. Then
there are constant expressions and phrases current in Alexan-
drian philosophy used things which could only appeal to a
body of scholars. There are many of these expressions paral-
leled exactly in Philo, and, indeed, so strong is the Alexandrian
feeling all through that some have seen an indication of Apol-
los as the author. The great argument on the other side is
that the Scriptures quoted are not the Hebrew version, but
that of the Seventy, and the writer of this article confesses
that to him, personally, this is a weighty reason against Jeru-
salem as the destination of the epistle. However, these are
matters which will never be absolutely settled.
It will be evident from what has been said that all through
the book Abb Fouard's point of view has been frankly tradi-
tional, and, of course, entirely conservative. For this he has
been censured in a lately published critique in the New York
Times, by John White Chadwick, as though the learned French-
man were ignorant of the positions of modern rationalistic
critics or indifferent to them. Indeed, the writer accuses " the
entire body of the Roman Catholic communion, clerical and
644 TIMELINESS OF ST. PAUL'S TEACHING. [Ftb.
lay," of " a fine indifference to those opinions." But we sus-
pect that the Abb6 Fouard was neither ignorant nor indifferent.
He is writing a popular book to be read by every one ; he is
not writing a controversial work, and it is only in the last that
the opinions of the modern school of critics would have weight.
As these men are entirely divided, as no two of them agree,
it would be obviously impossible to write a life of St. Paul for
the general public if attention were to be paid to their various
and militant opinions. Under such circumstances reference
must be had to tradition as giving a connected and consistent
account of St. Paul's life and work. So far, however, from
showing "a fine indifference," the notes to the Abb6 Fouard's
book evidence a painstaking and careful scholarship, and a
judicious appreciation of modern German erudition.
Finally, to include us all, " the entire body of the Roman
Catholic communion," in this sweeping accusation, seems a little
hard and a trifle unjust.
Too much praise can scarcely be given to the general make-
up of Abb6 Fouard's book ; it is excellent. George Griffith,
the editor and translator, is admirably fitted by his varied learn-
ing to bring out such a book in English dress. He has done
as well with this as with Abb Fouard's other works, and this
is saying a good deal. There are, to be sure, certain manner-
isms of language, certain translations of Scripture not so accu-
rate as they might be, which one might wish altered, but, on
the whole, the book, both in writing and translation, is a dis-
tinct cause for joy to all wko wish to see the scholarship of
the church advance and the laity encouraged in their study of
Holy Scripture.
THE CALM WATERS OF THE AEGEAN SEA.
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
BY CLARE SOREL STRONG.
T was just before the New Year the lucky sea-
son for bridals and Vlacheraina was early
afoot. The preparations for a village wedding
were going forward. Of course, most of the in.
habitants were not actively engaged in these
preparations ; but it needs a score or two of peasants to help an-
other score to do nothing, if they are to do it with real pleasure.
It is a very busy idleness that precedes a Greek country
festivity: much running about, much vociferating, much drill,
ing of poultry, pigs, and children. The youngsters of Vlacher-
aina, in their excitement, mirth, and intense curiosity about
the comings and goings of their elders, were feeling as if the
hours were almost too full of strange and agreeable sensations ;
yet they were impatient for the time of the open-air ball, the
climax in the proceedings for most of the boys and girls. The
matrons were contemplating with pride their good spinning,
washing, bleaching, and ironing, as displayed on the persons
of their husbands and families. Photine, a buxom, smiling
grandmother of thirty-two winters, sat in the bright sunshine,
sheltered by her dwelling from the fresh breeze, fingering her
rings, and her filigree crosses, pendants, and brooches which,
with the chains that bound the ornaments about her throat
and ample shoulders, had cost her bridegroom, seventeen years
before, two thousand five hundred Greek francs ; for she was
the beauty of the parish, and therefore pretty sure of good
646 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
wedding gifts. She had married, moreover, in a " good oil
year " a fact which made generosity possible. Only once
since had there been a yield to compare with the olives of
that season. She still owned all her ornaments ; though, to be
sure, after some bad harvests several of the best rings and
medallions had had to be pawned that stock might be bought
for the farm ! Well, her pretty things were all safe at home
with her again, she reflected ; and her cousin, Soula, the bride
of the day, would not have half as many ornaments, because
Kosta, though rich and very much in love, was a close fisted
fellow. Indeed, he had pleaded, when discussing the matter
with Soula's father^ that nearly all his money was lent at high
interest, and that it would be great waste to call in any more
of it to tie it up in goldsmith's work. He said, too, with a
nervous smile : " The gold could not add to her beauty."
The men of the village lounged by a wall, smoking, talking
politics, and occasionally breaking into those merry hearted,
childlike yet sonorous peals nowhere heard from adult throats
except in the classic land. The names of kings, emperors,
local deputies, ex deputies ; the dead statesman, Tricoupis ;
and the premier, Delyannis, recurred often in their talk. Some
threw the arguments about current political questions into true
Socratic form. Some blundered egregiously as to facts and
deductions. The sharper wits pricked a fallacy, and it burst
like a bubble ; or they flashed a light upon some foolish state-
ment, and out rolled the joyous laughter. The duller disputants
stood abashed ; but not for long !
At last Kosta (short for Constantine) appeared. The vil-
lage fiddler and drummer preceded the bridegroom ; and the
loungers by the wall scattered to their various doors, to be
ready to receive Kosta's invitation already given and accepted,
but re delivered on the marriage day as a matter of established
etiquette. Then by degrees they fell into line, following Kosta
and the musicians to the church. The procession took on its
way the homes of nearly all the bride's and bridegroom's rela-
tions ; that is to say, it stopped at three-fourths of the doors
of the village. Only Soula's third-cousin, Yanni, and his
family, were left out ; and this on account of the very great,
and easily explicable, coldness between the Yanni faction and
Kosta. The ill feeling arose out of a loan, and a bit of sharp
practice of Kosta's. Yanni pledged his own olive-trees, and
his half and quarter shares in other olive trees ; and when
Kosta seized the trees for the debt, not only Yanni but also
IQOI.]
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
647
his brother-in law, sisters, and other part-owners in the good
gray-green oil givers, were furious, and made things extremely
unpleasant for the lender who, indeed, might well have given
a week's grace, and might have been content then to get back his
capital with its
high i n t e rest.
But when the
trees were worth
more, and when
the law gave them
to him, many said
Kosta was not
much to blame,
though he did
deal Yan n i a
shrewd blow.
Kosta did not
cut an imposing
figure as a bride-
groom a little
man, with a sickly,
sensitive, ungenial
face, and not in
first youth. Had
he worn a ready-
made suit from a
clothier's shop he
would have seem-
ed a miserable
specimen of hu-
manity; but his
bright tsarouks,
the national shoes,
red to their very
tall points, and tasselled, like a gondola's prow ; his long, thick,
knitted stockings ; blue zouave trousers ending about the
knee ; braided and silver-buttoned jacket ; snowy linen, and
embroidered vest, gave him a certain picturesqueness; for good
costume "levels up" in a merciful manner. The fine figures
look their best in it ; and it lends dignity to puny forms.
There were some young fellows, home for Christmas from
Patras and Athens well-set-up and comely youths but they
wore shoddy, city habiliments, thereby lacking the "fine
SOULA, THE BRIDE OF THE DAY.
648
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
[Feb.,
feathers " which would have made them " fine birds " in the
crowd. They made up, however, for sartorial deficiencies by
their airs of travelled men and dwellers in great towns, ask-
ing their old companions: "What of last year's wine?"
" Was there much oil to come ? " " How many children have
you ? " and smiling a trifle superciliously as the families were
told off variously, in the pious village phrase : " Two, from
God, Diimitri"; "Five, from God, Giorgi "; "Three, from
God" and so on.
As the men went along, keeping time to the fiddle and
drum music, petards were sent off at fairly regular intervals,
for no village festival would be complete here without its
quota of exploded gunpowder. The noise evidently greatly
added to the general joy. Only Kosta, nervous by nature and
overwrought by the importance of the occasion, winced and
jerked at the report of each petard.
Meantime, Soula's girl-friends carried her effects on their
heads from her little home to the larger house of Kosta and
his mother. There were her own spinnings, and her mother's,
in the white bolias (head- cloths, worn on working days as a
protection from the sun) ; woven mattresses, sheets ; hand loom,
blue, woollen skirts, too, of a stuff called serza which means
serge and a certain amount of bought wearing apparel, beside
all her house-plenishing of good home manufacture. Soula
had refused to be married until a large trousseau was ready;
indeed, so large a trous-
seau that she thought it
would never be finished ;
and she worked slower
than Penelope. (But
care was taken that she
should undo none of her
weaving, and none of
her mother's. She had,
at least once, made an
attempt in that direction.
But her father was a
strong partisan of Kosta
and greatly in favor of
the match ; and he put
an end to her ingeni-
ous destructive manceu-
GREEK TYPES. vres.)
190 1.]
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
649
THE CITADEL OF CORFU.
No music summoned the women to the wedding. The fair
sex ranks low in Greece. A peasant, speaking to his social
superior, adds a deprecatory " saving your presence " (Mesym-
bathio /) after naming three of his belongings : to wit, his don-
key, his pig, and his wife ! Such animals may not, without
apology, be mentioned "in ears polite." So the village dames
and damsels dropped into the church of Vlacheraina unes-
corted ; all save the bride, who was led by a handkerchief
held by the eldest of her first cousins, and surrounded by a
bevy of girlfriends and relations prominent among them
Phrossyne, who was to be the bride's Koumbara, or sponsor.
Photine, Phrossyne's mother, held the Koumbara's baby during
the ceremony, for Koumbara and Koumbaro have an active
part to play. The sponsors wave a crown of olive branches
three times over the head of the bride, and three times over
the head of the bridegroom. Afterwards, these wreaths, bound
together, and wrapped in wool and gaily-colored silk ribbons
the leaves thickly gilt or silvered are hung up in the home
of the newly wedded couple, to be buried with the husband
when death shall call him away. The wife may die first or
last, but she does not take the wreaths with her to the grave.
All this has its mystical significance. There is much ceremony
connected with Greek nuptials, and that is well. The family
life of the nation has, for centuries, been worthy of the solemnity
with which the church has celebrated the formation of family ties.
650 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
There is, of course, plenty of superstition as well as re-
ligious observance connected with a Greek wedding. Photine
said, partly in pride of her daughter, and partly in a mild con.
tempt of all the world outside her own family : " No danger
that the Koumbara of to-day shall touch the bridegroom's
head with the stephani ! Do you remember how Anastasia
had to hold up her arm, and dance round on tiptoe, that she
might not brush the heads of my Phrossyne and her hus-
band?" For Phrossyne and her lord and master were a fine,
well-grown young couple. Kosta, being short, was safe enough
not to be grazed by so much as an olive-leaf. (It is accounted
"unlucky" if the wreath should touch the head of either of
the bridal pair.) Phrossyne feared that, just once, she ruffled
Soula's frills and flowers, and she grew crimson in shame at
her awkwardness; but it was the recollection that the accident
was an evil omen that deepened her blush almost to purple.
The bride, however, did not feel the contact. Who, indeed,
could feel anything through the great pile of hair padded with
wool, and the quilled ribbon, and false flowers, with which
Lehla, the hairdresser by prescription of all the brides of
Vlacheraina, had adorned Soula's handsome head?
There was a picturesque dark woman who stood apart from
the rest Euphemia by name, a distant cousin of Kosta's \
and she watched the proceedings with a strange intentness.
Was she saying her prayers and blessing the espousals, or
muttering spells ? It is not often that angry black eyes flash
over lips moving in benediction ! The touch of the olive
garland on the crisp flowers of the bride was not lost on
Euphemia. It sent the ghost of a cruel smile flying across her
face. No one, except Soula, had fought so hard against this
marriage as Euphemia. She was forty, two years a widow,
and it had been the wish of her life to marry Kosta. It was
not love she felt for him now, but unqualified hatred ; and
she had much trouble to conceal her feelings. To Kosta the
hatred was palpable. But Euphemia exercised a sort of fasci-
nation over the bride. That was how it often happened with
Euphemia; she could half bewitch people if she chose, though
she had failed to charm Kosta when they were lad and lass
together, or at any later date. He was, in fact, afraid of her.
Euphemia was one of the most richly-dressed women in the
thronged church. The neighbors said that her finery came of
the gratitude of her patients ; for she was something of a
herbalist. Her jewelry, and the stiff silk petticoat, and the
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
651
rest of her fine clothes, certainly never grew upon her two
poor fields !
The pope delivered no wedding discourse ; and, being a
week day, there was no Mass ; so the ceremony was quickly
over, and the brilliantly attired company wended its way to
the house of the bride's parents, there to drink a little coffee
and eat a kind of sweet biscuit, made especially for consump-
tion at country weddirgs. Kosta had not crossed that thresh-
SOME OF THE ISLANDERS.
old since his engagement. Custom enjoins such abstention.
He had sent his presents to Soula, instead of bringing them.
That, too, is the local usage. To-day he might enter freely.
"It is like a strange place to me," he said wistfully, in an
undertone to his bride ; and by this he meant to reproach
her gently, for it was all her fault that the engagement had
been such a long one. Soula did not answer. She had suc-
ceeded hitherto in maintaining the demure smile and down-
cast eyes enjoined upon all good countrywomen on occasions
of ceremony.
Kosta went off with his father- in law at this point in the
day's proceedings. Etiquette forbids father or bridegroom to
take part in the open-air ball. Their absence is a mark of
their confidence in the bride. She is left to enjoy with her
young companions, and the neighbors in general, her last day
of liberty unrestrained by the presence of her law-giver-that-
has-been, or her law-giver-that-is-to-be. Men in their position
652 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
go boating, or ride off somewhere on their thin, shaggy ponies,
or take a drive in the village rattle-trap chaise, while fiddles
and feet keep time in the dust of the Phoros. Kosta said :
" Let us walk round our fields together " ; and the elder man
agreeing, so it was done.
As the women went toward the musicians, Euphemia rustled
her thick silk against the bride's skirts, saying, with a nod
towards the hill above them : " It's pleasant up there. Do you
see where the great flock is picking its way down through the
stones with its shepherd, the Turk? To-morrow, Soula, I shall be
away, high up ! See, there ! " The bride forgot etiquette ; raised
her hazel eyes to Euphemia's, and a smile flashed along her even,
pearly teeth. A brown trout-stream with the sun's rays coming
and going in the water is the nearest thing in inanimate nature
to Soula's eyes with the light of laughter playing there.
What a contrast was the sullen fire that burnt in Euphemia's
black orbs !
"You're the fairy-godmother, Euphemia; the witch, the
woman of wonders!" laughed the bride. (This trip for the_
morrow had evidently been talked over already between these
two.)
Just at the moment her father was saying to Kosta: "My
girl has lost her low spirits. She is in prime heart. You Ve
brought her round very nicely lately."
" Better and better may she be," sighed Kosta ; " but it is
more my cousin, the widow, than I, who managed to cheer her,
this winter. How she did it I do not know."
To one other person Euphemia spoke apart. There was a
wedding-guest who looked fitter for a funeral. Young Spiroi
the handsomest youth in Vlacheraina, or for miles around, was
moody and silent. All the gossips knew he had been from his
schooldays in love with Soula; and had it not been that she
cared for him with all her childish heart, she never could have
fought so long against her parents' wishes and Kosta's suit.
Euphemia said rapidly : " I tried your fortune for you,
Spiro, last night, with the cards ; and last week, with a mutton-
bone. You '11 have to give me a good present when it comes
true. And you '11 be well able to afford it, for you '11 wed a
rich widow, and your wife will be the girl of your heart. Can
you make out how that will be? Never mind! Soula knows
all about it. Just do you look for the signs when she's
dancing ! "
Now, Spiro had no love for the herbalist ; and her words,
190 1.]
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
653
at first hearing, were as bewildering as a blow would have
been a heavy blow between the eyes ; but, as time went on,
he became alert and watchful; he, who had played hitherto
the role of " the skeleton at the feast."
And sure enough, when Soula had thrown her handker-
chief-corner to
her "next-of-
cousin kin," her
" first German "
(primo gerntano, as
the Italian-speak-
ing islanders
phrase it), and
when she had
knotted Photine's,
Phrossyne's, and
E u p h e m i a's to
her own, or each
other's, apron-
strings the danc-
ing having begun
every time she
passed by the pil-
lar against which
Spiro was leaning
she shot him a
glance of her smil-
ing brown eyes.
Photine caught
one such glance,
and signified ma-
tronly disappro-
val. Soula's mo-
ther, too, with angry surprise, saw another sparkle, and the
gleam of fine teeth ; and it is to be doubted if Euphemia lost
one of those silent greetings. Certainly, Spiro missed none ;
but he did not accept them light-heartedly, or without wonder-
ment; and Euphemia was made positively anxious by them.
" Don't be childish ! Can't you keep your own secrets ? "
she whispered in the bride's ear.
The measure that they trod at Vlacheraina is the very same
that you may see sculptured on a frieze two thousand years
old (and more) on the Greek mainland. The leader goes back-
PREPARED FOR THE WEDDING.
654 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
wards, gliding with a cJiasse'e. Sometimes he springs in the
air and cuts capers. All the time he draws after him the
greater part of the company. They move in a circle, but slide
back and forth, right and left of the main line of progression
three gliding steps to right, and back ; three gliding steps to
left, and back ; chains rattling, silks billowing, veils swaying,
ribbons fluttering, all going round and round, until the fiddle
shrieks out of tune, and the dancers are short of breath. One
could imagine that, like skaters, they were all bent upon cut-
ting a figure with their feet. The Greek dancers draw a rough
laurel-wreath in the dust, circling on the roadway, and chassee-
ing back and forth on first one, then the other side of their
ring.
At Saula's wedding twenty matrons en gala, in rows of four
abreast, followed the leader, who faced them. Behind the be-
jewelled, silk-skirted village mothers, in their blue or red velvet,
gold-embroidered pesselis, and towering plaits, ribbons, and
veils, a bevy of girls and children in plain attire, with colored
handkerchiefs tied down upon their smooth hair, held to each
other by their apron-strings. Last of all came Soula's mother,
in a dark dress and work-a-day bolia ; for the bride was wear-
ing her mother's finery. Moreover, sad-colored wear is more
typical of a mother's feelings when mourning her daughter's
departure from the parent nest.
Before the dancing stopped other young men took their
places behind the leader, and vied with him in agile leaps and
varied gestures, while the women bright as a summer parterre
swayed to and fro in each other's company, in the opposite
part of the dancing-train. They were all very solemn (except for
the bride's occasional glances towards Spiro), and all were gaz-
ing upon the ground. The merry-making at a Greek country
wedding, it must be admitted, is of a subdued order ; yet the
dance, so seemingly stately and quiet, is an exertion, even on
a winter's afternoon when there is a touch of frost in the air.
Perhaps the many skirts and bullion-embroidered jackets of the
women, besides the excitement of the occasion, account for the
warmth of the wearers. No explanation of the high tempera-
ture of the men, who behave like " dancing fauns," is required !
A mouthful of thick, almost black wine is a necessity for the
elders in the intervals of rest between the dances.
When the short evening drew in the wedding guests re-
paired to dinner at Kosta's house. Kosta was only part en-
tertainer, his father-in-law sharing the expense with him. Still,
1901.]
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
655
THE POPE OF THE VILLAGE.
Kosta told his mother, as a guide for her marketing, that he
" could afford not to spend money in useless display." As the
richest man in the village he " was not forced to be extrava-
gant." What good would it do people, he asked, "to eat too
much " ?
Thus it came about that his feast was spread rather spar-
ingly, and there was less indigestion next day in Vlacheraina
than is usual after wedding fare.
Next day Euphemia was not of the party assembled again
656 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
at table at Kosta's. She spent her time seeking herbs ; and,
the morning after, handed Soula a packet that she had obtained
from the Turkish shepherd. "You'll put a little into Kosta's
food," said Euphemia, "and not an atom of it into anybody
else's. Say nothing at all about it. That 's how the transfer-
mation will come about. And, child, if you don't mind what
I tell you, doing just as I bid you, the charm won't work at
all. So you 'd better attend to what I say."
"Is it the same flower we put on the door-posts to make
the butter rise in the churn?" asked Soula, peering into the
packet.
" It is a powder, not a flower; but it is a charm, as I told
you, like any other."
Soula knotted her parcel into a corner of her handkerchief
and put it inside her dress; for Euphemia had told her, long
before, that " it would do no good unless she kept it to her-
self"; and later, as occasion served, she administered a portion
of the powder to Kosta. The villagers said he " must have
eaten too much at his father-in-law's, for it would not be in
his own house he ever would have a surfeit " ; and that " he
looked ill ever since his wedding."
To Soula, however, the charm seemed to work very slowly
indeed. She bent over Euphemia's pitcher at the well, and
Phrossyne heard her murmur the word " transformation,"
with other sounds that were not distinctly audible ; Phros-
syne also saw Euphemia's answering frown, and the nudge
that she gave Soula.
Anything that is said in an undertone becomes at once very
interesting to neighbors. A whispered communication that calls
forth frown and nudge is sure to be worth retailing to the
gossips. But the wiseacres failed to make anything out of
"transformation." Besides, every one was afraid of Euphemia;
and lucky it was for her that they were in dread of her, at this
time. Perhaps a few had their suspicions; but if so, they kept
silent.
The bride's too great zeal in overdosing Kosta's soup was,
as it happened, the saving of him. He complained of the odd
taste. His mother took a spoonful of it, and declared that
there was something very wrong with it. Moreover, she was
far from well that same evening, and connected her in-
disposition with her mouthful of soup. She began to watch
Soula, who was suspiciously anxious to see always to Kosta s
food.
1901
FROM A GRt.RK ISLAND.
657
A HOME IN THE COUNTRY.
The man was, in a few days, weaker, thinner, more ailing;
and he complained of a swimming of the head.
One day the old dame shrieked : " What are you doing,
hussy?" as she saw her daughter-in-law shake something into
Kosta's plate. ''Well did I know that there was some evil
thing about! What have you there, in that packet?" As the
mother seized and kept what remained of the Turk's powder,
and tasted it several times to make sure of its effects, there
was before long no doubt whatever of the harmful nature of
the drug.
Soula had given Euphemia a solemn promise that she would
never divulge the name of the person from whom she had
obtained the powder; and she kept her promise faithfully.
She confided to Phrossyne that she " knew for a fact that
some folk could effect 'transformations.' Was not Ulysses
bark turned into Pontikonissi ? Had not her own great uncle
been changed into a goat ? " She " knew that a leaf grew that
would turn a man into somebody else ; it might be Kosta into
Spiro."
Her own mother had not the power to wring a word from
her only cries and moans.
VOL. LXXII. 43
658 FROM A GREEK ISLAND. [Feb.,
Photine told her, severely, that she had been "playing with
poisons."
The village pope came and talked of "murder."
Her mother-in-law, after raving and raging for half a day,
in fear and fury, shut the girl up in the attic and put her
upon a diet of bread and water.
Euphemia declared to the water-drawers at the fountain
that " the chit ought to be made to swallow the rest of her
poisons herself." It was odd that even Euphemia's unusual
vehemence did not make people in general think that she had
had any share in the business.
Her father and mother stood up for Soula, and [said that
there was never any harm in their girl ; she would not even
hurt a fly ; and there must be some explanation of the mat-
ter. But, after the first day, they could not come near her ;
for was she not in her mother-in-law's keeping, up in the roof,,
with the attic-ladder drawn away ?
Spiro took a situation offered him by one of the returning
Vlacherainlans in Athens.
Kosta left home to spend a month with a 'relation wha
dealt in olive oil down in the city, four hours away.
Soula fretted, pondered, and wept in her prison, having;
speech with no one, the pope excepted ; and, in course of
time, it dawned upon her that "spells" and "charms" and
" transformations " were tricky words. Might they not stand
for something very wicked ? She began to feel a great pity
for Kosta, a great wonder at her own credulity, and a kind of
horror of Euphemia.
In another country the police would have been called in-
Not so in this island. Outside the city there have been no-
police worth talking of for a length of time. If anything
goes wrong, the pope on Sunday, from the altar, reads out a
list say, all the articles taken off somebody's hedge, where
they were laid out of the wash-tub to dry, or any hens stolen
and he adds: "If every bit of this washing (or every hen)
is not returned during the week, I will excommunicate the
thief next Sunday " ; and then, as sure as Sunday comes round,
the goods have been given back!
But the parish clergy cannot deal so easily with an attempt
to kill. Besides, the pope had christened Soula, had seen her
grow up, had married her only the other day, and could not
believe her to be an intending murderess. He only " talked
I9QI.J
FROM A GREEK ISLAND.
659
big" when he said "murder," in the hope of frightening her
into a better frame of mind.
At last Kosta returned, and said to his mother: "Soula
can't have meant to do me any real harm. Let me see her.
Where's the ladder?" And when he found a pale, hollow-
eyed girl crouching in the dark attic corner, his heart smote
him. He too felt something of remorse. So the quarrel was
made up pretty completely between the couple ; and elsewhere
it was allowed to subside with that sort of half-reconciliation
which takes place among villagers in this island. (Of course
all the inhabitants had taken sides over the affair, and there
was plenty of ill-feeling ) Whenever there was a fresh tiff
about any matter the old feud would break out, and hard
things would be said specially by Kosta's mother.
Kosta and Soula, however, seem to recollect always that
each owes the other amends for the. most terrible experiences
in their lives. They go along in double harness with as little
friction as most folk. But Soula has never recovered her high
spirits. With them she lost half her beauty, too.
Spiro, who would have connected Euphemia with the poi-
son, has never come back to Vlacheraina. He tells people in
Athens that he " never will go home to his island." Well,
" never 's a long day," as they say here.
660 DR. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION. [Feb.,
DR. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION.*
BY REV. JAMES J. FOX, D.D.
NDER the promising title of The Scientific
Evidences of Revealed Religion, the Rev. Charles
Woodruff Shields, professor of the Harmony of
Science and Revealed Religion in Princeton Uni-
versity, has published his Paddock Lectures for
jpoo, along with some other papers of a cognate character.
Deploring the attacks made, in the name of modern science,
upon Revelation, and the feeble defence offered by many Prot-
estants, he appeals to his co-religionists to take heart of
grace and unite against the common foe in a determined stand
for the Word of God. Ttie purpose of his book is to collect
from the sciences of astronomy, geology, and anthropology
evidence in suppDrt of Revelation. The logical basis of this
scientific evidence is, he says, these three postulates: the ex-
istence of God, the existence of a divine revelation in the Scrip-
tures, and the integrity of the canonical Scriptures as contain-
ing divine revelation, in distinction from all other sacred writings.
With reference to the second postulate he writes: "The
evidence of this revelation, as we have said, has been accumu-
lating for ages, until now it amounts to the highest probability
in many minds, and in some minds to moral certainty itself.
It has been tested by the searching criticism of each succes-
sive generation ; and it equals the best reasoned science in the
kind, if not in the degree, of its certitude " (p. 8). Regarding
the integrity of the canonical Scriptures he observes: "The
genuineness of the Sacred B9oks would seem fairly presumable.
Watle free discussions of the canonicity of each book may still
be allowable, and of the highest importance among expert
scholars and divines who are specially fitted and called to
purge the Canon from spurious ingredients, yet if we admit
them rashly and crudely into our popular lectures and treatises,
we shall only be perpetually tearing up the foundations upon
which we are trying to build. . . . As a Christian thinker,
you may believe that devout genius differs only in degree from
divine inspiration ; but the Imitation of Christ or Paradise Lost
has not yet been exalted to the Canon. As a Biblical critic,
you may doubt the inspiration of some of the Sacred Books,
but the Song of Solomon or the Epistle of St. James has not
* The Scientific Evidences of Revealed Religion. By Rev. Charles Woodruff Shields,
D.D., LL.D. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons.
190 1.] DR. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION. 661
been ruled out of the Canon. Whatever may be your private
opinion on such points, yet as a loyal churchman, to say the
least, you will accept the^Canon as it stands, and find in it the
written Word of God " (p. 9).
In his main purpose of submitting evidence gathered from
the field of science in proof of revealed truth, Dr. Shields con-
cerns himself almost exclusively with the Bible account of
creation and the origin and fall of man, so that the portion of
Revelation which he undertakes to defend is but a small,
though important, fraction of the whole.
The testimony which he adduces is classified under these
heads: The Evidence of Scientific Authorities; The Evidence
of Scientific Facts ; The Evidence of Scientific Theories ; The
Evidence of Scientific Marvels. Under the first head he cites
miny illustrious authors, who while distinguished in science
were yet believers in Revelation. Some of these names might
have been omitted without weakening the force of the argu-
ment. A sceptical student of modern geology will only smile
on finding the name of Charles Boyle brought forward as
testimony to the harmony existing between Geology and Genesis.
Much of the literary testimony cited can be called scientific
only by a very violent stretching of the term. Babbage's
attempt to offer for the existence of God an arithmetical proof
derived from the calculating machine, or his theory of a divine
Book of Remembrance of human "action, existing in the waves
of ether, cannot be taken as a serious contribution of science
to the cause of Revelation. He cites many who have con-
structed the teleological argument on the old grounds to which
all modern sceptics so strongly object, and he makes no effort
to restate it on the basis upon which the evolutionary theory
lend* its support. If the office of advocatus diaboli in favor of
agnosticism were not an ungracious and uncongeniil 61e, it
would be easy to dispose of a great deal of this evidence as
irrelevant or inconclusive. It is much to be regretted that Dr.
Shields did not adhere to the old advice of beginning with
definitions. If he had taken care to define his principal terms,
science, revelation, inspiration, evidence, certitude, moral certi-
tude, infallibility, he would have been safeguarded against
much inconclusive and confused writing. Sometimes, too, we
find statements which, when compared with others, cannot be
palliated by ascribing the apparent contradiction to an inac-
curate or loose vocabulary. For example, he writes (p. 56) :
" Take astronomy without the Bible, and there would remain a
mere causeless and purposeless mass of worlds, sun, planet and
662 DR. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION. [Feb.,
satellites whirling blindly through the ages towards nothingness."
Yet two pages further on we are reminded that, among others,
William Derham demonstrated the being and attributes of God
from a survey of the heavens. In penning the former state-
ment Dr. Shields must have forgotten that St. Paul held the
pagans inexcusable for having failed to rise from a contempla-
tion of the things of the visible creation to a knowledge of the
Creator's eternal power and divinity.
Instead of limiting himself to dealing with the well ascer-
tained facts of science, and showing that none of these clash
with the Word of God, Dr. Shields takes up many prevalent
scientific theories. Now, some of these theories are in direct
opposition to each other. Yet the doctor tries to show that
they are all perfectly compatible with Scripture. This proce-
dure we consider a profound mistake. A defence of Revelation
does not demand a proof that it is equally in harmony with
different theories, some of which, since they are in flat con-
tradiction with each other, must necessarily be false. The two
anthropological views one affirming, the other denjing the
unity of the human race cannot both be true ; necessarily one
or the other is wrong. Yet Professor Shields undertakes to
fit revelation indifferently to both. Again, he makes St. Paul
a Transformist and a Catastrophist in geology.
When a scientific theory passes, by further discovery, into
the status of established fact, then, and only then, does it be-
come incumbent on the apologist to deal with it. It is pre-
cisely owing chiefly to the ill-advised endeavors of Protestant
exegetes to adapt their views of Biblical doctrine to whatever
happens to be the fashionable theory of the day, that Prot-
estant authors have been driven to lay down the false and
discreditable principles concerning the fallibility of the Bible,
against which Dr. Shields himself justly protests. Such adap-
tations as Professor Shields makes in his exposition of the
bearing of some anthropological theories upon the Bible narra-
tive are made only by eviscerating Revelation of all positive,
dogmatic content. In his attempt to reconcile the Biblical
account of the origin and fall of man, and the primeval para
disc, with the evolutionary theory. Revelation is attenuated
down to the vanishing point. Such treatment reduces the
Word of God to the level of those ingenious literary puzzles,
consisting of lines, which may be read at pleasure either back-
wards or forwards. It turns the Divine doctrine into a Del-
phic oracle, which has no precise meaning of its own, but is sus-
ceptible of whatever rendering suits the wishes of the reader.
i go i.] DR.. SHIELDS' DEFENCE OF REVELATION. 663
A still greater mistake is made by Dr. Shields in his presen-
tation of what he calls the evidence of scientific marvels.
Under this heading he would make a plea for the credibility
of Biblical miracles, on the grounds that science has produced
prodigies and discovered wonders of a similar nature. Why
should we have any difficulty in believing that the axe of
Elisha floated, when we see iron ships ploughing the seas.
The miracle of the dial of Ahaz is surpassed by the revela-
tions of the solar spectrum. The narrative of the star of the
Nativity is credible, since modern astronomy has discovered
not one but countless new stars. " If Balaam's ass spoke,
other animals are now known to speak, and some linguists
would agree thit all speech is a developed animal function."
4( The miracles of healing in the New and the Old Testaments
are matched by the wonders of surgery, vaccination, and chloro-
form." " If Jonas lived three days in the whale's belly, yet it
would not be more incredible a priori than the life of the
unborn infant," etc., etc.
If the loyalty of Dr. Shields were not above suspicion, it
would hardly be possible to read such arguments as these
without concluding that the author's aim was, under the cover
of thinly veiled satire, to deprive Christianity of its miraculous
evidence altogether. The grand proof of the Divinity of Chris-
tianity is its miracles. The value of a miracle as a testimony
to the veracity of a doctrine consists in the fact that such an
event, lying outside and above the operation of natural forces,
becomes the sign manual of Divine Omnipotence and Truth,
accrediting the person or doctrine in whose favor it is pro-
duced. If, on the other hand, a miracle be made a merely
natural event, then it offers us no assurance whatever of God's
approbation. And to the complexion of merely natural events
Dr. Shields would reduce the Bible miracles.
As the author remarks, the fallibility of the Bible is largely
(he might have said entirely) a notion of Protestant growth,
and has become one of the extreme issues of the Reformation.
He might with equal truth have asserted furthermore that it is
a logical outgrowth from Protestant principles. His own hesi-
tating, suicidal views on the certitude of Revelation and on
the canonicity of the Scriptures are an eloquent confession of
the powerlessness of these same Protestant principles to defend
the Bible from the attacks of modern unbelief. If the existence
of revelation may be esteemed as only highly probable, why,
since that probability falls short of certainty, may not the other
alternative turn out to be true ? If the canonicity of books is
664 DR. SHIELDS' DEFER CE OF REVELATION. |Feb ,
to be determined by expert criticism, then we hold our Canon
only provisionally Further historical and philological investi-
gations may any day cause experts to reject some of those
books now held to be canonical. Nor have we any assurance
that every one in its turn may not be branded as spurious, till
not one is left. Whether we are to believe or disbelieve that
the Bible is the Word of God is to depend upon what is our
estimate of the learning and critical acumen of such men as
Strauss and Renan, on the one side, and of the Lightfoots and
Butlers of the orthodox camp. We are asked to believe that
though God has, in his goodness and mercy towards our race,
vouchsafed, by the means of supernatural revelation, to come
to the aid of our erring reason, and to tell us of the myste-
ries which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, he has left the
existence and the whereabouts of that all-important knowledge
a puzzle to be fought over and determined by a handful of
linguists and archaeologists. If, after all, inspiration may be but
a higher kind of human genius, then the Bible may be no more
the Word of God than is " Hamlet " or " Paradise Lost "; and
we are but giving a pitiable exhibition of blind credulity in
our endeavors to prove its infallibility. If it be my private
opinion that the Song of Solomon or the Epistle of St. James
is not of Divine authorship, why should I be called upon, in the
name of loyalty to a church, to commit an act of base disloyalty
to conscience, duplicity towards my neighbor, and disrespc ct
towards the Supreme Truth by pretending to accept as Its infal-
lible word what I hold to be but the product of a human mind ?
One truth that Dr. Shields' book is well calculated to impress
upon the logical and impartial reader is, that if God has spoken
in a supernatural manner to man, His Wisdom must have in-
stituted an accredited living voice to tell us in what books that
revelation is contained, and what is the import of the doctrine
which he calls us to accept with docile mind in steadfast faith.
While Catholic readers will close the doctor's pages with
the reflection
" Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis
Tempus eget,"
they must admire his earnest devotion to the cause of Divine
Revelation, and his faith which stands as the shadow of a giant
rock in a desert land. They will hope that his scholarly labors
may help to open the eyes of many among his co religionists
to the disastrous consequences of needlessly abandoning the cita-
del of the Supernatural before the blatant hosts of modern scep-
ticism falsely professing to speak with the authority of Science.
1 90 r.] THE UNIFICATION OF THE URSULINES, 665
THE UNIFICATION OF THE URSULINES.
GREAT and long desired work was brought to a
happy conclusion when on November 28, 1900,
the Holy Father gave his formal approbation to
the work of unifying the Ursuline communities
of the entire world. The new organization will
be known as the " Canonically United Ursulines."
The Ursulines as a religious foundation are three hundred
and sixty-five years old. St. Angela Merici is their founder.
They date from that period of religious activity immediately
before the Council of Trent, when Italy particularly was stir-
ring with evidences of awakened life. The peculiarities of
their organization placed them largely under the authority of
the bishops, and made the various houses self-governing. They
assumed as their special vocation the education of young girls,
and many of the communities added a fourth vow to that
effect. They were the first to cross the Atlantic, and in the
very year (1639) that John Harvard started the small school
which ultimately became the great Harvard University, Mother
Mary of the Incarnation was gathering about her at Quebec
the daughters of the French settlers as well as the maidens of
the Indian tribes Later on the Ursulines came to Massachu-
setts, but the spoliation and burning of their convent at
Charlestown is not the proudest chapter in the history of New
England. There are now in this country twenty four com-
munities with 998 nuns, teaching over 10 ooo pupils. In the
entire world there are over 11,000 Ursulines. Two thousand
nuns wearing the Ursuline habit and following the rule were
represented in the first chapter held in Rome last November,
but since the formal approbation of the Holy See many more
communities have identified themselves with the newly consoli.
dated order.
This great work of unification has not been brought about
without meeting with many difficulties, but the whole matter
has been handled with such tact, as well as consideration for
the immemorial customs of venerable institutes, that the most
harmonious relations have resulted. . When the Holy Father
blessed the work he reserved to himself the privilege of rati-
666 THE UNIFICATION OF THE URSULINES. [Feb.,
fying the choice of officers by the general chapter. The dele-
gates chosen by the various houses met in Rome on November
15. There were nine nuns there from America. The chapter
was opened by a discourse from Cardinal Satolli, who was
selected for this honor by the Holy Father on account of his
ecclesiastical relations with the Ursuline Community in Rome.
He said to the assembled mothers that it is the desire of the
Holy Father to unify, as far as opportunity offers, the various
separated branches of the different religious orders. After
passing some compliments to the Ursulines on account of the
many illustrious members who have left a name for learning
and sanctity, he said: "It is with full knowledge that I speak
of your order, having closely observed it in America during
my apostolic mission to that country. I wish to salute here,
in the person of their representatives, the houses I know so
well there, one of which (Galveston) has recently experienced
a most unforeseen and most terrible disaster. It is in America
I first learned to know, to appreciate, and to love the Ursu-
lines, as it is there also that I understood from daily example
the immense strength for good even the least things acquire
when vivified by the all-powerful principle of unity.
" By such study and experience I was prepared to enter in-
to the relations with your order which have been assigned me
by the Holy Father. Named protector of the group of Rome,
Blois, and Calvi, I penetrated into the interior of your spirit,
and, to the glory of these three houses, I wish to say here
that in the living mirror they afforded me of your abnegation,
your devotedness to the church and to souls in a word, of all
virtues, the esteem which I had already conceived for your
holy order has grown beyond all power of expression, and
with this esteem has grown likewise my affection.
" But while I contemplated in spirit, on account of the ex-
amples I had constantly before me, the marvellous strength of
supernatural life hidden away in your cloisters, I deplored that
this power for good was scattered, without cohesion and with-
out mutual understanding or agreement. Remembering what
I had seen in America in the order of secular affairs, I said
to myself: 'What could not religious souls of this calibre
effect if, thanks to unity of direction, they knew how to con-
centrate their powers and harmonize their efforts!'
" At this point the Pope spoke. With what joy did I make
myself the interpreter of his wishes ! I said, if you remember,
that I hoped and almost felt certain the century would not
igoi.] THE UNIFICATION OP THE URSULINES. 667
die ere it had witnessed the unification of your glorious order.
At the very moment it is approaching its decline you are
here assembled to lay the foundation of this much desired
union. It is a difficult undertaking, but in nowise above } our
intelligence, your good will, and your spirit of abnegation ;
especially is it not above divine grace.
" It is God who wishes this work, and everywhere his finger
is seen amid the many trials it has had to undergo ; these
trials have only imprinted thereon the divine seal of the cross.
It will be thus until the end ; that is to say, until the entire
order has joined you in a perfect unity. It may be that neither
you nor I shall witness this happy event, but you, Reverend
Mothers, will have had the glory of giving this first impulse
to God's work. Your names will be engraved in golden letters
in the annals of your order ; and what is infinitely better, they
will be inscribed in that Book wherein is written for all eternity
the things done here below for the love of God and for his
greater glory.
" To the work then, Reverend Mothers, under the direction
of two men of science and of tested prudence, viz., Monseigneur
Albert Battandier, protonotary apostolic one of the most
eminent consultors of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and
of Regulars and of Rev. Father Joseph Lemius, general
treasurer of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate as vice-president.
Monseigneur Battandier, as president of the assembly, is fully
and canonically empowered to direct the order and method of
the sessions, and while from afar I watch over the progress of
your labors I will beg our Lord, Reverend Mothers, through the
intercession of his holy Mother and your patron saints, espe-
cially Sts. Ursula and Angela Merici, to bless you and shower
upon you the light of his Holy Spirit."
The chapter proceeded under the presidency of Monseigneur
Albert Battandier. The largest liberty of thought and freedom
of expression were permitted under the rules laid down for the
guidance of the chapter, and when it came to the election the
triply sealed envelopes containing the choice of each delegate
were sent to Cardinal Gotti, to be laid before the Holy Father
for papal sanction. The result of the election was read aloud :
Rev. Mother St. Julien, of Blois, was elected Mother-General ;
Mother Ignatius, of Frankfort-on-the-Main, First Assistant ;
Mother Angela, of the United States of America, Second
Assistant ; Mother Stanislaus, of Aix-en-Provence, Secretary
and Third Assistant; Mother Maria Pia, of Saluzzo in Italy,
668 THE UNIPICATION OF THE URSULIXES. [Ftb.,
Fourth Assistant ; Mother St. Sacramento, of Bazas, General
Treasurer.
By the election the new generalate is fully established.
Still, the details of creating provinces, erecting houses of study
and novitiates, have been left to the future. The chapter,
however, took care to fix the scheme of organization in the
nineteen articles which have now the force of law. Many of
the communities which were not represented at the chapter
hive since accepted the Constitution as approved in this first
chapter. The Holy Father was so solicitous that all should
be amalgamated that he himself designated the manner in
which aggregations may be made.
Previous to the unification there were eleven congregations
in the order, differing more or less in the details of their man-
ner of carrying out their vocation as a teaching order. Four
of these congregations, viz.: Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and
Lyons, were very numerous, and the two first were particularly
illustrious by the importance of their houses, the number of
their subjects, among whom were to be found women of the
noblest rank and even of blood royal, and by their history
and vicissitudes. Paris antedates Bordeaux in papal approba-
tion by six years.
When it became evident that the old Monastery of Via
Vittoria in Rome was doomed, and when the work of spolia-
tion had begun, a very eminent French house, that of Cler-
mont-Ferrand, generously offered to go to their assistance,
with money and subjects ; but as the Roman sisters were of
the congregation of Bordeaux, they appealed to those of Blois,
who generously responded. Again the Paris branch, in the
person of Clermont Ferrand, asked for co-operation in the good
work ; but their generous offers were declined and Blois took
the house under its protection.
About two years ago Mother St. Julien, of Blois, congre-
gation of Bordeaux, finding that her position with regard to
the Italian houses was uncanonical, applied to the Sacred Con-
gregation of Bishops and Regulars for necessary enlightenment
and legislation. His Eminence Cardinal Satolli was appointed
Cardinal Protector, and in an interview he had with the Pope
His Holiness expressed a strong desire for the unification of
the whole order. The cardinal designated Mother St. Julien
to make known this wish of the Holy Father to all the Ursu-
lines of the world. This she 'did without delay, by means of a
circular setting forth the great advantages to arise therefrom,
1 90i.] THE UNIFICATION OF THE URSULINLS. 669
and the rectifying of many uncanonical things that during
the lapse of three centuries had crept into the very best and
most conservative houses of the order ; a state of things not
even suspected to exist in many cases.
The response to this circular was of such a nature that eight
months later an official letter was transmitted by the Sacred Con-
gregation of Bishops and Regulars to all bishops having Ursulines
in their respective dioceses, directing them to ascertain by secret
ballot the desires of the Ursulines on the subject. In many houses
there was complete unanimity of opinion ; in others, a large
preponderance of those favoring it, and in all, practically, a
desire for some kind of modification of existing things. The
response to this appeal was of such a nature that the Holy
Father commissioned his Eminence Cardinal Satolli to make
known to all houses that had unanimously adhered, with appro
bation of their bishops, that he would bs much gratified by
their sending their superiors or delegates to a general assem-
bly to be held in Rome during the holy year.
Again Mother St. Julien, who had spoken on the subject
with the Holy Father several times, in private audiences, was
commissioned by the cardinal to send out the invitations to
the above-designated communities. As she could not transcend
her instructions, many who would willingly have gone to
Rome received no invitation, although they would have been
welcomed as spectators, but not as partakers in the capitular
assemblies. This was clearly shown by a cablegram sent by
Cardinal Satolli, in the Pope's name, to the Ursuline convent
of Springfield, 111., in which he stated that while other com-
munities which had not adhered would be welcome, they, the
Springfield nuns, were obliged to be represented as coming
under the head of those indicated by the Pope's words. The
Holy Father was greatly pleased with the result of the general
chapter, and spoke in heartfelt praise of their obedience to his
wish to the Ursulines who were honored with a private audi-
ence in the hall of Clement VIII. in the Vatican, December
7, at 12:30 P. M.
Several modifications were made in the schema at the sug-
gestion of the American nuns. While perhaps the conditions
of this country were less understood than those of Europe,
there was evident a strong desire for enlightenment and full
understanding of its needs on the part of the presiding and
directing ecclesiastics, and a great readiness to concede any
point that would render the order more efficient in its work.
6/o THE UNIFICATION OF -THE URSULINES. [Feb.
The work of parochial schools will not be interfered with.
The cloister will not be enforced wherever it does not already
exist or where it would hamper the higher duty of a teaching
order. Practically it is done away with in the United States ;
and while the spirit of cloister is encouraged, its exterior sym-
bolism of grates, etc., is no longer desired in our country.
The church does not wish the Ursulines to lose the vast moral
support their dependence on bishops gave them, and therefore,
while Rome takes to itself several privileges which formerly
belonged to the bishops, it legislates that many things must
still be done " intelligentia episcopi." Subjects cannot be
transferred at the will of superiors alone ; houses remain inde-
pendent in money matters, only a small tax on net profits
being asked to support general and provincial officers. The
lay-sister question under American conditions was satisfactorily
arranged ; in a word, a great order, consisting of totally inde-
pendent houses, of eleven different congregations, has been
merged into one great homogeneous whole, as a generalate,
while retaining many of their former customs and privileges,
and this has been done with a unanimity, sweetness, and
celerity which appear simply marvellous.
The harmonious outcome of this great work is due largely
to the tactful way in which the assembly was presided over.
Equal to the sagacity of Monseigneur Battandier was the broad,
sweet, and conciliating spirit of Father Lemius, the treasurer
general of the Oblates. The sermon that he preached at the
outset produced such a profound impression on all present that
its spirit seemed to pervade every gathering, and to animate
the discussion of every question. It is to this sermon as much
as to any other one thing that is due the happy result. We
print the sermon in its entirety in the appendix of this issue
of the magazine.
i. Rostand: L'Aiglon; 2. Huxley: Life of Thomas Hux-
tey >' '3- Thurston : The Holy Year ; 4. Stedman : An Ameri-
can Anthology ; 5. Van Dyke and others: Counsel upon Read-
ing ; 6. Conant : United States in the Orient; 7. Brown:
Andrew Jackson ; 8. Burroughs: Light of Day ; 9. Browning:
Pippa Passes; 10. Rossetti : Blessed Damozel ; n. Blackmore :
Lorna Doone ; 12. Stevenson: Father Damien ; 13. Vincent: Hdtel de Ram-
bouillet ; 14. Puiseux-McEachen : Life oj Christ ; 15. Bossuet-Capes : Sermon
on the Mount; 16. Stoddard : A Troubled Heart; 17. Berthold : Lives of the
Saints.
1. Rostand's popularity is in no danger of being dimin-
ished by his latest production, L'Aiglon* The author fully
sustains the reputation which he had previously won among
American readers by his sympathetic account of the fortunes
of Cyrano, and is not slightly helped to a new claim on the
favor of his readers by the character of the subject which he
here portrays so successfully. Many will find that the work
combines the useful with the agreeable, opening as it does a
page of history with which not a few are unacquainted. The
Eaglet, the hero of the play, is the King of Rome, the son of
Napoleon I. His life, on account of its associations, is an in-
spiring theme for a Frenchman to treat. The inheritor of the
name and memory and ambition of a great parent is brought
out from the seclusion in which Metternich had imprisoned
him, and made to share his lofty dreams, his petty intrigues,
his ruinous indecision with an age which can view everything
relating to Napoleon and his family in the just perspective of
history.
The story is provocative, above all, of sympathy.
"Ceci n'est pas autre chose
Que 1'histoire d'un pauvre enfant."
The father had ruled the destiny of Europe, his garden had
* L'Aiglon. Drame en six actes, en vers. Par Edmond Rostand. New York : Bren-
tanos. L'Aiglon. By Edmond Rostand. Translated by Louis N. Parker New York :
R. H. Russell. The Romance of L'Aiglon. Authorized translation from the French of
Carolus by J. Paul Wilson. New York : Brentanos.
672 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
been the Continent, his word had made and unmade kings;
and we see the son whom he had hoped to make the heir of
equal power and fame reduced to the level of an Austrian
dukedom, wasting his life away in a racking cough, a prisoner
who knows no world beyond the park of Schoenbrunn, a bird
in a gilded cage which the Austrian diplomat swings before
the eyes of his European rivals as a menace to the peace of
the world. He who should have been King of Rome and
Emperor of the French is only the Duke of Reichstadt. All
knowledge of the great events in which his father had plajed
a part is jealously kept from him. Even the very mention of
the name of Napoleon is forbidden within the duke's hearing.
And yet, despite the vigilance of his guardians, the young
man finds means to learn history truly, and nothing can be
more interesting than the scene in which he confounds his
preceptors by a graphic account of the campaign of 1806, and
convinces them that there is an end to their lectures "ad usum
Delphini."
In his dreams Marengo, Wagram, Austerlitz are refought.
He can picture every movement of the troops of the Empire,
and even describe in detail the uniforms of every corps of the
Grande Arme"e. Conspirators from France are put in com-
munication with him. An old sergeant of the Guard is at-
tached to him as body-servant ; flight is planned ; and all that
remains is for the young emperor to appear on the Pont Neuf
and receive the acclamations of a longing people.
But the tragedy truly deals with the " history of a poor
child." The duke, at a crucial moment, betrays his lack of
that iron will which had brought success to the Corsican lieu-
tenant, and defeats the endeavors of his partisans by lingering
to secure the safety of his cousin, who had remained to im-
personate him and delay pursuit. The wings of the Eaglet
are folded and he returns to Schoenbrunn to die.
Rostand has been taken very severely to task for what is
claimed to be a serious infraction of Catholic discipline in the
last act of the play as staged. There the duke is given a
glass of milk, and immediately afterwards is allowed to ap-
proach the altar and receive the Blessed Sacrament, although
his condition is such as to exclude the supposition that it is
question of the Viaticum. This stricture applies to the play
as produced by the French company, and also to the English
translation, but is not justified by the original French text.
This last speaks, it is true, of the drinking of milk, but not in
190 1.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 673
such a way as to necessitate its being taken so as to break
the fast. We do, however, find fault in the original with the
appearance of the prelate, "the Host trembling in his fingers,"
as he approaches to communicate the duke. Some things are
too sacred to be made to cater to stage effect.
L'Aiglon is a magnificent piece of work, easily, to our
mind, outranking Cyrano de Bergerac. The English translation
is exceptionally well done, and its superior character has con-
tributed not a little to the success of the American company
now presenting the play. But, as in all translations, an ele-
gant rendering has been secured only at a sacrifice of some of
the beauty and vigor of the original. In more than one place
a striking expression fails of reproduction in English, and we
regret the absence of those numerous stage directions which
Rostand brings in as so many side-lights, and which increase
wonderfully the pleasure of a reading of the work. That the
translation does not pretend to be strictly literal may be
gathered from the fact that in the last act the breaking of the
fast is made essential, entering into the dialogue.
2. In the unprecedented deluge of books which has come
forth from the press since the beginning of last autumn popu-
lar opinion would seem to designate the biography* of the
late Professor Huxley, by his son, as the one commanding the
widest and most enduring interest. As a more lengthy notice
of this work will be given in the next issue of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD, it will suffice here to state that the author has suc-
ceeded in producing what, in many respects, may be considered
a model biography. And if we recall the character of many
biographies that have been inflicted on the public, this is an
achievement of no small difficulty, especially for a near relative
of the subject. Contenting himself with providing an unobtru-
sive thread of narrative on which to fasten a voluminous cor-
respondence, Mr. Leonard Huxley has left the story of his
father's life to be told by his father's own letters. And very
interesting reading these letters make, whether the sympathies
of the reader are with or against the doughty champion of
Agnosticism.
3. The name of Father Thurston attached to a work is
always its guarantee of more than ordinary merit. The guaran-
* Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley. By his son, Leonard Huxley. 2 vols.
New York : D. Appleton & Co.
VOL. LXXII. 44
674 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
tee is fully justified in the case of the volume now before us.
This is true even though the preface tells us that "the respon-
sibility indicated by the attribution upon the title-page must
be understood in some portions to represent revision rather
than direct authorship." The sub-title, An Account of the His-
tory and Ceremonial of the Roman Jubilee^ explains the aim and
scope of the work. There are ten chapters, covering about
four hundred pages, and to these are added four appendices.
The first chapter, "The Beginning of the Jubilee," gives an
account of the Jubilee of 1300, under Boniface VIII., but shows
that "the conception of a Jubilee was current before the time
of Boniface," although no written document confirmatory of
the popular tradition can be discovered. In the chapter on
"The Holy Door" and in Appendix C, which belongs to this
chapter, the writer makes two points: firstly, that the idea of
the Holy Door is very probably taken from the penitential
system of the Early Church ; and secondly, that the ceremony
of the Holy Door goes back to a period beyond the pontifi-
cate of Alexander VI. Hitherto the commonly received opin-
ion has been that the ceremony of the Porta Santa originated
with Pope Alexander VI., or rather with Barchard, Alexander's
master of ceremonies. Father Thurston justly maintains that
the historical evidence in favor of the position which he has
adopted " is overwhelming." The two following chapters give
the history of the Jubilee in earlier and more recent times.
The exercise of more literary skill in handling the details of
these chapters, so as to avoid a certain monotonous repetition
springing from the inevitable similarity of one Jubilee year
with another, would make them even more interesting as well
as instructive reading. Then follows a history and description
of the basilicas which have to be visited in gaining the Jubilee
Indulgence. Chapter vi. is devoted to a description of the
ceremonies of the Jubilee, giving some of the mystical inter-
pretations of these ceremonies, and is also the occasion for an
account of the origin, use, making, and blessing of Agnus Deis.
Roma La Santa, we think, is the most valuable chapter of the
book i. e., from the practical point of view though it would
add more to the strength of the plan if it were placed last.
Certainly it furnishes most comforting and consoling reading
to the Catholic. We quote the following sentence: "The
spiritual Rome, the Rome of St. Philip Neri, of St. Ignatius
Loyola, of St. Camillus de Lellis, of St. John Baptist de Rossi,
t The Holy Year of Jubilee. By Rev. Herbert Thurston, SJ. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 675
and of countless hidden saints and holy religious, was that
which was brought into prominence by the Jubilee, and which
has lent help and encouragement to the struggling souls of the
pilgrims who flocked thither at such seasons. History that is
to say, the type of history which is most in favor with review-
ers and university examiners tells us little of this spiritual city
with its confraternities and hospices and religious houses, and
yet there is no aspect of pontifical Rome which is better worth
chronicling. Those who have admired and wondered at the
changeless endurance of the Catholic Church in spite of all the
forces arrayed against her, from within and without, have not
always attended sufficiently to that hidden life of Christian
charity and Christian austerity which is the secret of all her
strength."
An exposition of the Catholic doctrine of Indulgence, an
obvious necessity in a work like the present, is then given, to-
gether with a discussion on the use of the expression of " In-
dulgentia a pcena et a cuipa" with special reference to the writ-
ings of Lea, Brieger, DieckhofI, Harnack, and others who have
found in this misleading phrase a very effective shibboleth.
"Conditions of the Jubilee" and "Extended and Extraordi-
nary Jubilees " conclude the work.
The work is very recondite, representing evidently a prodi-
gious amount of careful, conscientious, and original research.
From the first page to the last it is marked by a thoroughly
fair and critical historical spirit which will surprise some of
its non-Catholic readers, and which ought to receive the warm-
est welcome from Catholics. These are perhaps the most
prominent and pleasing features of the book, but in addition
the author gives a multitude of curious and useful bits of in-
formation, and, again, never fails to make timely explanations
in an unobtrusive way about misunderstood doctrines and opin-
ions. The variety of subjects introduced and competently treated
shows a degree of erudition seldom displayed in a single vol-
ume, possessing at the same time perfect unity and consistency.
This variety is no doubt the cause of the one apparent general
defect hinted at in our comment on Chapters iii. and iv. In
the compilation which taken altogether is a remarkable suc-
cess when we consider the magnitude of the work and the
brief space of time in which it was accomplished there remain
a number of traces of haste and oversight. In justice to the
author it must be said that none of these defects is very
material, and probably would entirely escape the uncritical
676 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
reader. In fine, we have no hesitation in declaring the present
work one of the very best books of the year, both on account
of timeliness and intrinsic worth. In form it displays a careful
and successful attempt at book-making of a high order, and is
filled with illustrations and reproductions which add considera-
bly to its generally attractive character.
4. Critics, poets, litterateurs, and the acknowledged spokes-
men of all readers who appreciate a magnificent literary pro-
duction, have already acknowledged with delight and gratitude
the latest fruit * of the talent of Edmund Clarence Stedman.
It is the completion of a monumental task, the last of a series
of four volumes devoted to a critical review and illustration
of British and American poetry. In literary taste, in scientific
accuracy of editorial work, in completeness, in order, in con-
venience, it seems to lack nothing. The book is, as its purpose
demands, an anthology proper, " Not " (to use the editor's own
words) " a treasury of imperishable American poems," or " a
rigidly eclectic volume." We are glad to notice particularly
Mr. Stedman's judicial fairness and catholicity of taste, and
the evident thoroughness and carefulness which have made the
work so satisfying, attractive, and useful. For the convenience
of the user there are a table of contents, an alphabetically ar-
ranged list of biographical notices of all writers from whose
poems selections have been made, and an " Index of First
Lines." All in all, the work is admirable. The volume is
necessarily a thick one, but the publishers have made it none
the less handsome and usable.
5. There are persons who like to give advice, and also
those who like to hear it. These facts account for the publica-
tion f of the lectures given in Philadelphia during 1898-9. Of
the six lectures that on History by H. Morse Stephens is by
far the best. This man has something to say and says it.
His description of the modern historian is clear and con-
vincing. One might object to the stupid fling at St. Bede
and the monastic historians, that they " twisted " facts to suit
their theories ; also one might remark that to hold up Gibbon
as the model of an impartial historian who wrote " without
* An American Anthology. Edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Boston and New
York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
t Counsel upon the Reading of Books. By H. Morse Stephens, Agnes Repplier, Arthur
T. Hadley, Brander Mathews, Bliss Perry, Hamilton Wright Mabie ; with an Introduction
by Henry Van Dyke. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1 90i.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 677
laboring to prove a thesis or justify a theory," is prepos-
terous.
Miss Repplier's lecture is bright and clever. The rest are
indifferent, except the one by Bliss Perry on Poetry, which is
bid because it is unintelligible.
6. Mr. Conant's new volume * consists of a collection of
seven essays, which have appeared in various American peri-
odicals during the last two years. There is, nevertheless, a
unity about the book, since all the essays bear directly on the
one general question indicated by the title. The first appear-
ance of the arms and the flag of the United States in the
Orient was due rather to accident than to any matured design,
but the apparent determination to remain there is the outcome
of a deliberate plan that looks to future commercial develop-
ment. Mr. Conant's book sets forth the reasons that lie behind
this determination. The author is an " expansionist." That is
apparent on every page of his book; but he gives a clear and
a forceful justification of the faith he professes. And he is
candid. He eschews cant for which his fellow-countrymen
owe him thanks and sees in our Oriental activity an economic
necessity rather than a benevolent enterprise. He defends our
course as a policy of "enlightened self interest," and wastes no
time in high sounding phrases of altruistic sentiment. In a
word, our whole Oriental policy has, or ought to have, to Mr.
Conant's thinking, one aim, and that is to find outlets for our
surplus capital and our finished products. " The United States
have actually reached, or are approaching, the economic state
where such outlets are required outside their own boundaries,
in order to prevent business depression, idleness, and suffering
at home." Mr. Conant does not attempt to discuss every
aspect of the problem that is confronting us in the East. He
" is concerned chiefly with the economic aspects of the sub-
ject, and not with the ethical or political aspects." He regards
the main problem as one of " self-preservation," and he treats
it accordingly. However much one may differ from his princi-
ples or his conclusions, there can be no two opinions as to his
ability to discuss the situation from the viewpoint he has
chosen. He is a clear thinker and a forceful writer, and he
has a firm and complete grasp of his subject. And he is honest.
He does not say " the blessings of liberty " when he means
"the advantage to commerce"; he does not pretend to be a
* The United States in the Orient. By Charles A. Conant. New York : Houghton,
Mifflin & Co.
678 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
missionary when he is only an "advance agent." These essays
have been a distinct contribution to the discussion of a prob-
lem that is of vital importance to the welfare of the United
States, no matter in what aspect it be considered. Many may
believe that Mr. Conant seems to lack sympathy with some of the
best aspirations of the modern spirit, that he is a little intoler-
ant and severe towards those of another way of thinking, that
he is too hard-headed, too saturated with the spirit of commer-
cialism, and that he feels no concern for the " deluge " if only
it come " apres nous " ; but no one can read his volume without
agreeing that he understands the subject he discusses, and can
furnish much food for reflection to those who differ from his
views. The United States in the Orient is a book that deserves
a careful reading.
7. Ignorance concerning the history of the United States
is so common among us that it no longer occasions surprise.
Nor does there seem to be any hope that accurate information
will be popularized to any considerable extent unless by means
of such volumes as Mr. Brown's sketch of one of our very
greatest public men.* Grouped about the striking figure of so
interesting a man as Jackson, the main incidents of an epoch
easily arrange themselves in an orderly, interesting, and mem-
orable way.
In connection with the Dickinson duel the ugliest blot
on Jackson's private life it may be remarked that Colonel
Collier, the most authentic and thorough biographer of the
great President, has brought out a good many circumstances
extenuating to some extent what was nevertheless an unpar-
donable crime. The writer referred to, who published in the
Nashville American a series of papers on the life of Jackson,
was a close personal friend of the latter and intimately associ-
ated with many prominent men of the same period. He is
responsible for an account of the duel which leaves one rather
inclined to be lenient toward the survivor, owing to various
circumstances not related in Mr. Brown's narrative.
On the whole the present volume is most reliable and
thoroughly interesting. Written in an admirable style, moder-
ately impartial, duly observant of proportion, it will prove to
be an attractive work for those unable to devote much time to
study and yet disinclined to remain utterly ignorant of their
country's history.
* Andrew Jack son. By William Garrott Brown. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 679
8. Mr. John Burroughs's new book* is described by its
author as a set of " religious discussions and criticisms from
the naturalist's point of view." Having premised his opinion
that "reason does not enter into religious matters" he is safe-
guarded from a certain amount of criticism ; still we must de-
clare that in this particular work more attention to good logic
is desirable. One is forced to consider the volume as varied
in its ingredients as was the classical " cauldron."
Mr. Burroughs touches upon almost every question that
relates to God, to the soul, to immortality, to moral conduct,
etc. He attempts to view everything in the light of science,
which is his new " light of day." But in this instance science
seems to mean simply the opinions held by Mr. Burroughs,
and hence it includes much that certainly does not come under
the head of strictly verifiable knowledge. The book is written
well, as might be expected of the author of Wake Robin and
Winter Sunshine but we must never judge a man from the
clothes he wears. And the great defect of this volume is that
it does not contain consecutive and logical thought. Its state-
ments are varied as the tints in the sunset sky, and often as
elusive. It strikes us, too, that with regard to matters of reli-
gion Mr. Burroughs has endeavored to make a complete Eng-
lish dictionary for the future an impossibility.
Concerning the personal side of salvation, of duty, and of
happiness, the author is oftentimes in the position of the hum-
ming-bird described on page 75, hanging with his feet to the
tree of science and looking at things upside down. Mr. Bur-
roughs twice misstates the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep-
tion (since he denies original sin he really ought to have less
difficulty in admitting it than Newman himself, whom he criti-
cises). Nor has he studied the Catholic doctrine of salvation
through Jesus Christ ; nor that concerning the fate of unbap-
tized infants, nor that of the infallibility of the Pope. He
declares that there must be historical evidence for miracles,
just as if Catholic theologians did not state the very same.
He does not seem to understand clearly what conscience is,
nor the nature of faith. He is ignorant of the notion of
order concerning the natural and the supernatural, and evi-
dently has never read the treatise on superstition which may
be found in every book of Catholic teaching. But enough of
Mr. Burroughs's misstatements.
Mr. Burroughs sees in the world nothing but a huge mass
* The Light of Day. By John Burroughs. New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
680 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
of matter controlled by infinite power and law. His highest
concept of the universe might be compared to a brilliantly
lighted and huge trolley-car flying down the eternal tracks of
time, with no known terminus (p. 171), and with its passengers
trying to cling on simply because they do not want to fall off
and be crushed. The author of the Light of Day denies, ex-
plicitly or implicitly, almost every truth that has ever been
held sacred by man. Thus stripped of those old associations
of the past in which he was wont to wrap himself, and ex-
posed in his nakedness to the material world, a man may, to
use Mr. Burroughs's original phrase, suffer from a " cosmic
chill." (To pursue the figure, we might say that Mr. Burroughs
has apparently passed from the state of cosmic chill to that of
"cosmic" fever.) But nevertheless, despite it all, says our
author finally, there is no need to despair or grow disconso-
late. One truth more luminous and powerful than all others
sustains man in grief, in joy, in temptation, and in the death
of friends. " What a tremendous assurance is that simple
assertion of the astronomer, that the earth is a star. How it
satisfies one infinitely more than all preaching theories or
speculation whatever. What does it not settle ? I will not
doubt or fear any longer. This day I have a new faith. Let
the preacher preach, let the theorists contend, let the old in-
cessant warfare go on the sky covers all, and the elements
administer to all the same, and undisturbed the * divine ship
sails the divine sea.' '
9, For Browning worshippers, and lovers of fine book-
making of whatever cult or of none, Pippa Passes,* with the
margins of its every page illustrated by Miss Armstrong, is a
treasure. In its get up the little volume appeals strongly to
hearts of bibliophilans, and promises consoling things to those
depressed by the too brief activity of William Morris's Kelm-
scott presses. As concerns the work itself, viewed as a piece
of literature, it is too late, perhaps, to venture a review of it.
Still, we cannot pass over the opportunity it affords of setting
Browning before our eyes in the place which, we are confident,
literary judgments, when by lapse of time they have become
sufficiently stable, will assign him. Browning's fame will not
rest upon many of the indisputably strong qualities for which
we hear him oftenest praised ; just as, on the other hand, it
iwill certainly survive the censures of. the weaknesses and short-
* Pippi Passes. By Robert Browning. Illustrated by Margaret Armstrong. New York :
Dodd, Mead & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 68 1
comings for which he is commonly reproached. He is a mighty
master of dramatic power ; of sheer elemental strength in both
conception and delineation ; an artist of intensity, of mascu-
linity, whose poetical method in its rugged vigor and swift,
suggestive flashings answers . admirably to his temperament.
He is an analyst of character and motive who fairly disports
in the niceness of his dissection, in the keenness of his light-
ning glance that penetrates ' usque ad divisionem animae." He
is a good second to Shakspere in the strange gift of portray-
ing the abnormal, the horrid, the monstrous, especially as these
are representative of religious and spiritual conditions. But
great as these qualities of his genius undoubtedly are, we feel
sure it is for another, a deeper and a nobler, that he will be,
and would wish to be, for all time remembered and revered. Let
us place him over against Shelley and Tennyson to illustrate our
contention. The former of these two grappled with the aspira-
tions of the human soul in tempestuous conflict. The hunger for
immortality, the craving for faith, the instinct for the super-
natural, Shelley violently did to death. An " unreconstructed "
rebel against the highest in humanity, a red anarchist against the
soul's peace and order, he shrieked down the " Sursum corda "
of mankind's universal utterance, tried to upraise in his mar-
vellous Prometheus an edifice of pure nature on the founda-
tion-stone of defiance to God, and, with a blasphemy of which
he would be proud, signed himself " Shelley A-th-e-o-s." Tenny-
son, in verse of haunting sweetness, weaves the aspirations of
the race into a wailing and melancholy question, into a doubt
as fairly pictured as frost landscapes on a window-pane, but
just as destitute of enduring reality. He is the supreme magi-
cian of the music of words, one of the most sensitively artistic
spirits that ever breathed itself into song, but as a seer, as a
reader of the mysteries of origin and destiny over which the
human heart broods with a ceaseless question, he fails, he is
baffled, and, with the weird pathos of Arthur's passing upon
the mere, he leaves us almost more hopeless than when we
hailed him first.
Atheist and agnostic have gone, and English poetry cries
in a desert place for one who will read aright the hieroglyph
of the soul, which it is the highest office no less of poetry
than of metaphysics to translate into the common speech and
script of men. And the great vates is Robert Browning. Not
the artist that Shelley and Tennyson were, not one whose soul
was a flute or a cithara to give out the spell of spontaneous
682 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
music, he still is eminently glorious and great because he flung
into the cave of imprisoned spirits and groping aspirations the
blazing brand of his genius and lit up the path to immortality
and God. When all that is highest and deepest and sweetest
in our humanity utters a mighty voice that calls unto the
supernatural and divine., it is the first sin against reason, says
Browning, not to grasp hold of the supernatural and divine,
as that which completes us, feeds us, and leaves us not the
veriest accident and folly, but a harmony in a world of har-
mony that sings worship to an intelligent Creator.
This makes Browning the precursor of an age of faith in
poetry, and this, we can see no reason to doubt, will be, as it
ought .to be, his best plea for immortality. To be sure he
snaps his whip-lash at Catholic devotion and doctrine now and
then, and most of his spiritual Calibans wear cassocks and the
mitre, but we can afford to overlook these things in the real
service he has done to supernatural religion, which men now
have come to see is one with the Catholic Church. This does
not mean that Browning has done all ; that the deposit of
poetic faith is closed with him. On the contrary, we look for
one to take the step for which Browning has furnished the
preparation ; one who will show not merely that the heart and
soul demand the supernatural, but that they demand the Catho-
lic Church. For such a one we must wait. His providential
day is not yet arrived, but it is speeding on the way. Still
to the great precursor, to the great seer, be honor given ever-
lastingly.
This view of Browning's work suggests a criticism of the
poem under consideration. " Pippa Passes " does not show the
poet in this his highest, and therefore best display of talent.
It is a deep, strong to what line of Browning's ought not this
latter adjective to be applied ? though artificially constructed
work, a product of high genius certainly, though not, as we
have observed, the poet's highest. It is not to be mentioned
in the same class with "Saul" that soul-appealing song of
kingly majesty and of the faith to which kings are subject.
We regret that the publishers did not choose " Saul," or even
"The Grammarian's Funeral," for their holiday Browning offer-
ing. In these Browning reaches his highest power and fulfils
his true vocation. Still, because " Pippa Passes " is a great
work of Browning, we 'who love him are grateful for it, and
will wait hopefully for other works, as beautifully embellished,
which show the master in his grandest strength.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 683
10. Fourth* among The Flowers of Parnassus appears a
handsome little edition of the poem so savagely and unreason-
ably criticised by Max Nordau as an instance of Rossetti's
" parasitic battening on the body of Dante." Its publication
recalls the utterly ridiculous way in which the critic mentioned
undertook to demonstrate the illogical and inconsistent character
of this specimen of "mystical" poetry. One cannot readily
believe that the critique ever did or ever will influence the
judgment of Rossetti's admirers. Despite Nordau's " arguments "
they still will dream over the strangely attractive lines, closing
their eyes and yet seeing as is the fashion with inconsistent
poetry-lovers, they at least will understand as far as is necessary
how and why
"The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven."
The illustrations in the volume before us make a pleasant
enough accompaniment to the text, but are scarcely fit to re-
place the imaginative visions that may be summoned readily
by the kind of people who love to read " impressionist " poetry.
Still, these drawings are not ungraceful, and the publication
being neat, convenient in form, and artistic, is a welcome book.
11. The firm which published the first American edition of
Lorna Doone has now presented us with a new illustrated edition
of the same work.f It is prefaced by the verses with which
Mr. Blackmore introduced the edition of 1890, and by some
remarks on the Doone country from the pen of Mr. Clifton
Johnson, the gentleman who provides for this edition several
very interesting landscape photographs. " The stranger," writes
Mr. Johnson, " who visits Exmoor after having read Lorna
Doone finds the aspect of the country not at all surprising, for
it has just the sentiment conveyed by Mr. Blackmore's fine
description." The illustrations in the present volume will, we
fancy, do still more to prepare the traveller for his first vision
of the sombre heather heights, the crags, and bogs, and water-
slides familiar to the imagination of Mr. Blackmore's readers.
The specimen of an Exmoor "goyal " given by the artist helps
us to realize better than ever before John Ridd's description
" to wit, a long trough among wild hills, falling toward the
* The Blessed Damozel. By Dante Gabriel Rossetti ; with illustrations by Percy Bulcock.
London and New York : John Lane.
t Lorna Doone: a Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. Blackmore. New York and London :
Harper & Brothers.
684 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
plain country, rounded at the bottom, perhaps, and stiff, more
than steep, at the sides of it."
Dear Lorna, and great honest John ! here they are with us
again, and we almost wonder that they have changed so little
with the passing years. Is it not indeed amazing that Mr.
Blackmore, the one who created these good friends of ours,
never could bring himself to believe that Lorna Doone was his
best work? He would have preferred to be rendered famous
by means of other writings which he considered far superior to
this one. But his readers have judged otherwise, and it is by
this work that his fame lives. And which of us is not ready
at any moment for another visit to the big, brown barrens,
and the bandit's lair, to be thrilled again with their chill sug-
gestion of gloom and mystery and savage deeds, with
".The flash of falchions in the moonlit glen,
The caves of murder and the outlaws' den,"
to quote from the introductory verses, written by the author
himself. And ,by the way, the reading of Mr. Blackmore's
verses sets us wondering how many of his readers ever noticed
that some lines in Lorna Doone were written in metre and will
bear scanning. Here is one instance lines that have run in
our mind for years :
"Then just as the foremost horseman passed,
Scarce twenty yards below us,
A puff of wind came up the glen,
And the fog rolled off before it."
12. It has been said by a Well-known litterateur that if
Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu, had possessed the slightest sense of
propriety he would have expired immediately on the receipt
of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous " Damien Letter." Not
all the lovers of Stevenson are familiar with this brief but ter-
ribly crushing philippic. Hence its republication * is a favor
to the public. The letter displays a side of Stevenson's char-
acter well known to his intimate friends, but often overlooked
by those who consider him merely as a man of letters ; we
mean his fearless, earnest, sincere loyalty, that recognized
" duties which come before gratitude and offences which justly
divide friends." Many an offence might well be pardoned the
* Father Damien : An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde, of Honolulu. By Robert
Louis Stevenson, and an Introduction by Edwin Osgood Grover. Boston : The Cornhill
Booklet, Alfred Bartlett.
icpi.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 685
man whose instinctive chivalry and deep hatred of Pharisaism
are depicted so vividly in the lines before us.
13. If one wishes, at small cost, to obtain a charming and
reliable portrait of French society and literature in the seven-
teenth century, then one should secure the series of little
books now being prepared by Mr. Leon H. Vincent. The first
of them has just appeared:* it is a sketch of the Prfaieuses,
their salons, and their foundress, Catheiine de Vivonne, Mar-
quise de Rambouillet. Those who have not the opportunity
of consulting the recognized authorities, such as Rcederer,
Cousin, and Livet, will find in the present publication a pleas-
ant introduction to the subject, quite capable of satisfying the
most exacting taste. In fact, it will be a difficult, or rather an
impossible, task to meet elsewhere with a work comparable to-
Mr. Vincent's for brevity, fascinating interest, and clear instruc-
tion. A good bibliography is appended, but we venture to
suggest that the readers to whom Mr. Vincent addresses him-
self would appreciate mention of English works on the subject
in question. It is rather regrettable, for instance, that the
author does not draw attention to the fact that Brunetiere's
Mattel is now obtainable in an English translation, and that
other reliable sources may be consulted even by the reader
unfamiliar with French.
14. It is perhaps a little ungracious to ask that a book be
more complete and of larger scope than its author has decided
it shall be. But we cannot help regretting that this very lauda-
ble little volume f is not more pretentious. It is primarily
"intended for the instruction of the young," and secondarily
as a manual and a guide for teachers of catechism and of
sacred history ; in both of which purposes it succeeds excel-
lently; but with a little enlargement of plan, a little more
concession to the demands for attractiveness, a little less com-
pendious and, if we may so say, less staccato style, the book
might be infinitely more useful to the general public. As it
is, however, it is very praiseworthy, and if the author has seen
fit to limit his aim, perhaps it is not ours to object. There is
no attempt at reflection on the incidents of the life of our
Lord. They are given in chronological order, and most briefly
* Hotel de Rambouillet and the Pr/cieuses. By Leon H. Vincent. Boston : Houghton
Mifflin & Co.
t Life of our Lord and Saviour fesus Christ. By Rev. J. Puiseux. Translated from the
French by R. A. McEachen, A.B. New York : D. H. McBride & Co.
686 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Feb.,
and succinctly, with just a modicum of criticism and explana-
tion. We wish this little work well. It ought to do much good
to children, prove of great value to teachers, and claim the
attention of general readers.
15. " There is a great difference " we are quoting from the
writer of the introduction to the American edition of Crasset's
Meditations, " There is a great difference between a book for
meditation, a book of meditations, and a meditation-book."
It seems to us that this excellently translated and neatly edited
extract from Bossuet's famous Meditations sur fEvangile * would
answer perfectly the demands of a " book for meditation."
For, in the words of the writer alluded to, " it truly suggests
thoughts worthy of spiritual reflection." It is well known that
the eagle genius of Bossuet was fed on the Sacred Scriptures,
and if we could put into the reflections he here gives us his
own keenness of insight and his own broadness of view, we
might begin to understand the secret of the grandeur of his
eloquence. For it is in the quiet hours of meditation that elo-
quence is born, and in deep, searching reflection on the sim-
ple, exhaustless truths of Christ's teaching, that strength and
power and virtue are nourished. And so these reflections will
mean to each reader just as much of beauty and of spiritual
strength as he is capable of extracting from them. They are
as simple as the gospels themselves, but they partake of the
profundity of divine truth. Of the whole series of reflections
we might say what the author himself says of the words he
has quoted from the gospel : " There is nothing here that needs
to be explained. The words are clear enough, and we have
only to reflect on them one after another." Indeed, to use the
book rightly, we must use it according to the directions of its
great author, given in his preface to the meditations, and pre-
sented anew in this extract from them : " We shall look at
each particular Truth that He reveals as a portion of that
Truth which is Jesus Christ Himself; that is to say, which is
God Himself. . . . We must reflect on each particular
Truth, fix our hearts on it, love it : because it unites us to
God through Jesus Christ, who taught it to us, and who has
Himself told us that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
Used in such manner, read slowly, thoughtfully, repeatedly,
* The Sermon on the Mount. By Bossuet. Translated, with a short Introduction, by
F. M. Capes, from the Meditations on the Gospels. New York, London, and Bombay :
Longmans, Green & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 687
these meditations will prove of infinite assistance. We are
glad to have this precious little work in its present attractive
form, and our thanks are due to the translator and to the
publishers.
16. Notable among the names of American converts to
Catholicity is that of Charles Warren Stoddard ; and the vol-
ume* in which he relates his entrance into the church has
long ranked among the most fascinating accounts of conver-
sions. The handsome little edition of this book, recently
brought out, will receive warm welcome from the many who
interest themselves in beautifully-told spiritual autobiographies.
Mr. Stoddard has attained considerable fame in the literary
world. His work has won the strongest recommendation from
critics of international reputation. His admirers are a vast
army scattered through many countries and various walks of
life. All this lends peculiar charm to the republication of this
little tale of his earnest search for peace of heart and of
the final attainment of his quest in the church. Those who
have the privilege of knowing the author personally can testify
to the accuracy with which his glowing words portray his own
amiable and lofty soul. They know, too, that he looks back
upon the trials recounted in the present volume as the divinely
chosen means of leading him to that life of deep spiritual
peace and joy which he early realized to be the one thing
worth seeking.
17. One of our new publications is an attractive little
volume f consisting of the lives of a few saints, selected at hap-
hazard. It gives enough of the facts of each saint's life to in-
terest and instruct the little reader, while at the same time it
eschews those impossible details so common to children's books.
The author finishes up each chapter with a short but valuable
lesson based upon the saint's life just considered. An arrange-
ment of the different lives according to some order, according
either to historical or ecclesiastical chronology, would not be
without advantage as a further element of instruction to the
reader, but the little ones will not be likely to complain of this
defect. The volume seems pretty nearly to supply a lack up-
on which parents and instructors often comment.
* A Troubled Heart, and how it was Comforted at Last. Notre Dame, Ind.: Ave Maria
Press.
t Little Lives of the Saints for Children. By Th. Berthold. New York : Benziger Bros.
Records of the American Catholic Historical Society (Dec.) ;
Father Hugh Henry, of Overbrook, writing on the
blunders made by non Catholics in historical matters,
produces a paper valuable to our controversialists.
American Catholic Quarterly Review (Jan.): Doctor Kerby, of
the Catholic University, presents a calm, fair, analytic
study of economic problems from the laborer's point of
view. Father Joyce, S.J., develops the Christian theory
of moral obligation, pointing out the character of human
conscience as understood by Catholic philosophy, a
timely subject. Father Poland, S.J., studies the princi-
ple of collectivism. Father McDermot, C.S.P., describes
Cromwell's notion of 4< an Irish Policy."
Messenger of the Sacred Heart (Jan.) : The history of the Re-
ligious of the Sacred Heart in the United States makes
a thoroughly enjoyable and edifying article. Father
Campbell, S.J., reviews the biography of the late Pro-
fessor Huxley, written by his son.
Ave Maria (Jan. 12) : Doctor Shahan, of the Catholic Univer-
sity, describes in his scholarly way the new light history
has thrown on the calumniated Catholics of the Middle
Ages.
Literary Era (Jan.) : W. S. Walsh, writing of recent " Polemi-
cal Fiction," says that Miss Corelli might have inscribed
on the covers of The Master Christian " not merely No-
Popery, but also No Grammar, No Knowledge, No
Morals."
Educational Review (Jan.) : Professor Brander Mathews makes
some very useful suggestions to those interested in the
teaching of American Literature. (The paper is to pre-
face the new edition of his Introduction to American Lit-
erature.}
American Historical Review: R. M. Johnston contributes a
very interesting review of Welschinger's new and com-
pletest edition of Mirabeau's Secret Mission to Berlin.
The Cosmopolitan (Jan.): Professor Brander Mathews writes on
literary "Americanisms." Professor Ely in an article not
hopelessly pessimistic considers the question of Reforms
in Taxation.
1901.] LIBRARY TABLE. 689
The Century (Jan.) : Honorable Carroll D. Wright lets us know
how much our national government costs us.
The Fortnightly (Dec.): The text of J. M. Barrie's Wedding-
Guest is presented.
Contemporary Review (Dec.) : Samuel Gardiner suggests amend-
ments to some of Mr. Morley's recent strictures upon
Cromwell. Professor Goldwin Smith wails over the fail-
ure of religion Rome having gone utterly to the bad.
Mr. Massingham outlines the "philosophy of a saint"
(viz., Tolstoi).
Nineteenth Century (Dec.) : The editor informs us that he has
called on the writer of " The Vulgarizing of Oberammer-
gau " for proof of his statements. Leslie Stephen writes
on his old friend Mr. Huxley.
(Jan.): The editor in a note explains that L. C. Moraint,
having been asked to furnish proof of her amazing state-
ment made in the November issue, has written him a
letter which leaves him in doubt " as to whether the ori-
ginal statement was a shocking piece of ignorance or
of malice."
Westminster Review (Dec.) : T. E. Naughton rejoices to think
that with Mr. Healy's retirement clericalism in Ireland
" has experienced a downfall."
The Tablet (Dec. 8) : The editor, writing on a recent discussion
about the treatment priests receive in France, prints long
extracts from the advance sheets of an article on the
same subject written for the Irish Ecclesiastical Record 'by
the editor of the latter magazine, Dr. Hogan.
(Dec. 29) : The principles on which the church bases her
respect for the contemplative life are indicated.
(Jan. 5) : An English translation is given of the Holy
Father's letter to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris, ex-
pressing the hope that the government will not proceed
in the uniquitous attack upon religious congregations.
The Month (Dec.) : Father Thurston continues his treatment
of the Rosary and shows how far Alan de Rupe (f 1475)
contributed to develop the devotion. Father Tyrrell,
reviewing the recent biography of Coventry Patmore,
writes appreciatively and instinctively of that poet's great
theme conjugal love. The editor warns M. Waldeck-
Rousseau of the probable outcome of his presentjpolicy
in his war on the religious orders.
VOL. LXXII. 45
690 LIBRARY TABLE. [Feb.,
(Jan) : The editor reviews the Report of the Fulham
Palace Conference on the Anglican doctrine of Holy Com-
munion. It is full of interest to those who are studying
" Anglican variations." Father John Rickaby presents a
sketch of Professor Huxley's ethical and religious posi-
tion from a philosophical point of view. Father
Thurston continues his critical examination of the com-
monly received story that the Rosary originated with
Saint Dominic, and comments upon writers in the Irish
Rosary and the English Rosary who have either criticised
or answered his own statements.
Cornhill Magazine (Dec.) : G. M. Smith tells of an interesting
moment namely, when Charlotte Bronte put the MS.
of Jane Eyre into his hands, and left him to devour it
regardless of meals, appointments, and similar mundane
trifles.
UUnivers (3 Dec.): F. P. contributes a startling presentation
of the existing politico-religious complications caused by
the Waldeck- Rousseau "Association-Law." Its passage,
the writer says, " will lead to a new Civil Constitution
of the Clergy as inimical as that of the first Republic."
Revue Generate (Nov.) : Baron de Traunoz writes of the recent
Catholic Congress at Bonn.
Courrier de Bruxelles (27 Nov.): Here is given the text of M.
Brunetiere's now famous discourse at Lille. We quote
a few lines : " / recall having read in ' The Life of Father
Hecker' that . . . one of the most powerful and deci-
sive motives of his final conversion to Catholicism uas the
satisfaction and the control, the control and the satisfaction
which Catholicism alone seemed able to give to his popular
and democratic instincts. . . . Like him, I have found
in Catholicism alone the control and the satisfaction of the
same instincts or of the same ideal."
La Quinzaine (i Jan.) : Mgr. Charmetant, the former companion
of Cardinal Lavigerie, writes on the proposed Associa-
tion-Law, showing that a French Kulturkampf would be
disastrous to the nation and opposed to the policy now
generally adopted by all other European governments.
Francois Veuillot, well known by his articles in the
Univers, tells of the social apostolate carried on in the
meanest quarters of Paris under the patronage of Our
Lady of the Rosary. Jean Lionnet, a rising young
1901.] LIBRARY TABLE. 691
writer, compares Chateaubriand's Martyrs with Sienkie-
wicz's Quo Vadis.
Revue de Paris (Nov., 2 No.) : M. Lemoine treats of the Hue-
guenots, showing that Louis XIV. was not seconded by
the French bishops in his policy concerning the Edict
of Nantes.
Etudes (5 Dec.) : P. H. Bremond reviews the spiritual letters
of Father Didon, a publication very interesting as show-
ing the latter's edifying state of mind upon learning that
he was to be disciplined for holding " liberal " opinions.
Another reviewer treats of certain hitherto unedited
documents relating to the condition of Quietism at
Bourgogne in 1698.
(20 Dec.): Father Pr6lot studies the idea of Religious
Orders in view of the present agitation concerning the
Association-Law.
Revue du Clerge' Franqais (i Dec.) : Archbishop Mignot's fine
paper on apologetical methods is concluded. Professor
Ermoni reviews Vacant's new Theological Dictionary in
a way not as critical as we could desire. Father Le-
jeune condemns the rigoristic tendency of La Vie Spir-
ituelle, a volume already criticised as quietistic in the
Etudes of 20 Dec., 1897.
(15 Dec.): A long and very suggestive paper describing
the recent Bourges Congress is contributed by Father
Audier.
Revue des Faculte"s Catholiques de f Quest (Dec.) : The Trappist
monk who wrote in the October number on Bossuet's
relations with De Ranee", founder of La Trappe, con-
tinues to treat the same subject. Father Chavannes
contributes several chapters of a study upon De Maistre.
Le Correspondant (25 Nov.) : A. Kannengieser, the writer of
Les Missions Catholiques: France ct Allemagne t \.rzaks very
interestingly, though not over-sympathetically, the history
of the Catholic faculties of the German universities.
(10 Dec.): The same article is continued and concluded.
(25 Dec.): The love-letters of Prince Bismarck form the
subject of an article by M. Andre. Father du Lac's
apologetic work "Je"suites" is printed here in part and
will be continued in the next issue.
692 EDITORIAL NOTE. [Feb.,
EDITORIAL NOTE.
THE Cuban property question still remains unsettled, and
the United States government holds and will not pay what is
variously estimated at from three to five millions of dollars.
In the meantime the orphans and the destitute, to whom
this money really belongs, are in need of proper facilities for
their education, and in some instances for their preservation.
The facts of the case are very simple. While the Spanish
government was in control it paid annually to the church for
the support of religious work a certain fixed sum. This pay-
ment was not a gift that might be withheld but an obligation
of justice, and arose out of a definite agreement. In a revolu-
tion about fifty years ago the Cubans had sequestrated certain
valuable pieces of property, and they disposed of these parcels
for stated sums. When the revolution was settled the home
government compromised with the church, inasmuch as the
property could not be readily called back, by agreeing in lieu
of it to pay the fixed sum every year to the bishops for reli-
gious work. These payments went on during the Spanish ad-
ministration, and were considered not a benefaction but a
matter of justice. When the American government stepped in
it inherited all the emoluments of the Spanish government and
its obligations too. One of the latter was to pay the church
for value received. It has not done so. It is contended that the
United States has no right to support any religion. Very good ;
if conditions are such that it can no longer pay the interest then
let it give back the principal. The church has signified its
willingness to accept any reasonable solution. It is contended
that the title to the money is cloudy. The governor general of
Cuba has appointed a commission of most eminent judges to
investigate the title, and they have decided without a murmur
of dissent that the claim of the church is valid. It is contended
that in the present condition of uncertain tenure it is difficult
to do anything. There is no question as to who is getting
the revenues, there is no question any longer as to whom
they belong. There is no question as to the frequent and im-
portunate demands made by the church authorities on the ad-
ministration for what is absolutely needed. But the adminis-
tration indefinitely postpones the settlement of these claims.
190 1.] SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. 693
OPENING SERMON
delivered by Rev. Father Lemius, General Procurator of the
Oblates of Mary Immaculate , at the Ursuline Assembly
convened in Rome for the purpose of Unifying the Order,
November 14, 1900.
" Let them be one as we are one '' (St. John xvii. 22).
REVEREND MOTHERS : God, who in the government of the world embraces
alike the great and the small, the general and the particular, nevertheless fol-
lows with a more attentive regard and conducts with a more paternal hand
those beings that are more dear to him and closest to his heart. First of all
the church, after Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ the centre of his
works ; next, in this church, souls who devote themselves to him without
reserve, and among those souls such as make of this devotedness a profession
and form associations for better practising it that is, the Religious Orders;
and even among those orders, those who most promote his glory by the sub-
limity of their vocation and the fecundity of their works.
Yours is among the very first. Illustrious by the name of its foundress,
a virgin renowned among those whom the church honors and who do honor to
the church; illustrious by its antiquity of three centuries; further distinguished
by the most fortunate alliance possible of the contemplative and active life,
continuing by the former even in our agitated times the mode of life of the
ancient solitaries, and appropriating to itself by the latter the ministry most
dear to the church, that which has for its object childhood, especially among
those classes of society called by their rank itself to exercise a dominating in-
fluence in human events. This ministry of the education of childhood was in-
augurated by the Ursulines ; others have followed them, but never have they
surpassed or even equalled them.
With what watchful care has Divine Providence surrounded this venerable
order during itslong course of existence. While institutions solid inappearance,
resisting many a storm, have gone down before the pitiless despotism of time
or have been swept away by furious tempests of persecution, yours has not
only defied the iniquity of men and braved the injury of time, but has more-
over drawn from opposition a ne*v growth of strength; in testimony whereof
your four hundred houses stand to-day an admirable net-work spread over the
whole earth.
An essential property of Divine Providence is to bring all things into unity,
and the words of my text illustrate this tendency because the most jealous care
of the Holy Trinity is to place its mark (of unity) upon all its works. Not that
eternal Wisdom does not know how, according to beings and times, to relax
this unity, for it belongs essentially to Divine Providence also to harmonize
things according to their nature and the surroundings in which they have been
placed, but nevertheless its habitual tendency, and constant effort are towards
unity, and it is usual for this watchful Providence to take advantage of favorable
changes in times and circumstances to erase lines of division and tighten the
bonds of union.
What marvellous changes have been wrought in the relations among men !
In proportion as these relations were beset with difficulties in former times, have
they become easy in our own. We have subordinated to our use, I may say,
the most powerful forces of nature ; we have bent them to our service, we
694 SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. [Feb.,
have taught them to transport from one place to another ourselves and our
thoughts with a rapidity that is simply marvellous. These utilized forces
have annihilated distance, and produced a nearness that would have seemed
incredible in former times, and thus united, so to speak, the whole human race.
Unity is in itself a force. Vis unita. fortior : it grows by little things. Concordia
res parvce crescunt : and increases those that are already great by giving them
greater development and strength of action. The wicked know this only too
well, and to speak but of the inventions of hell, the secret of their power lies
precisely in unity. Should the good, then, disdain such a force ? Is it right that
their most commendable respect for the past, and for venerable traditions, should
blind them to the advantages the new order of things offers for promoting God's
honor and glory. If throughout centuries these same good people have lived
isolated, is that a reason to remain in this isolation when ancient conditions
have passed away, when all things tend to unity, drawing therefrom new
strength and energy.
You here present, you have not thought that the past traditions of your
order were reasons for rejecting what Providence itself was offering you in ihe
present. The Past: let us take it in its entirety, not in certain places; does it
not plead most eloquently for unity? Allow me to sketch in a few words the
philosophy of your history, and the profound thought of that wisdom which in
the course of ages has brought about its successive phases. You did not corr.e
into existence as members separated one from another on the face of the
church, but as a compact body, solidly attached to one head, your mother St.
Angela ; and after her, her successors took the title, written in your first consti-
tutions, of " Mother General." It was like a first sketch of your holy institute ;
but God, who wished to make of it in all respects one of the most illustricus
parts as well as one of the most active and fruitful forces of his church, resolved
to raise it to the highest conceivable degree of perfection, and to unite in it
highest contemplation with active ministry; in such a manner that the Ursuline
Order became one of the most notable examples of that form of apostolic life
which gives out to the world in works what it has drawn from heaven in prayer.
Then it was in the designs of God to isolate you and he did so, for a time seem-
ing to obliterate the tie that had bound you in his first design ; but this was only
a temporary measure. Those who understand the admirable logic of Provi-
dence and that spirit of wisdom which animates all its works, could foretell that
when the isolated members had become sufficiently permeated with this
double life of contemplation and action, when it had reached that point where
action was but the corollary and, if I may use the expression, the overflow-pipe
of contemplation, then the order was to return to its primitive unity at an hour
clearly marked by a profound change in the conditions of human society, and in
response to the voice of him who is here below the interpreter of the divine
will. In this way the two first phases of your history should meet, and form by
an admirable synthesis a new embodiment of the past.
No, it was not in the designs of God to abandon the primitive form he had
given your order, but during a period when, on account of the difficulties in the
relations among men, that form was ill adapted to the perfection required in its
varied elements, God suspended the mark of unity until the difficulty had ceased
to exist. And as he conducts things to their end with as much sweetness as
strength, he took care to infuse into the bosom of the order itself a vehement
desire for union as soon as there seemed a possibility of its realization. Mary
of its most illustrious members, and greatest among them the Venerable Mother
1 90 1.] SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. 695
of the Incarnation, contributed to increase, as she tried to realize this desire.
You all here present must remember the grand movement of 1875, when one
hundred houses affirmed the necessity of and the desire for this unification with-
out one dissenting voice. Why, therefore, have those very houses, the origina-
tors and most ardent directors of this movement, combated and opposed with
all their might the unification about to be formed ?
It is without doubt that God wishes every work of his hand to bear the seal
of the Cross of his Son. Be that as it may, this first movement remained sterile
and without immediate result. Nevertheless it gave the impetus and prepared
the scattered elements of your holy order for a fusion which was in the designs
of God, who awaited only the fit instrument the man of his right hand.
What man, Reverend Mothers, has more than Leo XIII. been the man of God
and of his times f The man of God by a sanctity, a wisdom, and a goodness
which appear more than human ; the man of his times, by a clear view of the
imperious needs of modern society and a profound knowledge of that century
which has almost completely passed beneath his eyes ; knowing besides that it is
prudence to bend as much as possible to circumstances, and that the church, im-
mutable in doctrine and morals, should nevertheless place itself in harmony, in
its institutions and discipline, with the conditions of different periods of time.
Leo XIII. has understood that the prime need of the present is unity. Already,
in many instances, he has established and encouraged it among religious orders.
How many stones dispersed over the face of the church has his hand gathered,
and with them built those superb edifices which are the glory of the church and
the edification of men. Now it is to the Ursulines he turns and says: Ut sint
unum Let them be one.
That the Pope desires this unification is a fact that needs no demonstration.
After the solemn affirmation of a prince of the church whom we know to be
especially beloved by Leo XIII. ; after the official letter of the Sacred Congre-
gation of Bishops and Regulars, in which were sketched the great lines upon
which this unification would be based, a letter which was in itself the expres-
sion of the Holy Father's wish, without even taking into account that this
desire on the part of His Holiness was apparent in the wording of the final
formula " De Mandate SSmi," after all that, unless some personal interest
exists, doubt is no longer possible. To-day, which brings you together in a
convocation made in the name of Leo XIII., such a doubt would argue incura-
ble blindness ; and to what lengths goes this desire of the Pope, before
leaving Rome you will have, I hope, the opportunity of seeing and knowing for
yourselves, without need of any go-between.
It is not possible for a Pope to manifest publicly any desire which has
not for its object the greater good of the church ; then it follows that every de-
sire of a Pope is a counsel, and for souls tending to perfection every desire be-
comes a command, because every desire, every counsel, every command of a
Pope is a desire, a counsel, a command of Jesus Christ. It is not necessary for
me to repeat to you that the Pope is indeed what St. Catherine of Sienna was
wont to call him Christ on earth ; Christ having hidden himself in the silence
and solitude of the tabernacle in order to remain on earth, to multiply himself,
and to bestow himself upon his creatures ; and seeing himself thus bereft of
human appearance, has borrowed that of the Pope : the lips of the Pope with
which to speak, the hand of the Pope to bless. In a word, Jesus in his full in-
tegrity is for the Catholic soul, and still more for the religious, the Jesus of the
Tabernacle, but completed, rendered visible, and given a voice through the
6g6 SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. [Feb.,
Pope. If it is thus, Reverend Mothers, and we do not doubt it, and not an
Ursuline in the world doubts it, how do we explain this reasoning: " The Pope
indeed desires the union of the Ursulines but a voluntary union ; let it then
take place, but without our taking any part in it." Is it not apparent how we
kill by such reasoning what is best and most delicate in obedience the very
flower of this virtue ? A superior of a house is not greater than the Pope ;
therefore, if the above reasoning is at all valid, what would prevent a religious
from saying in her turn, and with a better right : " My superior desires such a
thing, but she leaves me free; therefore I will not do it." Woe to the house in
which such reasoning prevails !
It is true that all desire by its very nature leaves freedom of action ; but let
simple and generous obedience (and it is by these qualities obedience shows
itself refined and delicate) transform the desire of a superior into a command,
and a command binds.
The Pope has at the same time given and taken away liberty he has given
it by his word, he has taken it away by his desire, at least from those who fully
understand the spirit of their profession. The contradiction is only apparent,
and in a word, what the Pope has done is only a characteristic of the heavenly
prudence of the church, which takes into account human infirmity.
All praise be to you, Reverend Mothers, for having responded with perfect
simplicity of soul to this desire, this invitation of the Pope, and praised be your
houses in you. My praises, as myself, are nothing; but I am authorized to ex-
press the approbation of the Pope himself.
Last Sunday pardon me for mentioning myself I had the happiness of
being at his feet, and he said to me, with an august gesture that spoke louder
than words : " Tell the Ursulines that I bless them and express to them my sat-
isfaction that they are here! " This praise of the Pope does not end here. No,
it does not limit itself to you, Reverend Mothers, who listen to me, nor to the
houses represented through you ; it goes abroad over the whole face of the
church to all those Ursulines whom fetters have restrained but who are here
by the deepest wishes of their hearts. Their feet are bound, but their desires
have not been strangled. Fear nothing ; this desire will grow until it bursts
forth from its broken chains.
After having commended your simplicity of obedience I must now praise
your clear-sightedness. You have indeed understood the necessity of this
union. Without speaking of the elevation of the educational plane in your
houses elevation which is possible only by uniting I will refer to the exchange
of subjects, which is so imperiously demanded in certain contingencies that it
actually takes place and the necessity of which you all understand. But how
does it take place ? First in a vague, uncertain manner, after long and at times
painful applications and delays, during which vital interests are at stake.
Secondly, and this is far more serious, outside of Canon Law and, to speak more
accurately, contrary to Canon Law, as will be demonstrated to you in the course
of the sessions with greater competency and authority than I myself can bring
to such a task. Objectively, therefore, these changes take place illegally and
illicitly. Two things are necessary in these exchanges: ist, a regulating prin-
ciple to facilitate and enlighten : to facilitate by a certainty of indication that
avoids tiresome and useless bungling ; to enlighten by precise directions as to
the rights of subjects, thus preventing precipitancy and regrets; secondly, a
principle of authority to sanction them. This double principle can only exist in
a union.
1901.] SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. 697
There is still another thing to be considered. With the greatness ot heart
which ennobles you, what should animate these sessions is not only simplicity
of obedience and clearness of view, but moreover a profound sentiment of soli-
darity, the true name of which is fraternal charity.
You do not know you who here represent flourishing houses, or at least
houses that are self-sustaining, facing the future without misgiving or fear;
no, you do not dream of the sharp pain, the bitter anguish hidden away in cer-
tain Ursuline convents. I have said in the hearts of Ursulines, your sisters,
daughters of the same mother, members of the same family. You have never
known what it is to see, with agony of soul, the death of your house approach-
ing with slow but certain step as an inevitable necessity. Not one's own death,
that would be invoked with all the strength of grief ; no, but the death of one's
house of that house in which one was born to the religious life and where one
had passed long years in a sweet intimacy with God and beloved sisters. The
death of that house where, without stint or grudge, the best part of her energies
have been spent ; of that house of which she loves every nook and cranny, be-
cause they have been marked by some silent visitation of the heavenly Spouse;
of that house, in a word, from which she hoped to take her flight to heaven.
Alas! it is condemned by an inflexible law. Upon such a day, at such an hour,
it must perish. What torture, what agony! The hour strikes a rude cart is
at the door. Throw in, poor victims, with those hands trembling with emotion,
whilst your eyes are dimmed with tears throw in the tew objects that the
rapacious cupidity which dignifies itself with the august name of Law has left
you. Bid adieu to that house which, already violated by sacrilege, will hence-
forth be devoted to profane use and may become the home of sin ; bid it adieu
and silently follow that poor cart. Oh! what would you wish in such an hour?
Would you not prefer to ascend that cart yourselves and, as in another infa-
mous epoch, make of it your ladder to God ?
But where will they go ? What matters it indeed whither they go, since
they have left for ever their well-beloved home, the roof under which they had
hoped to die ? There are other sacred wrecks scattered around ; they will in-
crease their number, until sorrow, that sapper of life's foundation, will have
killed them. At a later day it will be said of their home: "You remember
that ancient monastery which had sheltered princesses and had been the honor
of the church it lived its life and now it is no more. A few living stones of
the edifice dragged out a feeble existence in a corner of yonder strange house,
where they awaited the summons of death. Death came and carried them off
in its turn ; it is finished the tomb is sealed ! "
What ! you exclaim, had they no sisters, no family, no friends, no kind
heart to pity their lot ? They had. There exist in the world convents of the
Ursulines who enjoy highest prosperity. Vocations abound, their boarding-
schools are full to overflowing, everything is flourishing in the present, there
are no fears for the future. Are they, then, dead? Yes they are dead to the
needs of their unfortunate sisters. Alas ! blame not the hearts of men, blame
rather the condition of things. It is the fatal law of isolation that on the same
trunk some branches superabound in sap, whilst others dry up and die. Oh, no ;
do not blame the hearts of the Ursulines. I know them ; they resemble the
heart of Jesus their Spouse, who was moved and is still moved by the miseries
of those whom he has called and made his brethren.
The Ursulines! What have they not tried to do to stop this work of de-
struction and of death? Almost immediately after the promulgation of the
698 SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. [Feb.
infamous laws condemning your convents of Italy, the movement for unifica-
tion began. An intense sentiment of fraternal pity was the soul of the
movement. And that same sentiment is found again in the first steps taken
towards that actual unification which has brought you together. Fraternal
pity I proclaim it aloud, for I have closely followed the whole history of this
movement has created the group of Rome, Blois, and Calvi, which in its
turn has been, not the cause exactly, for that is to be found in the Pope's wish
alone, but the occasion of all the rest. Decidedly God wills that in some re-
spects we break with the old organization, how venerable soever it may be,
which by its form has held the Ursulines in check and centred upon themselves,
and that new ways be opened up for the overflowing of the kindly sentiments
of their noble hearts. No, it is no longer allowable that in presence of the
great changes that have so profoundly revolutionized human relations, and es-
pecially in view of such great calamities, your holy order should persevere in
an isolation which so closely resembles, for those who do not know you, a cold
and unfeeling egoism.
But what am I doing, Reverend Mothers ? I appear to be urging upon you
the necessity of this union, when you have undertaken such long and perilous
journeys only to be united. I am now at that by which I should have begun;
that is, it now behooves me to point out to you the kind of union you are to
labor for and the dispositions you should bring to this labor.
You are too profoundly penetrated with respect for the present form of your
order, so venerable by its origin, which is pontifical ; by its antiquity, which is of
several centuries ; by its fruits, which are admirable, for me to tell you that it
is precisely with this feeling of respect that you should be filled. Not one of
you assuredly came here to do a work of destruction and to break with so
glorious a past. It is true some have failed to come, fearing such a result. Why
have they not better understood the guarantee against such a thing that exists
in the very city of Rome to which you have been summoned Rome, so jealous
of tradition, and which engenders respect for the past by its very appearance.
And more than that : why have they distrusted that prudence of the Holy See,
full of delicacy and of sweetness, to which it appertains in last resort to judge
your deliberations, and to place its seal upon your new Constitutions. No more
than the church do you wish, or could you destroy that which has been deter-
mined in and transmitted to you from such ancient times. Your work is one of
adaptation alone; the obtaining of certain advantages, the eliminating of cer-
tain inconveniences; behold the just measure of the contemplated union as this
union is precisely in its requirements the exact measure of the modifications to
be introduced into the actual organization. Must we cast aside our dependence
upon bishops ? I do not think so. Each house has, I may sav, its individuality
and its own features ; let each one preserve them. Each subject has the right
to live and die in the house of her choice ; let her keep it. Houses and subjects
have special relations with diocesan authority, so that Ursulines have been
called the daughters of their bishops. Let these relations remain unbroken;
what is needed is simply to modify all these things in such a way as to render a
real union possible I say a real union, not one in name alone, but a union in
deed and in truth which will exactly respond to the end proposed.
Such is, if I mistake not, the principle, the rule, the fundamental maxim you
ought constantly to have before your eyes, to enlighten your discussions and
recognize the lines, often exceedingly fine, where should end your very natural
instinct of conservation and begin the work of re-formation. I have before me the
Mite of vour order, in point of intelligence and of virtue. Helped by God, who
wishes this union and who has so manifestly brought about its beginning, you
will, I am convinced, easily perceive those lines of which I speak, where the past
and the future meet. You must bring two dispositions to the work, both of which
are absolutely necessary: a supernatural spirit and a spirit of sacrifice.
It seems to me that your sessions should assume the character of medita-
tions. We must not think, Reverend Mothers, that there are silent and solitary
meditations only, where each one weighs in the bottom of his soul, and in virtue
of supernatural principles, the reforms to be brought about in one's own life.
There are meditations which may be termed of the House, of the Order. Yes,
true meditations, although made by several ; since deliberations of the needs of
1901.] SERMON OF FATHER LEMIUS. 699
houses and of the order, as well as those of the individual, should be viewed
from a supernatural stand-point. All meditation, strictly speaking, has a triple
aspect; it demands, ist, attention to the subject as matter of deliberation; 2d,
directing of the intention towards God as its end and aim; and, 3d, supplica-
tion to God for light and help. Thus, while you follow attentively the debates
and take part in them, you will have God before your eyes and God alone ; that
is, his glory through the personal sanctification of the Ursulines, and through
the salvation of the children entrusted to their care. Therefore, perfect disen-
gagement from earthly and human views; none of those self-seekings, often so
subtle, regarding certain points to which one is attached, and which, if we know
ourselves well, seem right and proper and just only because they minister to
the human interests still dwelling in the bottom of our hearts. Had I before
me saints ready for canonization 1 would hold the same language to them, in
right of the authority of my priesthood, so deeply rooted is self-love within us,
and so much is vigilance needed to preserve us from such self-seeking, even
when we sincerely believe it thoroughly uprooted from our hearts.
The intention thus purely directed to God, you will pray ardently, and even
during the sessions, thus prolonging the Veni Sancte with which they will be
begun. The work you are about to perform is essentially divine ; it can only be
accomplished by God and by the divine principle with which he will animate
you. Think you that he will abandon this order, so venerable, that came forth
from his hand and from his heart, that he will abandon it, I say, to the deci-
sions of your minds, so small, so short-sighted, because so human? You do
not think it. No, you do not think he will permit other hands to touch a work
he himself had formed, you know with what infinite love. What, then, are
you, Reverend Mothers? Only simple instruments holding yourselves in readi-
ness for his interior illuminations and inspirations, which are ihe two means
by which God moves the human soul. In these dispositions sacrifice will seem
easy to you.
Acts of abnegation will certainly be demanded of you, Reverend Mothers.
To pretend to create a union without changing existing things is a simple con-
tradiction. It is not to create an empty name that you have undertaken distant
voyages, but to found a powerful and fruitful reality. And it is for this the Pope
has called you. Yes ; but to touch the established order, to touch the ensemble of
things that up to the present has constituted the life of an Ursuline, is to touch
your very selves. Not only because this life is yours, but because it has pene-
trated into you, into your habits and into your hearts, and has become, in a cer-
tain manner, your very selves. What is asked of you is a work of self-renuncia-
tion. Do you not see here the great symbolism of all religious life Sacrifice and
the Cross? Doubtless you must study well. in order to understand them, the new
paths by which Christ wishes to lead you ; but once they are recognized, you must
follow them boldly, the cross in hand.
"Perpetual standard" (the cross), said Leo XIII. in his last encyclical, "of
all those who wish, not in words but in deeds and in reality, to follow Jesus
Christ."
I have only, Reverend Mothers, put in words what I know is in your souls,
and each one of you, while I spoke, has but recognized her own sentiments in my
words. May God be praised for having inspired in you such generous abnegation
at a time when we have so much to deplore : the cowardice of men bearing the
name of Christians! In God's name begin your work. Lay the foundations of
that edifice of which you are the first stones ; an edifice which, with God's bless-
ing, will increase in dimension and solidity : a temple from which shall ascend to
God most harmonious praise; a fortress from which shall be hurled with certainty
and precision deadly weapons against the enemy of God. In all the houses of the
order, what views soever they may entertain, some souls are praying ardently for
you. The Pope blesses you, as he has commissioned me to tell you. Nothing is
lacking, neither in yourselves, nor around you, nor above you, that can hinder you
from accomplishing a work wise and prudent, as well as strong and fruitful. You
will accomplish it ; and without speaking of the glory of this work, which counts
for nothing in your eyes, you will gain a special glory in heaven ; it will be due to
those souls who will owe their salvation to the work you are about to do. You
will say to them eternally, in the words of St. Paul, " Vos enim estis gloria" (I.
Thess. ii. 20) : You are my glory. Amen.
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CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. LXXII. MARCH, 1901. No. 432.
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS.
ECENT political occurrences in' France have
developed a wide-spread interest in Catholic
Religious communities. Under cover of the
euphemism, Loi d' Association, the French premier
has introduced into the Chamber of Deputies a
project intended to deprive these communities of the right to exist.
On the twenty-third of December last the Holy Father
addressed a letter to the Cardinal-Archbishop of Paris pro-
testing against the stand taken by the French ministry. Never-
theless, on the fifteenth of January the government commenced
discussion of the bill, confident that, despite the determined
opposition of Clericals and Royalists, the measure would be
carried by a unanimous vote of the Republicans.
M. Waldeck- Rousseau has included this bill under his gov-
ernmental " measures of defence." At worst his project may
be said to be in favorable contrast with the violent measures
adopted by statesmen of similar principles in former times.
Confiscation is preferable to torture no doubt, and banishment
to dungeons. Still, it is likely that the improvement is due less
to the premier's personal choice than to the fact that milder
methods are in favor with contemporary governments. It may
be an equally effective if a less revolting measure to deprive
Religious of civil rather than of physical existence. At any
rate, to the former punishment the government would condemn
them, and at present the world is watching the attempt curi-
ously, though for the most part calmly.
THE INDICTMENT AGAINST THEM.
It is this state of affairs which seems to justify some con-
sideration of the offence charged against the French Religious.
THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE IN THE STATE
OF NEW YORK, 1901.
VOL LXXII. 46
702 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. [Mar.,
In effect the indictment comes to this : they live in common,
practising poverty, chastity, and obedience, and they vow
fidelity to this state of life. Thus, it is asserted, they offend
against the common good of society by resigning rights which
no man can lawfully alienate. The stand-point of their assail-
ants apparently is that occupied by ^Esop's Wolf, which, having
exhausted his efforts to discover a casus belli against the Lamb,
finally decided to devour the latter without specifying reasons.
Should the French government succeed in expelling Religious
from its territory, the ultimate motive for this action, as is
plain to every one, will have been that deep-rooted instinct
which leads men of a certain class to a deadly hate of institu-
tions like those in question.
For, from the stand-point of unprejudiced reason, why should
a Religious community be considered harmful to the common
good ? Accept we will not say the moral standard that is
based upon a study of human nature and its destiny, but the
norm of right living defended by the atheist himself. Let the
supreme law be to secure the happiness of the individual or to
further the progress of humanity. Still the Religious ideal
deserves toleration, still the Religious community is to be ac-
quitted of crime. For at least we must concede that the indi-
vidual standard of happiness will vary indefinitely, despite
endless disputation. May not men, then, who find peace and
contentment in the practice of celibacy, poverty, and subjec-
tion, lawfully claim the right to consult their own happiness
by arranging their daily routine accordingly ? Nor is it rea-
sonably to be feared by statesmen that there will ever be a
deficit in the supply of human beings willing to propagate the
race, to amass wealth, and to insist upon their own personal
independence.
Certainly a race of which a certain number venerates and
practises chastity is, other things being equal, farther along the
line of progress than a race lacking the influence of that lofty
idealism. Surely, too, though here and there a community
may contrive to become collectively rich, no man can deny
that the present French communities have, as the Pope's let-
ter asserts, acquired their property honestly and legally a
consideration which makes capital punishment seem rather an
extreme measure. It may well be contended, too, to cite, as
the Holy Father insists, that they hold their property in the
interest of religion, charity, and the common good. Most of
us will perceive readily enough that in the long run the Reli-
1901.] RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. 703
gious communities tend to bring about that more equitable dis*
tribution of utilities which is of the very essence of a state's health.
Perhaps the practice of obedience is the count which will
tell most heavily against Religious in a generation madly in
love with individualism of every sort? Still, here again fair
consideration of the question will give us little cause to pre-
sume that religious communities tend to injure good citizen-
ship. As we shall have occasion to note later on, the theory
of religious obedience contains nothing derogatory to the spirit
of true manliness, and certainly history does not indicate that
much crime or weakness is traceable to its practice.
THE MEASURE IS BOTH WANTON AND UNJUST.
All this, be it observed, is the verdict that must be accepted
if an honest and enlightened public policy is to prevail. If
the Religious have done evil, let their critics give testimony
of the evil. The present mode of procedure certainly warrants
the Holy Father's comment, that " to strike at the religious
congregations would be to forsake, and thus injure, those demo-
cratic principles of liberty and equality which at present form
the very foundation of constitutional right in France and guar-
antee the individual and collective liberty of all citizens, so
long as their actions and manner of living have an honest aim
which encroaches on the rights and lawful interests of nobody."
It is not hasty or unfair, then, to say that M. Waldeck-Rous-
seau's " measure " is as wanton as it is unjust, and that it calls
in doubt his sincere devotion to the best interests of his coun-
try. His attitude is all the more' reprehensible when one takes
into account, as the Papal letter puts it, " the meritorious ser-
vices, recognized time and again by men above any suspicion
of favoritism, and time after time rewarded by public honors,
which make these congregations the glory of the church at
large and the particular and shining glory of France, which
they have ever nobly served, and which they love, as has many
a time been seen, with a patriotism that feared not to face
death itself with joy."
This much as to the justice of the French premier's stand
upon the question of Religious communities. But his attitude
reminds us that there are also critics of another class. It is
rather curious that in the Protestant world many professing
and practical Christians, students of the Gospel, lovers of real
virtue, range themselves against the Catholic idea of com-
munity life. Here indeed, as antecedently to all inquiry we
704 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. [Mar.,
might have suspected, opposition is to be traced mainly to
the fact that persons outside the Catholic Church rarely if
ever come to a thorough appreciation of her whole teaching
on any one point.
WHAT RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES ARE.
In dealing with this class of critics we may omit considera-
tion of that extreme few who, influenced by a consciousness of
their own personal depravity, declare that the life proposed to
Religious is outside the range of human possibilities. The
mass of those who set themselves against the Catholic ideal
are more moderate in their views, and are influenced mainly
by unintelligent prejudice, blind acceptance of traditional
beliefs, and repugnance to study sympathetically any institution
opposed to the common desire of self-exaltation and self grati-
fication. Persons of this sort, it may be hoped, will abandon
their former views when once acquainted with the real nature
and justification of what they are criticising.
Religious communities, then, are bodies of men or women
who, in order to devote themselves more exclusively to the
pursuit of their ideal of Christian perfection, abandon their
homes and live together under a rule. Always this rule enjoins
the observance of the three " evangelical counsels," poverty, or
the renunciation of earthly goods ; chastity, or the consecra-
tion of body and soul to a life of perfect continence ; and
obedience, or the subjection of private will to the command of
legitimate superiors. Ordinarily, besides this the " rule " pre-
scribes a daily routine of exefcises embracing both the worship
of God and the service of one's neighbor at stated intervals
and for definite lengths of time, leaving a margin to be
employed as individual ability or inclination shall direct. We
say " ordinarily," since there are some communities known as
contemplatives in which the rule prescribes no other service of
the neighbor than that of frequent and fervent intercessory
prayer. Ordinarily, too, stability is secured by vows on the
part of the members ; that is to say, by promises made to God
binding the individual under pain of sin to adhere to his state
of life and to prosecute his strivings after perfection.
GOSPEL GUARANTEES.
To what loyal Christian mind can this ideal be offensive ?
Religious find in the Gospel itself a Divine guarantee for the
worth of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Son of Man,
1901.] RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. 705
who had not whereon to lay his head, who taught the value
of renouncing all, who subjected himself to Mary and Joseph,
who was born of a Virgin, died a virgin and praised virginity
highly, both with his own lips and through his inspired apostle
He is the type in whom Religious discover God's unmistak-
able approval of the state of life their rule prescribes. They
find this type recognized and imitated in the Apostolic Church,
consecrated by generations of saints, sanctioned by centuries
of Christian teaching, rendered irresistibly winning by harmony
with the noblest aspirations ever experienced by human souls.
To obtain a definite and practicable means of imitating Christ's
life is the ceaseless prayer of numerous hearts touched with
the generous flame of Divine Love. For how many is it
obtainable only by means of entrance into a Religious com-
munity ? How often does it happen that the young man or
maiden, on fire with this inner sense of divine possibilities, can
find contentment only in a shelter where the soul, " espoused
as a chaste virgin to Christ" and freed from the trammels and
clamor of other loves, can suppress carnal desires, can renounce
possessions, can learn the lesson of the Cross in that " great-
est of penances," a life passed under a common rule. Surely,
lovely chastity cannot but win the veneration of any mind
honestly resolved to accept Christ's teaching as good for men.
Indeed, it scarcely can fail by virtue of its own inherent charm to
attract the souls of all who are capable of appreciating the real
beauty of the supersensuous, of understanding the true poetry
of love. Far beyond the wildest dreams of the young and
romantic imagination are the sweet joys reserved for those
who dedicate their lives to the cultivation of that hidden love
born of the Creator's regard for his creature. As purity be-
gets faith, so does renunciation of carnal delight prepare the
soul for a spiritual relationship that cannot be described in
words. To those who believe in the reality of the Incarnation,
surely this higher life should appeal as a precious grace be-
stowed upon chosen souls to set them peculiarly apart from
things of earth and reserve them for the ineffable union of a
love all spiritual and divine.
Poverty, too, as an ideal can hardly offend any Christian
who ponders the true meaning of the earthly life of Jesus
Christ. He who has not learned that possessions weigh down
the soaring spirit has not yet caught the significance of Christ's
example, of his teaching to his Apostles, of his invitation to
the rich young man, " Renounce all and thou shalt find all "
706 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. [Mar.,
is ever the law of progress in Divine Love. We must die to
live : self-denial is the one path to the Heavenly Kingdom.
And all those who have enjoyed the blessed privilege of
actual renunciation from Francis with his Lady Poverty down
to the last and least member of the humblest of communities
can well understand why the Religious rule insists upon the
practice of poverty as essential.
THE IDEA OF OBEDIENCE.
As to obedience, it may be true that this more readily than
religious poverty and religious chastity becomes a rock of
scandal to the opponents of community life. But how few of
these thoroughly understand the ideal of obedience put forward
as a model to which Religious should conform. Not ipfre-
quently it is imagined that the subject substitutes the supe-
rior's command for his own conscience and waives consid-
erations of right or wrong when a thing is enjoined in the
name of " holy obedience." The notion is monstrously false.
Neither church law nor any community rule ever has sanctioned
the idea that an individual ceases to be a responsible moral
agent because under the jurisdiction of a superior. In abso-
lutely every case it is understood that obedience is to be ren-
dered salva conscientia that is to say, a command never binds
the subject when the latter's conscience pronounces the thing
commanded to be contrary to the moral law.
This graver charge apart, men have been led sometimes to
contend that at least the practice of obedience is demoralizing
and unmanly, that the habit of surrendering one's God-given
freedom is likely to beget a servile character, and ultimately
to produce a type little in conformity with proper and neces-
sary independence. So men speak concerning obedience ; but
we never find them maintaining that army discipline should be
abolished as subversive of character. Perhaps a moment's re-
flection will suffice to show that if all men were accustomed to
the practice of something like religious obedience, it would be
most advantageous to their own welfare and to the general
good of society. As to the charge that the practice of obedi-
ence may tend to damage individuality, dull personal percep-
tion of moral issues, and substitute mechanism for spontaneity,
in so far as it is justified, it proves merely that Religious still
remain human beings and are subject to human infirmities.
Obedience, it is true, when practised unintelligently, may vary
in the inverse ratio with other virtues : still this is an evil in-
1901.] RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. 707
evitable by the very nature of things and certainly not trace-
able to the ideal taught by the approved masters of spiritual
doctrine. The obedience of the Jesuit, for instance proverbi-
ally and correctly considered as the most extreme and absolute
demanded in any Religious community always supposes under-
standing and agreement on the part of the subject. That
lower species of unintelligent obedience vulgarly stigmatized
as " blind ' is at most a practical necessity, never an ideal.
It is required, moreover, not alone in communities but by the
exigencies of every state of life, since it is quite patent that
often subjects not understanding nor sympathizing with a supe-
rior's commands must still in the interests of good order
obey. Practically, this is all there is of " blind " obedience
even in Religious communities, though there, indeed, a new
and supernatural motive is substituted for that of practical
need. But. at all events, the Religious ideal cannot be " blind
obedience" in the sense described, for St. Ignatius, a final au-
thority on the subject, has left on record his declaration that
obedience is very imperfect unless the subject's personal judg-
ment is in accord with that of his superior. Now, surely the
practice of an obedience of this kind is well adapted to correct
very common and unpleasant human weaknesses, and few men
would be the worse for having voluntarily subjected them-
selves to its salutary influence.
REASONABLENESS OF VOWS.
The foregoing indicates what might be called an unprejudiced
" Gospel view " of those three virtues the practice of which
constitutes the bone and sinew of Religious life. But as the
vast majority of Religious bind themselves by vow to the prac-
tice of the evangelical counsels, it is requisite to speak further
concerning this feature which to some critics has given grave
offence. For them the very name of vow is a stone of stum-
bling, suggestive at once of middle ages, cloister- dungeons,
superstitious mummery, and blighted love. We may question,
however, if the ground of their censure is in truth anything
more than the imaginary connotation of a word. For a vow
may recommend itself to their judgment easily enough when
understood to be what it really is, an analogy in the super-
natural order to a sworn contract in the natural. If a man in
response to what he believes to be a divine invitation enters
into a contract with God formally and solemnly as he would
in the case of a human contract, has he done anything unbe-
708 RELIGIOUS COMMUNIT IBS AND THEIR CRITICS. [Mar.,
coming? Why should a soul not be espoused as firmly and
irrevocably and publicly to the Divine Lover as to a human
one ? And is it inconceivable that the soul thus wedded thereby
gains a new title, so to speak, to the affection of Almighty
God ? Surely all this commends itself as perfectly intelligible
and consistent to any one who has risen to that concept of
Divine Love taught by Jesus Christ. Yet these truths are a
logical justification for the Catholic notion of vows. A Reli-
gious vow is a contract with God made by a man who thus
binds himself solemnly to a perfect life that is, to the pursuit
of perfection. Ipso facto, therefore, a man with the three reli-
gious vows is in a more perfect state, blessed with peculiar
privileges and special graces. Such is the universal and tradi-
tional Catholic teaching. Is it open to criticism ? Certainly
not from the point of view of the Gospel. Any man who after
prayer and counsel vows to God to practise those virtues which
were characteristic of the God-Man's life, performs an act of
extraordinary merit ; reason and the religious sense alike ap-
prove Holy Church in setting the common life of such men
apart and declaring it in name and privilege a superior state
of life i. e., what is technically known as " the state of per-
fection." Does this mean that an individual is made perfect
by virtue of an ecclesiastical formula ? Assuredly not ! A vow
will not perfect conceivably it will hurt a soul that fails to
put forth personal effort corresponding to its high vocation.
The church does not teach that personal perfection of neces
sity varies with the state, that the individual with vows is
necessarily more perfect than the individual without. Personal
perfection, it is needless to say, is personal. Aquinas speaks
of imperfect persons inside and perfect persons outside " the
state of perfection." The (personal) merit of obedience, says
St. Catherine of Siena, is measured according to the love of
him who obeys. It is idle, then, to attempt to press the charge
that the Religious vows imply the church's sanction to a per-
fection monopoly. The vows, as understood by Catholics, are
very different from magical incantations or spiritual pass-words,
they are the natural expression of a fervent love of God that
sees in them its needed outlet and intends through them to
make use of Divine grace in so effective a way as continually
to advance toward perfection.
We question if any fair-minded Protestant would assail the
theoretical legitimacy of the Religious vows once their mean-
ing is understood. At any rate an appeal to history should
RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND THEIR CRITICS. 709
suffice to show that, like the practice of the evangelical coun-
sels, the Religious vows themselves have been the badge of
many of the most glorious figures that have dignified the
human story. Benedict, Francis Xavier, Vincent de Paul are
not the names of men who would have rendered greater ser-
vice to humanity through the operation of a " Law on Asso-
ciations." In truth, purity, sympathy, courage these men are
models for all time, and it is but too modest a statement to
assert that the spirit which is hostile to their chosen mode of
life has yet to prove its own power to produce one single in-
stance of symmetrically developed manhood superior to theirs.
The Waldeck-Rousseau bill may or may not become a law,
If rejected, it will occasion some slight though tardy respect
for the judgment of France's statesmen. If enacted, it will
begin another scene in the long series of persecutions against
the Lord and against his anointed, persecutions that assail now
the Divine person, again his name, again his doctrine, his repre-
sentatives, and his disciples. But the present writing will have
served its purpose if it recalls and impresses upon any who
otherwise might fail to perceive it the essentially impolitic,
unethical, and unevangelical nature of present-day attacks
upon men and women consecrated to God by vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience.
710 " HAIL, RABBI /" [Mar.,
"F?AIL,
I.
traitor kiss ! more cruel thou art
1 l^an, nails of iron,, than lance more keen:
I \\e crucifixion of yiis heart,
Its agony, albeit unseen.
II.
1 he Wounds that scowling hatred Wrought
With glory n,oW are haloed bright
I hy Wound, like arrow's poison-fraught,
<5)hall fester through eternal night.
III.
Kabboni, | ha\?e called | hee friend
And stood among Thy chosen few,
nd yet a traitor! |n pity beqd
<And my false heart with lo\te renew.
WILLIAM P. CANTWELL.
1901.] Music ASA CIVILIZING AGENCY. 711
MUSIC AS A CIVILIZING AGENCY.
BY CARINA CAMPBELL EAGLESFIELD.
'O the musician it may seem a useless task to try
to fix the actual value of music, for it is the
element in which he lives and breathes, and
appears to him as essential and fundamental as
the atmosphere about him. But music as an
art impinges upon the lives of thousands who are not musi-
cians, and is of the deepest interest to them. Students of
sociology, physicians, philanthropists, educators, and reformers
find in music a problem which enters in greater or less degree
into their chosen work, and as a problem they study its effects
and try to fix its place in their particular vocation.
The investigator in sociology discovers that music and civil-
ization are inextricably interwoven. The philanthropist finds
that the moral nature is wonderfully softened and uplifted by
the divine mission of sound ; the educator proves from experi-
ence its value in developing the senses and training the intel-
lectual powers; and the physician, from time immemorial, has
called upon music to aid him in alleviating diseased conditions.
So we see that music has many values, and we may look at it,
first, as a civilizing agency ; second, as having pathological and
therapeutic value, and third, as intellectual.
The intimate connection between music and civilization was
recognized by the Greeks, who assigned to it really far higher
powers than we do ; and this is a little singular, for music in
its present development is distinctly a modern art, and we
cannot help wondering at the marvellous power which their
crude harmonies must have exerted upon them. If their cul-
ture was as dependent upon music as Plato and Aristotle
would have us infer, how much more should we expect from
the superior development we have reached in the art ? This is
an interesting question to consider.
The modern ratio between music and civilization is by no
means the same as it was with the Greeks, for they devoted
at least three years to musical culture, while with us for long
periods, centuries even, music has been used as a means of in-
cidental recreation only, and never till quite lately with serious
objects in view.
The study of sociology has gained immense impetus in the
712 Music AS A CIVILIZING AGENCY. [Mar.,
past few years, and there are many who are quite willing to
devote their lives to an investigation of the forces which go to
make our civilization what it is. It does not follow that every
epoch should surpass all preceding ones ; we find that certain
powerful agencies for culture have at one time been extensively
used and at another entirely overlooked. Music has had this
fluctuating value, and from the lofty pinnacle upon which the
Greeks elevated it we find it sinking into dim obscurity for
centuries, and only within the past half-century studied in re-
lation to other forces.
It is now generally conceded that music is an important
factor in culture, and no civilization can be carried very far
upwards without presupposing a certain amount of culture.
The development of the fine arts, which form the basis of cul-
ture, must necessarily come after much preliminary work has
been done, but when a nation has gone through the first stages
of organization in practical and material growth it must look
to art to give the final finishing touch. And the culture which
is laid upon these enduring foundations will surely uplift and
spiritualize a people.
Now, what form of art, what ministry to the aesthetic sense,
is so peculiarly the product of our own age as music ? It is
easily available, universally loved, and within the compass of
nearly every one. Ruskin most beautifully characterizes music
as "the nearest at hand, the most orderly, delicate, and per-
fect of all pleasures ; the one most helpful to all ages, from
the nurse's song to her infant to the music which so often
haunts the death-bed of pure and innocent spirits." It is this
wide range of influence which makes music so important a
factor in culture. It humanizes every one it touches.
Every system of government instinctively turns to music
to assist it in strengthening its hold upon the people, but none
stands in such need of music as a republic. Music unifies and
harmonizes all the conflicting elements of a democratic society,
and any culture which brings all classes together for music
knows no caste must of necessity become a powerful force.
We Americans need some such influence to harmonize the
kaleidoscopic elements of our national life ; we need the gentle,
humanizing effect of music to tone down our crudeness and
angularity, and we need, above all else in our social life, more
geniality, more of the "gospel of joy." The Puritan influence
was so inimical to music that we have not yet recovered from
its evil effects upon the national character. All art accomplishes
this result, but music seems better adapted to the American
1901.] Music AS A CIVILIZING AGENCY. 713
character than any other form of art, and we have shown our
affinity to this special form by the progress we have made in it.
When we consider that we have only been a musical people
for about fifty or sixty years, we may well feel pleased with
the result. We owe to the Transcendental movement in Massa-
chusetts the beginning of classical music in America, and it
is significant that Emerson and Beethoven were studied and
loved with equal ardor by those early enthusiasts for all that
was noble, and free, and humanizing. Only a little later was
the first Philharmonic Society established in New York, about
1848; then came the Oratorio Society in 1880, and in 1885 Dr.
Damrosch established the Symphony Society. What strides
we have made since we all know.
We often speak of a Republic of Letters, but has no one
ever thought of a Republic of Music ? What art or science
can bring such varied elements into harmonious working order,
or mould such heterogeneous factors into sympathetic unity as
music? There is a constant danger lest a republic split up
into sets or classes ; not the danger of anything permanent,
like an hereditary class of nobility, but yet quite as deadening
to the spirit of true democracy. Now, music takes no account
of family or wealth, two danger-signals in our Republic, and
by force of this bringing together all sorts and conditions of
men and enlisting their deepest sympathies under the same
banner it accomplishes a most important work in the progress
of republican ideas.
Professor Marshall, in a recent lecture on aesthetics before
the students of Columbia College, said that " the function of
art in the development of man was social consolidation." The
aim of all sociological study is, of course, to organize social
feeling. We know from experience that the education of the
intellect alone is perilous, and the new science of criminology
teaches that the principal cause of crime and anarchy is mere-
ly perverted feeling. Music has become an efficient aid in the
work undertaken by General Booth and the Salvation Army,
and the power to arouse feelings of patriotism and altruism in
the souls of the miserable submerged tenth through the hear-
ing of patriotic and ennobling music is astonishing to one not
acquainted with it. Music is being now used in all Reform
Schools with the best effect, and I have the testimony of Mr.
T. J. Charlton, superintendent of the Indiana Reform School
for Boys, that " it is a very essential part of the work of re-
formation." He says : " The experience of all workers among
this class of boys is that it cheers the despondent and brings
714 Music ASA CIVILIZING AGENCY. [Mar.,
sunshine into their lives." Another officer, who has had for
years an average of fifty boys under his charge, says that
" whenever he found that the boys were not as happy as they
should be, he began by leading them in singing and kept it
up till every one was feeling good." Mr. Charlton further
says that it is a rule that the evenings shall be filled with song,
and he considers that there is nothing that " takes hold of the
soul like a song." What better testimony of the philanthropic
value of music could be found? It is in the practical working
of one's theories that proof should be sought, and a Reform
School must be managed on the most practical of lines to suc-
ceed at all.
It is a most consoling reflection that the highest and most
spiritual parts of us should be thought to have a practical
value also. Society could not be sustained on the strength of
intellectual combination alone ; the emotions must make the
cohesive bond, and music is their natural organ of expression.
Though the growth of the individual was never so free and un-
trammelled, society was never so strongly welded together as
in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the higher the
social efficiency, the higher will be the development of the
emotional nature. I would speak of a fact which none will
surely deny, that our every day life, no matter what it may be,
never calls forth the depths and profundities of our emotional
natures. If we are deprived of art, we hunger for we know
not what, till under the influence of the art to which we are
most kin we expand, our souls glow, and we taste an ecstasy
of emotion which lifts us entirely out of our usual plane of
existence. It is good for human nature to realize its capacity
to feel deeply, it engenders charity and broader understanding
of others. It is an education in itself.
In treating of the emotional value of music one must touch
upon the objections of those who see harm resulting from the
intensity of emotion aroused. Such intensity appears injurious
to them, and they fail to recognize that it may become an im-
portant factor in the development of character. Scientists have
of late devoted much attention to a study of the value of
training the emotions of the very young, and they have observed
that a certain atrophy results if the emotional life is stunted
in youth. There must be a healthy outlet for the emotions in
music, innocent dancing, and harmless spectacular exhibitions,
else a perversion of these inborn tendencies results and crime
follows in the wake.
Must all emotion end in action of some kind? I think not ;
1 90 1 .] MUSIC AS A Cl VILIZIN G A GENC Y. ?I$
for there are many emotions which could not terminate active-
ly, and they seem to me entirely legitimate. I hold that it is
healthy to cultivate the emotions, and only those which ought
to lead to the performance of some duty need to have action
for an end. There is also a certain amount of self-knowledge
which is arrived at through the listening to music, and it can
be attained in no other way ; but it has nothing to do with the
sickly sentimentalism of those who neglect the duties nearest
to them.
Civilization is not measured by the intellect only, and the
moral and spiritual parts of man must be nurtured in order to
progress. Wordsworth, who was not only a great poet but also
a wise student of society, claimed that " no advance in civil-
ization could be made till the moral nature was educated " ;
and I note that England's greatest teacher, Dr. Arnold, of
Rugby, used this order in his theory of education : first, reli-
gious and moral principles; second, gentlemanly conduct, and
third, intellectual ability. Now, there is no stronger aid in de-
veloping the religious and moral nature than music. I do not
hold entirely with Ruskin in his assertion that " perseverance
in Tightness of human conduct renders after a certain number
of generations human art possible, and sin, vicious living, and
the following of pleasure all art impossible " ; but I feel deeply
that right living or pure thinking blossoms into song, and that
religion and morality sometimes find their highest expression in
music.
The emotional environment of a child is more important
than the intellectual. This is also understood by philanthropists
and social reformers, who seek to unite families and keep in-
tact the home, and who strengthen their hold on the neglected
classes through the avenue of emotion. Love and admiration
have accomplished more than any text-book, and the intuitive
groping after all that is beautiful, after music, pictures, uplifts
more than any mental drill.
What is true of society at large is true of the home. A
community of intellectual tastes does not unify or hold to-
gether the many elements of one household ; the coherence
must be based upon the harmony of the emotional life, and love,
which is the handmaid of the emotions, must be the tutelary
genius. I know of no stronger agent in keeping the home life
sweet and vigorous than music ; children and parents meet on
a common ground, and as their voices blend and as the tones
of their musical instruments mingle the bonds of mutual affec-
tion and love are strengthened, differences of taste or dissimi-
716 Music ASA CIVILIZING AGENCY. [Mar.,
larities of character are forgotten, and only the beautiful unity
of the family remains.
If music acted, as Mr. Haweis asserts, as a moral agent,
the whole question of its influence could be put in a nut-shell ;
but I do not consider music intrinsically moral or immoral any
more than other art forms painting, sculpture, or literature
even. It lends itself to the expression of the moods of the
musical creator, and is a medium, not a system of thought or
an emotional habit.
The value of music as a civilizing agent, broadly stated, is
that it embodies ideas of pure beauty and appeals directly to
the soul, and what cultivates and stimulates the spiritual part
of man is more moral in its effects than any intellectual train-
ing. If the thought of the creator is great, it will sink down
into your soul in time and become your own method of conso-
lation in grief and of exultation in joy. This is one of the
most precious influences of music, and the more music is looked
upon as a practical necessity of our lives, the more widely
will it carry its beneficent message. Music is surely not made
for the musician alone, it is not a mere ornament of culture,
but should, and indeed if opportunity be given does, enter in-
to the lives of all of us. Music is a universal language, "the
Volapuk of spiritual being," as Oliver W. Holmes quaintly
says, and every musician should feel it a duty and privilege to
carry something of the sweetness and inspiration which he
finds in his musical associations into the lives of those debarred
from uniting with him.
In England and on the Continent the philanthropic value
of music is better understood. In Birmingham and Liverpool
certain musical societies are in the habit of going once a week
to the squalid parts of the city and giving concerts in the
courts, and the practical good which they accomplish is so
deeply impressed upon them that they have extended their
sweet charity to other cities.
But the highest ministry of music, higher than the recrea-
tive or educational value, lies beyond the realm of sight and
sound, and voices the longing of the human soul for the in-
finite. It takes us out of the sordid and commonplace plane
of every-day life into a world in which we dream and aspire ;
it lifts our souls towards God and becomes the medium of our
highest religious reach. It makes us feel that in us too dwells
a spark of divinity, and it gives us courage and hope and faith
to carry this high aspiration into all the tasks of our daily lives.
j 90 1.] AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED. 717
AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED.
BY ANNA SPRAGUE McDONALD.
! ADRE ANTONIO was walking along the smooth,
white road which wound from his little sheep-
fold of Branciano to Sorrento. This road was
a narrow shelf hewn out of a high mountain:
a tiny zone which divided all that was soft
and rich and fragrant from all that was rough and harsh and
stern. For above it rose groves of orange and of lemon-trees,
now darkly outlined against a vivid sky. Below it was a sheer
descent of horrent cliffs girt by the moody sea. This Branci-
ano road was indeed lovely, with the beauty which Italy, the
enchantress of the world, so lavishly reveals. But on this
Holy Thursday evening Padre Antonio was wholly unmindful
of the golden peace of the sea or the glory of the sky. Ah
no ! He was the watchful shepherd of Branciano and one of
his cherished lambs had strayed.
Assunta Wareham was the daughter of an English artist.
As many have since done, her father married a peasant girl of
Capri and made his home there. He did not live long ; so short
a time, indeed, that Assunta did not remember him. Wareham
was so poor that when he died his wife was not left even the
little which would mean comfort to an Italian peasant. After
a time the Signora Wareham married again. This second mar-
riage was with one of her own class, "Vanni Arelli, a fisherman
of Branciano. When Assunta was fourteen her mother died,
leaving sundry small Arellis to the care of their half-sister.
That was two years ago. Until within six months Assunta
had been apparently like all the other young girls of the ham-
let, save perchance a shade more haughty and reserved. Yet
this quiet exterior masked a strange and complex character ;
for Assunta was not the child either of one nation or of one
class. From her peasant mother she inherited the fiery tem-
perament of the South, but mingled with this were many char-
acteristics transmitted from gentler forebears of another and
different race. Her beauty too, which showed the same blend-
ing of Italian and English traits, was of an altogether lovely
type.
VOL LXXII. 47
AT THE BIER OP THE CRUCIFIED.
[Mar.,
That she was very fair Assunta did not dream. About her
sixteenth birthday, however, she was destined to be enlightened
as to that and to many other things. For a young artist pass-
ing on his way to Sorrento saw her, as among a group of
Branciano girls she leaned
against the gray old para-
pet above the sea. He did
not push on to Sorrento
that evening because he
found the inn at Branciano
a most charming halting,
place. 'Vanni's consent to
allow Assunta to pose for
/ the painter was quickly won. Was not the
.' picture a Madonna? And per Bacco !
the chink of lire was sweet music in a
poor fisherman's ear.
Assunta possessed one great gift be-
side which even her picturesque beauty
was as naught. It did not take the painter
long to discover this. Then, day by day,
he awakened dreams and ambitions
in her heart such as only one from
the great world could. After a
time, when Assunta closed her eyes
at night she could not sleep ; her
tiny room, shared with several small
Arellis, had become so grand a place. For,
in the darkness, the rough chamber widened
into a sumptuous hall where the seats were
all of velvet and the walls heavy with rich
gold. This glittering place was thronged
with famous men and radiant women. But,
though the central figure was only a slender
girl, yet she kept that vast assembly en-
" THE ROAD WAS A NAR- & ' J V J
ROW SHELF HEWN OUT thralled, making all smile or weep as she
OF A HIGH MOUNTAIN." w iH e d by the golden magic of her voice.
How Assunta quivered with delight as she saw herself in the
bright future her one great gift was to win ! For had not " il
signer pittore " said so ? Had he not told her there were
many who would rejoice to train a voice like hers ? Best of
all, he himself would take care that some one of them should
hear of her. Thus Assunta's pure and childlike heart, undream-
AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED.
719
ing yet of love, nevertheless was filled with a passionate grati-
tude and worship for the great and noble gentleman who was
painting her as the Madonna.
The affair might have turned out in various ways had not
Branciano's shepherd been most zealous and watchful. Padre
Antonio always looked rather askance at strangely garbed
artists from far northern lands. But
when one of his flock was chosen as
a model, his dis-
like for painters
in general be-
came particu-
lar. Assunta's
" il signer pit-
tore" was favor
ed with an ex-
tra amount of
suspicion. Be-
cause, if there
were a pet lamb
in the fold of
Branciano, that
lamb certainly
was Assunta.
Padre Antonio
more
became
uneasy every day,
as he watched a gradual
yet marked change in the
girl. None other cared enough about
her to observe that, little by little,
she was becoming quite a different
person. A radiant joy gleamed in her
clear eyes and there was a brighter,
richer life in every movement. The old priest looked on silent-
ly, prayerfully too, at the little drama of which he was the sole
spectator. But the affair reached its climax one day when, ap-
proaching the improvised studio, he heard Assunta singing. The
painter had evidently taught her, for every now and again
he spoke, correcting or praising. To the good priest's
horror the child who had never sung anything more profane
than a hymn was pouring forth, full passionately too, a love-
song. How would all this end? the padre sadly wondered.
Yet end it must, and soon.
THROUGH THE STEEP CLOISTERS.
720 AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED. [Mar,
That evening the priest talked gravely and wisely to
Assunta. She was angered beyond all bounds at the bare idea
that this beautiful friendship should cease ; a little wounded,
too, that Padre Antonio did not understand it. Finding it
quite useless to argue or to reason with Assunta, the priest
betook himself to interview the painter. The latter was begin-
ning to tire a little of Branciano. His picture was so far com-
pleted that a model was no longer necessary. Then, too, he
knew that a certain girl with a snug bank account and a not too
pretty face was ill disposed to forgive any more follies on his
pirt. This priest might prove dangerous were he given cause
for anger, and ill news travels far. So perhaps it would be
better to go away and to forget a little girl with a be-
witchingly pretty face and no bank account. Thus, Padre
Antonio found him surprisingly amenable. So when the good
priest left the inn he was happy in the painter's assurance
that he would soon leave Branciano. He kept his word. But
unfortunately before he went away he wrote Assunta a touch-
ing letter of farewell. He thought this the most comfortable
method of leave-taking it would prevent an awkward scene.
In this note he -gave rather undue prominence to Padre
Antonio's share in his abrupt departure.
So it was to this priest, whom she had always thought her
friend, Assunta owed the shattering of her dream ! Her dis-
appointment concentrated into a bitter hatred of this padre
who had snatched the golden future from her. God too, his
Master, had been so hard, so cruel, to permit this great sorrow
to encompass her. All the depths of her passionate, revenge-
ful nature were aroused. Had she been wholly Italian her
wrath might have been as short-lived as it was fierce. But she
was not. To the fire of the South she added a grim tenacity
of purpose and an obstinacy which, once excited, made a
dangerous combination. So, when Assunta decided that she
had spoken her last word to Padre Antonio, and had sung for
the last time in the little church she would no longer enter,
threats, commands, and entreaties were alike powerless to
change her.
Things went on in this way for some months, Padre Antonio
gently striving to win the girl to calmer thoughts ; Assunta be-
came ever more bitter and resentful. Many of the good dames
of Branciano had long been jealous of Assunta's beauty, of
her gentler birth, most of all of Padre Antonio's preference of
her over their own far more attractive offspring. Now the
AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED.
721
"ALL THE DEPTHS OF HER PASSIONATE, REVEKGEFUL NATURE WERE AROUSED."
girl's absence from church gave them a long looked for oppor-
tunity to gossip. How much their sharp tongues, their avoid-
ance, made the sensitive girl suffer, she alone could tell.
Added to the neighbors' wasplike persecution was the greater
trouble of losing her home. For, after Easter, her stepfather
was to be married, and he had decided that Assunta must
fend for herself when the second Signora Arelli was brought
home.
Padre Antonio was thinking of all these things as he walked
along by the cliffs that Holy Thursday night. Rounding a
portion of the road which followed the curves of a little inlet,
he came suddenly upon Assunta. She was leaning over the
722 AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED. [Mar.,
parapet, as she often did, gazing fixedly into the sea below.
Roused by the sound of footsteps she turned, revealing a face
which startled the priest, it was so miserable and so desperate.
" Good evening, Assunta," said Padre Antonio. A fierce-
ness crept into the girl's blue eyes and darkened them nearly
to black. She neither answered nor seemed to hear. The
priest continued gently: 'Tomorrow, my little one, at the
burial of the Crucified, I hope, forgiving thy old padre what
he did because he loved thee, thou wilt sing the 'Stabat'with
the others. Ah, Assunta, for the love of the good God, who
died this day, tell well His Mother's sorrow."
The girl, angry enough at first, seemed lashed into a per-
fect fury by the priest's pleading words. " Sing ! Neither for
you nor for your procession," she answered.
" Not for me, my child, but for the dear God," said the
priest.
" No, He too forsook me. Why should I use for Him the
gift He has but mocked me with. I sing no more, neither for
you nor for Him," she said decisively.
The good padre was inexpressibly shocked and saddened,
but felt helpless before the bitter fury of the girl. " My child,"
he said gravely, " pray well that thy words may be forgiven
thee. Are they not too harsh to reach His ear who, on this
very night, in the olive garden, quaffed to the dregs for thee
the chalice of all sin and bitterness ? Ah, Assunta, come back
to Him!"
Assunta was really touched by this last appeal and for a
moment her better self almost triumphed. But the struggle
was so brief that the waiting priest could not detect that there
had been one. " No, is my answer, now and always," she said
at last.
Far into the night the padre kept adoring watch before the
Tabernacle. There, too, he pleaded for his little song-bird, his
poor strayed lamb, Assunta.
Good Friday was bright and pleasant in Branciano.
Throughout the little village a solemn stillness prevailed. The
Mass of the Presanctified over, every inhabitant of the hamlet
busied himself with the final preparations for the afternoon
burial procession of the Crucified.
Assunta alone was unoccupied. The scandalized neighbors
soon ceased to question her, quailing before the flash of her
English eyes. In fact, these eyes explained all Assunta's
actions for they were the outward sign of her heretical foreign
1901.]
AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIPIED.
723
blood. Despite herself, it was with a strange feeling of pain
that Assunta watched the others making ready. For she re-
membered bygone years when, full of sorrow for the dear,
dead Christ, sweeter than all the rest she had sung the " Sta-
bat Mater." Looking at her companions she felt as an angel
might who had fallen, when fell the Son of the Morning ; who,
through bitter pride had forfeited all right to heavenly things,
yet whose doom it was to wander, an outcast, among the good and
holy, ever seeing, never
sharing in their joy. Yet,
in her pride and hatred As-
sunta would not yield to
gentler thoughts. She had
chosen her path and she
would keep to it lead
to what abyss it might.
The church bell an-
nounced that it was three
o'clock, the hour at which,
long years ago, the Re-
deemer had rendered up
His spirit. At this mo-
ment the burial proces-
sion set forth. The pious
village folk bore an image
of the Crucified from the
little church to a chapel
on the mountain side.
There it was to lie en-
tombed in memory of how
the real body had rested
in Arimathean Joseph's
sepulchre. The cortege
was to pass 'Vanni Arel-
li's. All the household,
except Assunta, had gone
to follow in the proces-
sion. She had determined
to stand defiantly in the
doorway while the villag-
ers went by, knowing that
nothing could more wound
^ . "SHE DETERMINED TO STAND AT THE DOOR-WAY
radre Antonio. WHILE THE VILLAGERS WENT BY."
724 AT THE BIER OP THE CRUCIFIED. [Mar.,
At last, in the distance, Assunta heard Chopin's funeral
march, wonderfully played, albeit the musicians were but sim-
ple peasant lads. The band passed on. Then came the pro-
cession proper, headed by the most prominent citizen of Bran-
ciano. He wore the robe of the Misericordiae Brotherhood,
which shrouds the wearer completely, leaving only the eyes
uncovered. For centuries, in this sure disguise, prince and
peasant alike have wrought noble deeds of mercy or repentance.
The leader of Branciano's procession bore aloft the standard
of the King a golden crucifix. Surrounding this gleamed
lighted tapers, carried by others of the Brethren. Then, three
by three, came the remaining men of the village, all wearing
the society's long, black robe. They went by slowly and rever-
ently. Assunta watched them disdainfully. Not even the sight
of the emblems carried had power to soften her angry heart.
For, in each row of three, those on the outside carried can-
dles, but in the centre, the post of honor, some emblem of the
awful sufferings of the Crucified was borne. On rich cushions
rested the pillar stained with His royal blood, the crown of
thorns, the nails, the spear, even the cock which crew after
the triple betrayal of the Lord.
All these and many more went by ; yet still Assunta stood
scornfully upright in the Arelli doorway. Now came Padre
Antonio, his old and spiritual face rapt and solemn with this
commemoration of the burial of the Most High. After him
the acolytes, some with candles like the Brethren ; two with
swinging censers of incense walked facing the bier. Under a
magnificently embroidered canopy the gift of some old-time
prince was borne the bier of the Crucified. Surrounded by
burning tapers, strewn thickly with pallid lilies and fragrant
roses, was a life-sized image of the dead Christ. It was start-
lingly realistic with bloody wound-prints and thorn-crowned
head. The face was turned towards Assunta. As she gazed
upon that tortured figure something in her proud heart gave
way. It seemed as if that pierced hand were raised in a bene-
diction which dispelled all anger and all bitterness, leaving
only her old-time faith and love. Sobbing, she fell on her
knees as the bier with its sorrowful burden passed on.
Back of the Crucified the village maidens bore a statue of
His Mother, His first and greatest mourner. It made no dif-
ference to Assunta that the Mater Dolorosa, displaying promi-
nently a beautiful lace handkerchief, was stiff and ugly almost
to grotesqueness. In her eyes, and in those of all the simple
1901.] AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED. 725
Branciano people, it was indeed the Blessed Mary, she who
had so valorously stood at the foot of the cross.
Now came the rest of the village girls and women, singing
the " Stabat Mater." Richer and clearer rose the hymn as a
new voice joined them. Far in front it reached the gray-
haired shepherd, who humbly thanked the Crucified for the
lost lamb which had come back.
At a wide space in the road some carriages had halted to
view what was, to most of the forestieri, a very unique sight.
Some smiled, others with finer instinct divined beneath the
quaintness of the procession something of its pathos, its spirit
of great faith, its exquisitely reverential love. Presently a
woman's harsh voice broke the courteous silence.
"Ah! a miniature Seville," she exclaimed, shutting her
lorgnette with a snap. To her it was only a curious spectacle,
not half so well done as she had seen it in other lands. But
hark ! As the bier passed by there rose above the others a
voice which hushed the most irreverent to silence, so heart-
breaking was its pathos, so marvellously rich its tones :
"Juxta Crucem tecum stare,
Et me tibi sociare
In planctu desidero."
In the last carriage a woman leaned out, scanning the crowd
of dark faced contadini, striving to discern whence came this
wondrous voice. It did not take her long to discover Assunta.
" Arrange to stay here to-night," she ordered her astonished
coachman.
The procession was over. The sacred body had been left
in its destined sepulchre, the mourning people had returned
home. Padre Antonio was one of the happiest of men ; for
since Assunta's heart was softened toward the dear God all
was well in his little parish. Some day, too, she would for-
give him, and then there would be perfect peace within the
fold.
The door opened, and Ninetta, the housekeeper, ushered in
Assunta. He had not time to greet her; she knelt too quickly
at his feet. " Forgive me, padre mio," she whispered.
The old priest laid his hand in blessing on the bent, dark
head. " Forgive thee ? A thousand times yes, Assunta ! But,
daughter, let us speak no more about the past; let us look
towards the brighter future." Yet even as he spoke he could
see no brightness in store for this brilliant, lovely song-bird.
726
AT THE BIER OF THE CRUCIFIED.
[Mar.,
That night the
good padre receiv-
ed a very distin-
guished visitor.
The Contessa di
Castelfiore b e-
longed to a family
so famous that
even Branciano
knew it well. It
was she who had
marked Assunta's
singing of the
" Stabat." The
contessa was a
musician of no
mean talent her-
self, yet liked best
~~***- _~ . \ ^pL to be considered
. "/* E: * a patron of rising
genius. Though
eccentric in the extreme, she had deli-
! cately and tactfully aided many a strug-
gling artist. Her faultless taste had
discerned some rare qualities in As-
THE DOOR OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH. su nta's voice. So she spoke earnestly
to the padre about the little peasant girl and her wonderful gift ;
smoothing away difficulties here, persuading there, until the priest
too became enthusiastic over the great plan. They arranged that,
Assunta willing, she should be sent to a convent in Milan, there
to have the best masters in Italy. She would be shielded among
the white sisterhood until the time was ripe for her to go
forth, a perfect artist, a perfect woman, to make the world a
richer place with the music of her voice.
Every Good Friday a famous singer comes to Branciano.
Her best of friends, the old, old Padre Antonio, still is there
to greet her. She follows humbly, as of yore, the afternoon
burial procession. This day is fraught for her with many
memories, half sad, wholly tender. So it is the crowning
privilege of her life that still her voice, the rarest in the world,
may sing at the bier of the Crucified the plaint of Mary, His
Mother.
1 90i.] HUGO' s PRAISE OF LOVE. 727
HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE.
BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P.
'S I write these lines there lies on my table a vol-
ume which came from the printer's hands almost
three hundred years ago. It is unwieldy in form
and forbidding in appearance ; so truly forbid-
ding, in fact, that I confess I spent a considerable
number of years under the same roof with it before summon-
ing up courage to open its pages. The two covers of this old
tome are leather-clad boards over half an inch thick, its frayed
back discloses good-sized pieces of rope that secure its leaves,
and on its edges are the remnants of two great brass clasps
once used to shut out dust and book worms. On the fly-leaf
may be seen a few French and Latin lines in writing, browned
by time, and traced doubtless by some hand long since
withered into clay. Outside, the volume bears the legend :
HVGO
DE S. VICTORE
OPERA
TOM I II III
Now, except the name, none of the details above mentioned
is peculiar to this volume. It has been described here not
on account of any interest attaching to its individual appear-
ance, but as a type of a class of books too little known by
the modern reader. Hugh, or Hugo, of St. Victor, the man
whose name this volume bears, was but one of many dis-
tinguished theologians who flourished during the middle ages,
and we have here chosen to make special mention of his works
simply because a text of his is translated below. And the text
itself has been selected not so much in order to insist upon
any peculiar value attaching to it, but rather that the reader
may find in its style and sentiment an instance of what was
very common among the spiritual writings of the scholars who
pioneered the university movement in Europe. The glow of
our author's fervent piety and the simple grace of his lan-
guage are lost, of course, in the translation, but still it is
hoped that the reader may be able to discern the real holiness
728 HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. [Mar.,
and sweetness that poured out of the heart of this mediaeval
monk, and may realize, too, that he is but a specimen of a
countless number of men " who, ages ago, felt, and suffered,
and renounced, in the cloister perhaps, with serge gown and
tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a
fashion of speech different from ours, but under the same
silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the
same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness."
Hugh, who was a member of the Canons Regular of St.
Augustine during the first half of the twelfth century, lectured
in the school of the Abbey of St. Victor outside the walls of
Paris. Among the works of his preserved to us there is one
little treatise written in the form of a letter to a friend. It is
the English translation of this which we present to the reader.
Though the volume published under Hugh's name contains a
great many works falsely attributed to him, the genuineness of
the little treatise, De Laude Charitatis, is perfectly certain and
questioned by none. So sweet is its sentiment and so touch-
ing its language, that it has met with general admiration, win-
ning words of praise even from Robert Vaughan and similar
spirits, little inclined to sympathize with a representative of
Catholic mysticism. Hence the booklet seems to deserve trans-
lation into English for the sake of numerous and appreciative
readers not in a position to use the original. At the least it
may serve as a morsel to impart the savor common to a great
mass of mystical literature still awaiting the adventurous spirit
who will explore the ancient writings of the Ages of Faith.
The original text of the treatise covers just two sides of
the immense page on which it was printed. In this present
form the size is increased, though in a lesser degree, no
doubt, than the beauty is diminished. However, the trans-
lator has done his best to reproduce the spirit of the original.
He feels bound to confess that this endeavor has necessitated
quite frequently a very free translation, and that verbal accu-
racy has been foregone to a great, though it is to be hoped
not to an unpardonable, extent.
PROLOGUE.
To PETER, THE SERVANT OF CHRIST, FROM HUGH.
Taste ye and see that the Lord is sweet '.*
While I was considering, dearest brother, how to excite
your love to a remembrance of me, suddenly it came into my
* Ps. xxxiii. 9.
1 90i.j HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. 729
mind that as I was seeking from you only the gift of love, I
ought to write to you of love itself. This, then, I have done,
in the best fashion I could, using the choicest words at my
command, so that in reading love's praises, you may learn both
how ardently I cherish it in you, and how earnestly I seek it
from you in return. Nor should your love be angry with me
if, it being most fervent and I myself but lukewarm, I add
my little breath of words ; for this I do not so much that your
love may grow more lively, but rather that in my endeavor
you may recognize my wish.
Read, then, and love : and what you read for love's sake,
read with this intent that you may grow in love. Thus will
all be done through love. Love sends : love accepts. Love is
given : and 'tis love which is paid back again.
f A KITTLE BOOK IN PRAISE OF I/DVE.
Love hath already so many to commend it, that if I begin
to speak in its praise, this may seem to arise from presumption
rather than devotion on my part. For, since the beginning of
the world, what saint ever lived who failed to exhibit love in
pleasing guise either by word or by deed ! Love made Abel
a martyr* : love made Abraham leave his own country f ; for by
reason of love the former, though innocent, suffered death, and
the latter, with readiness, forsook his native land, both of them
through love exchanging earth for heaven.
Love alone, since the beginning, ever persuadeth the servants
of God to fly the seductions of this world, to tread pleasure
under foot, to restrain fleshly concupiscence, to subdue desire,
to despise honor, in a word, to spurn all the allurements of
this present existence, and to brave death for the sake of
eternal life.
Paul had felt this spell of love when he said :
Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ ?
Shall tribulation ? or distress f or famine ? or nakedness ?
Or danger? or persecution? or the sword? . . .
For I am sure that neither death, nor life,
Nor angels nor principalities nor powers :
Nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature^
Shall be able to separate us from the love of God
Which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.\
* Gen. iv. 8. t Ib. xii. i. J Rom. viii. 35.
730 HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. [Mar.,
Hence, in the Canticle of Canticles, the Spouse reminds the
Beloved of the power of love, saying:
Put me as a seal upon thy heart,
As a seal upon thine arm,
For love is strong as death,
Jealousy as hard as hell.*
Because death putteth an end to the living, and hell spareth
not even the dead : but love is strong as death, since as death
destroyeth the fleshly sense so love killeth the longing of fleshly
lust : jealousy is hard as hell because it constraineth those
who are inwardly drawn by desire of eternal goods not only
to spurn pleasure outwardly, but even to bear hard and bitter
things for the sake of seeing the object of their love.
And now let us consider how many martyrs have passed
through torments into the Kingdom of Heaven. Since then,
for God's sake these spared not themselves, how ardently must
love have burned within them. Let us consider what they
gave up, what they sought after, and the way they took.
What they gave up we perceive, what they sought after we
believe rather than see, what way they took we have heard.
They gave up earthly goods, they sought after things eternal,
they took their way through torments. Let us search our
hearts and discover if it would please us to give up all the
goods of this world, to love neither glory, nor honor, nor
riches, not to be pleased at good fortune, nor to delight in
flattery, nor to be gladdened by happiness.
Lord, thine eyes have seen my imperfect being.\
What a distance am I I will not say from such perfection,
but from the very first beginnings of perfection ! To the
friends of God it seemed little enough that for the love of
things eternal they should despise and trample under foot
lesser goods. Thrusting all aside, they let themselves be held
back neither by threats nor torments. Love was drawing
them, wherefore no desire withdrew them ; neither did hard-
ship frighten them. So they hastened on, the world behind
them, and before them God. Torments, however, were inter-
posed that they might be tested as to the constancy with
which they would despise the one, and the fidelity with which
they would pursue the other. Truth was tested, love vindi-
cated, iniquity confounded. Fearlessly they came to suffer;
*Cant. viii. 6. t Ps. cxxxviii. 16.
1 9oi.] HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. 731
and in the same measure that love had wounded the soul in-
wardly the flesh despised its outer wounds. They approached:
they passed away : and dying, they shewed with what desire
they had hastened on while alive.
O Love, how delicious wert thou to them ! how sweet to
those whom thou didst constrain to bear such things for thy
sake! With what cords hast thou drawn those who could
not be lost to thee, though the world sought to allure them
with pleasures and to frighten them with torments ! Because
of thy drawing they hastened on ; through thy help they kept
their way ; and they reached their goal by reason of thy
support. How unquenchably didst thou burn in their hearts
since neither praise, reward, nor suffering could abate thee !
These things like floods swept in upon thee but many floods
and much water could not drown love.
O Love, what shall I say of thee? How shall I praise
thee ? If I had tasted thee, then I could value thee. If I
knew thy worth, then might I put a price upon thee. But,
perchance, thou art too great for my littleness, nor is thy
price within my reach. Still, what I have I will give, all
that I have I will give. All the substance of my house will I
exchange for thee. All within this house of my body, all
within this house of my heart, I will give for thee, and when
I have given all I will count it as nothing. All the delights
of my flesh, all the pleasures of my heart, will I exchange for
thee, gladly, that I may have thee alone, possess thee alone.
Thou alone art dearer to me than all mine own, thou alone
better for me, thou alone sweeter, thou alone more pleasant,
delighting me more abundantly, satisfying me more fully, sav-
ing me more surely, more happily preserving me.
To others, also, I will speak of thee.
Tell me, O Heart of Man, wouldst thou prefer to rejoice
always in this world, or always to be with God ? Whichever
pleaseth thee best, that choose. Hearken then, that thou mayest
either correct thy liking, or mayest choose at once. If this
world is lovely what, thinkest thou, must be the beauty where-
in the world's Creator dwelleth? Love then, that thou mayest
be able to choose ; love more fervently, that thou mayest be able
to choose more happily ; love God that thou mayest be able to
choose God. For 'tis by loving that thou dost choose. And
the more strongly thou lovest anything the more quickly dost
732 HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. [Mar.,
thou desire to come to it, and the greater thy haste to attain
it. By love, therefore, thou dost hasten, and by love also thou
dost attain. So likewise, the more fervently thou dost love,
the more eagerly dost thou embrace. By love, too, thou dost
enjoy. See then how love is all to thee ; it is the choice, it is
the way, it is the attainment, it is the dwelling-place and the
happiness thereof. Love God, then, choose God, take hold of,
possess, and enjoy God.
Now, then, sayest thou, I have made choice : which way
must I take in order to reach the goal ?
By the way of God, one reaches God.
But, sayest thou, I cannot travel alone upon a strange way ;
let me have companions lest I miss the road.
With those who run in the way of God, do thou also run
the way of God. Better companions on the road thou canst
not well have than those who already have traversed it, and
who, through long custom and constant care, fear neither going
astray nor growing weary.
Which then, sayest thou, is the way of God, and who are
they that run therein?
Straight are the ways of the Lord, and the upright walk in
them. Uprightness, then, is the way, and it is the upright who
run in the way. But lest it should trouble thee that at one
time I say they walk and at another that they run, remember
that to walk quickly is the same as to run. Thus it was with
him who said :
/ have run the way of thy commandments*
and again :
Blessed are the unde filed in the way f
Who walk in the law oj the Lord.
For here to run means the same as to walk. Otherwise we
should have the Psalmist declaring himself more blest than the
Blessed, since he would be running whilst they were only
walking.
Thou hast then a way, thou hast companions, thou hast an
inheritance awaiting thee in thy fatherland. Thou hast that
wherein to travel, those with whom to travel, a goal, and, at
last, a resting-place. That wherein to travel is uprightness :
those with whom to travel are such as love and pursue virtue :
thy goal and thy resting-place is the Author of Virtue and
the Fountain of Life. A straighter way than virtue there is
* Ps. cxviii. 32. t Ib. cxviii. i.
1 9oi.] HUGO' s PRAISE OF LOVE. 733
none ; nor is any company better than that of the upright ; and
no rest is more tranquil than God. Go on then, safely, go on
quickly, that thou mayest speedily attain and happily rest. To
go quickly means to love ardently. See then, how all thy
good dependeth on love. By love thou dost choose the way,
by love hasten along, by love reach thy home country.
Wouldst thou know how it is by love alone that thou dost
choose the way ?
Saith the Lord :
If any one love me
He will keep my word*
And of this same word of his, it is said elsewhere :
Thy word is truth.^
And again, saith the Psalmist :
/ have chosen the way of truth ;
Thy judgments I have not forgotten.^
If then, the way of the Lord is truth, the way of truth is
chosen by that love whereby the word of the Lord is kept.
Love then, chooseth the way of virtue. Hearken to another
testimony of the Psalmist taken from the very same passage
quoted above :
/ have run the way of thy commandments
When thou didst enlarge my heart
For what else is an enlarged heart but a heart serving with af-
fection, a heart filled with love ? By love then, is the heart
enlarged, and, the heart being enlarged, one runs the way of
virtue. By love therefore, thou dost choose, by love run, by
love attain and enjoy. Saith the Apostle John:
God is Love :
And he that abideth in Love
A bidet k in God,
And God in him. \
He therefore that hath love, hath God, possesseth God,
abideth in God.
Good Love, whereby we delight in God, choose God, run
in God, attain to God, possess God.
What shall I say further of thee, O Love ?
1 have called thee a guide in the way of God ; what if I
call thee the very way of God itself? As indeed, O Love,
* John xiv. 23. ' f Ib. xvii. 17. J Ps. cxviii. 30. Ib. cxviii. 32. 1 1 Ep. John iv. 16.
VOL. LXXII. 48
734 HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. [Mar.,
thou art the way. But not as other ways, art thou the way ;
for saith the Apostle Paul :
And I shew unto you a yet more excellent way*
And he spoke of thee, O Love. For truly thou art a way ex-
celling all ways, a transcendent way making good the crooked
ways and showing the straight ways. Thou art the head of
the straight ways, for all ways that are straight start out from
thee and all lead back to thee. Thou are the plenitude of
justice, the fulfilling of the law, the perfection of virtue, the
acknowledgment of truth. Therefore art thou the way, O
Love. And what kind of a way? One supremely excellent,
supporting, guiding, and conducting. Whose way? Man's way
to God, and God's way to man. O blessed way ! alone fit for
the business of our salvation. Thou leadest God to man ; thou
guidest man to God. He descended thee when he came to us,
we ascend thee when we go to him. He cannot come to us,
nor can we go to him but by thee. Thou art the go-between,
reconciling enemies, uniting the divided, and in some measure
equalizing those so very unequal, lowering God, raising us,
drawing him into the depths, lifting us upon the heights, in
such manner, however, that his descent is not ignoble but
rather gracious, and our elevation, though glorious, is not vain.
Great strength, then, hast thou, O Love. Thou alone
couldst draw God down from Heaven to earth. Oh, how
strong is that power by means of which God could be bound
and man, though in fetters, could break the bonds of iniquity!
I know not if in praise of thee I can tell anything greater
than thy drawing of God from heaven and thy raising of man
to heaven from earth. Great is thy might, since by thee God
has been brought so low as this and man has been raised so
high. I behold God, born of a woman, a babe, wrapped in
swaddling clothes, weeping in a cradle, sucking the breast:
again I see him seized, bound, scourged, crowned with thorns,
spat upon, fastened with nails, lance-pierced, given to drink of
vinegar and gall, bearing first insults and then torments, and
still if I seek the cause of this condescension and this patience
I find naught but love alone.
O Love, great is thy might ! If with God thou hast been
thus powerful, how much greater influence wilt thou have upon
man ! If for man's sake, God bore so much, what will man
not bear for the sake of God ! But, perhaps, it is easier to
*I. Cor. xii. 31.
1901.] HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVF. 735
conquer God than man, and thou canst less readily overcome
man than God ! for as subjection to thee is more perfect, so
is it more proper to God. This thou knewest full well when
thou d^idst overcome him first in order the more easily to con-
quer us. While we were still rebellious against thee thou
didst compel him to leave his dwelling-place in the Father's
majesty and in obedience to thee take upon himself our mortal
weaknesses. Thou didst lead him bound in thy fetters, thou
didst lead him wounded by thine arrows, so that man, seeing
thee triumphant even over God, might be ashamed to resist thee
longer. Thou hast wounded the Invulnerable, bound fast the
Unconquerable, drawn down the Changeless One, made the
Eternal mortal. All this thou hast done to melt our hard
hearts and move our sluggish sympathies, that being aroused
from our apathy we might be pierced the more readily by
thy darts. Nor hast thou labored in vain, for thus have
many been conquered by thee, already many have surrendered
to thee, many now bear thy darts in their bosoms and wish
to have them fastened even more deeply therein. Sweetly
and deliciously have they been wounded, and they are neither
grieved nor ashamed at having received thy blows. O Love,
how great a victory is thine ! First thou didst wound but One,
and then, by means of him, thou didst conquer all.
I have praised thee as best I could, O Love, and now I
wonder greatly if there still remains something even better to
be said in thy praise. For I know not which is greater : to
say thou art God or that thou hast overcome God. But which,
ever is greater, that I will say of thee, willingly and fear*
lessly.
God is Love
And he that abideth in Love
Abide th in God,
And God in him*
Listen, O Man ! and lest you should think that it is but a
trifle to have love, hear this: that God is love. Is it a trifle
to have God dwelling within thee ? Well, to have love means
that, for God is love. This privilege of being called God and
of being God is proper to love alone and can belong to no
other. For we never say God is humility, or God is patience,
though we do say God is love : because while every virtue is
* I. Ep. John iv. 16.
736 HUGO'S PXAISE OF LOVE. [Mar.,
a gift of God, it is peculiar to love to be not only God's gift
but God himself. But love is the gift of God for this reason,
that God gives his Holy Spirit to the faithful ; and is God
himself for this reason that this same Spirit is co-eternal and
consubstantiil in divinity with him by whom it is given. God
therefore, bestows other gifts even on the reprobate, but he
keeps love, as his own self, to be a reward unto those whom
he cherishes. Love, then, is a private fountain, where no
stranger may drink : for, as was said, though other graces are
bestowed sometimes even on those estranged from God by sinful
lives, love can never be possessed by the wicked, he that pos-
sesseth love being now no longer a stranger to God, but abiding
in God and God in him. So close is love to God that where
love is not, he himself refuseth to abide. He saith :
If any one loveth me, he will keep my word,
And my Father will love him
And we will come to him
And will make our abode ivith him*
If then, love be thine, God cometh to thee and abideth with
thee.
If thou takest leave of love, he likewise taketh leave of
thee, and stayeth not near thee.
If love hath never been thine, God hath never come to
thee, nor abided with thee.
If thou hast given up thy first love, then hath God with-
drawn from thee.
If thou hast been steadfast in thy first love, then is God
with thee and stayeth near thee.
Love healeth every weakness of the soul. Love rooteth
up all vices. Love produceth all virtues. Love illumeth the
mind, purgeth the conscience, gladdeneth the soul, sheweth
God. Pride doth not puff up the soul wherein love dwelleth,
neither doth jealousy ravage it, nor anger lay it waste, nor
melancholy tease it, nor greed blind it, nor gluttony inflame it,
nor lust stain it ; but rather it is always pure, always chaste,
always quiet, always joyous, always peaceful, always kindly,
always modest, in adversity safe, in prosperity temperate,
despising the world, clinging to God, making all goods its own
by loving them, and gladly bestowing its own goods upon all,
neither fearing want, nor solicitous about wealth.
* John xiv. 23.
.] HUGO'S PRAISE OF LOVE. 737
Since it belongs to God, love is ever pondering on the
moment when it will reach God, when it will depart from this
world, when it will escape from further scandal, when it will
find true peace. The heart is always lifted up and the longing
raised on high. Whether moving about or resting, whether
busy or quiet, the heart, whatsoever it is doing, never with-
draweth from God. When silent it thinketh upon God, when
conversing it would speak only of God and the things that
pertain to the love of God. In exhorting others to love it
setteth itself on fire. To all it praiseth love, shewing not by
words alone but by deeds too, how sweet is the love of God,
how bitter and unclean the love of this world. It mocketh at
the glory of this world, it chideth care, it sheweth the
folly of trusting in things that pass away. Much it marveleth
at the blindness of men who cherish these things, wondering
that all have not learned long ago to despise what is perish-
able and fleeting. It believeth that whatever is savory to it-
self is sweet to all, that whatever it liketh is pleasant to all,
that whatever it discerneth is plain to all. By such-like tokens
doth love betray its presence, distinguishing those in whom it
dwells, not only inwardly in the will, but outwardly also, in
speech and carriage.
And now that so much hath been told of love, still some-
thing remaineth unspoken : for, in truth, we ought to say more
than well can be said.
What then, O Good Love ! O Dear Love ! what could I
have said worthy of thy merit ? Verily, after those great praises
given thee by the ancients, my littleness would in nowise have
presumed to add anything were it not that enough can never
be said of thee.
Flow into us then, O sweet and delicious Love! Enlarge
our hearts, expand our desires, distend the bosom of our
minds, widen the dwelling place of our hearts to receive God,
guest at once and householder. Let our one only Redeemer
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, infuse and diffuse thee in our hearts
through the Holy Ghost, so that together with the Father, he
himself, the Son of God, may deign to come to us and make
his abode with us ; who with the Father and the Holy Ghost
liveth and reigneth God for ever and ever. Amen.
Here Endeth The Little Book.
BY ALYAI^Y.
BY MICHAEL EARLE.
HEN, Lord, thy whip traced shoulders took that load,
Our saving wood,
What joy was mine, in chancing on the road
Where Simon stood,
To read what boundless patience lit thy face,
And speed unto thy side to share a place."
" Ah, child, the cross owns no restricted path,
Nor certain years ;
For yesterday, marked by thy brother's wrath,
And stung by jeers,
Thy arm's reply went not, thy curse was stayed,
And, lo, my burden felt thy love's sweet aid."
" But love it were, O Lord, that veil to hold,
Whose cool embrace
So fair impressed within its gentle fold
Thy tender face,
And, like Veronica, again to greet
Thy look bathed from the noontide's dust and heat."
'* E'en so, my child, thy hands were on that veil,
When lone last night,
Upon thy errant past, sin's misty trail,
There shone a light ;
Then in My name thy tears' resolve was said,
To leave thy soul's dead past unto the dead."
" Yet, Lord, one kiss upon thy nail-bound feet,
One look of thine,
Large freighted with forgiveness, spirit sweet
With love divine ;
And then one prayer, e'en though a thief's it be,
'This day above, O Lord, remember me.'"
" Then patience, child ; thy head is near the cross,
Thy kiss is made,
When gain heart-lifting, or despairing loss,
When light or shade
Upbuilds thy soul's perfection, calling Me,
Before my Father, to remember thee."
A MODERN- MARTYRDOM. 739
A MODERN MARTYRDOM.
BY SARA F. HOPKINS.
was a summer's day strayed into late October.
The whistles of the two big mills in White-
fields had blown the after-dinner recall but half
an hour ago. The sunshine that flooded the little
sitting room of the rectory was still of a midday
potency to excuse the shirt sleeves of stout, massive Seth Miller,
the mason and builder, and his constant mopping of his flushed
face and bald head, as he sat in conference with the slender,
pale young priest of the parish, Father Morris, as the Irish por-
tion of his flock and Protestant Whitefields called him. The two
were alone in the room, and Father Morris was struggling to
compress into uniformity and symmetry a fat sheaf of bank bills
he had just counted over twice under the eyes of his com-
panion ; the second time because the latter had declined to
enumerate them himself.
"It is a good job done," Father Morris said, as he slipped
elastic bands about the finally tidied bundle, and slid it across
the table to the overheated giant; "and I hope it's done for
the next fifty years. In that case Holy Souls' parish needn't
grudge the twenty-one hundred dollars its new cemetery has
cost, though I know the people find fault that it was planned
on so large a scale, and we all know that it 's been a long pull
and a hard pull to raise the money. I 'm thankful to give it
to you at last in full, and I cannot say how grateful both my
predecessor, Father Nugent, and I have felt for your patience
in waiting for your payment. I hope you haven't been
too patient, for you know you could havfe had a few hundreds
on account almost any time you had wished for them."
"Yes, yes, I knew that. Father Nugent told me that at
the start; but from the first I'd kind of settled it in my mind
that I 'd do without this money, if I could, and have it at the
end in a lump. You see I knew 'twas safe to wait ; and I 've
been earning other money straight along, because Father
Nugent and you 've let me take my time over the job, and
put my men and teams on it between spells of other jobs that
had to be hustled. I guess the accommodatin' ain't been all
740 A MODERN MARTYRDOM. [Mar.,
on .my side. And now I expect it would seem pretty mysteri-
ous to anybody that just knows me in public, so to say, and
that I must have earned a good deal of money in my time,
and that I 'm a very plain man without expensive habits, to be
told that this sum, that I 'm going to take straight to the bank,
is the very first I could ever deposit calculatin' to have it
stay, and not forecastin' any occasion to draw upon it either
for my family or my business. Sixty-five 's rather old to be
puttin' away the first nest-egg of savin's, but I don't know as
I could do much better, set me back forty years. It cost a
good deal to settle my father's estate and keep the old home-
stead ; and I Ve had eight children to rear and see 't they
should have the schoolin' and some of the advantages I missed
and have always hankered after. I can't give them fortunes;
but they're good children, not a black sheep amongst them,
and except my blind daughter they're all doin' well for them-
selves."
"You've given them better than fortunes," Father Morris
answered heartily. "According to what I've been told, you 've
trained your children to be a blessing in any community. As
for your old homestead, it 's the show-place of the town for its
trees and flowers."
"I own I've taken a heap of comfort tinkerin* at it," Mr.
Miller said. " My wife declares sometimes that I -d spend my
last dollar for a new rose, or a shrub from Japan ; but she
don't allow anybody else to say it. I heard her figurin' it out
to one of the boys one day, that father never took a glass of
spirits, nor smoked, nor had a vacation, nor took a trip any-
where unless 't was on business ; that he was n't much of a hand
for politics, and that she was thankful he 'd got somethin' out-
side of his work to take such interest in. Well ! well ! "
rising slowly, " I 'm only hindering you, and I must be getting
down to the bank. I hope your church folks '11 get reconciled
to the size of their cemetery. 'T won't be any too big, give it
time enough ! Good day, Father Morris."
" Good afternoon,'' Father Morris answered, and then, his
eye catching the packet of bills held uncovered in the con-
tractor's hand, " Why, surely, Mr. Miller, you 're not going to
carry your money like that? Wait a moment, and I '11 find a
wrapper for it"; and, springing up, the priest turned toward his
desk near the window.
" No, no, never mind, father," Mr. Miller interposed hastily ;
" it 's all right. There ! I '11 fold it in this newspaper, and slip
1901.] A MODERN MARTYRDOM. 741
it into my coat. At this time o' day I sha'n't meet anybody
between here and the bank ; and if I do, nobody 'd guess Seth
Miller 'd got his savin's of a life-time slung over his arm ! "
And with another friendly " Good day " he was out of the
room, and presently Father Morris saw him walking down the
narrow board walk to the street, going circumspectly, with
characteristic care not to bruise a flower or tendril from the
borders of gay annuals that overflowed in masses upon the
walk.
It was but little more than a half-hour later when Father
Morris was roused from work at his desk by the sound of
heavy running along the quiet road, the violent bursting open
of the rectory gate, and the crash of its closing, flurg from
the impatient hand of some one plunging reckless footed up the
walk. The contractor back again ! and such a figure of mazed
haste that the priest himself went hurriedly to the door to let
him in. Miller did not speak, but strode forward into the
sitting-room, glanced swiftly about it, then dropped, spent, upon
a seat. The priest looked at him, and went into his dining-
room, whence he quickly returned with a glass of water.
"You are not built for racing in such heat as this, Mr. Miller,"
he said as the latter drank from the glass.
"No," Miller said, briefly; then, after a minute, "that's
better. I did n't run very far. My money, Father Morris you
haven't found it here? When I got to the bank, and had un-
folded my coat and opened the newspaper, the bundle of bills
was gone! I hadn't met a creature between this and the
bank, nor seen a living soul anywhere except old Dan Powers,
asleep in his hammock, so I made sure that if I came straight
back on my tracks I 'd find the bundle on the sidewalk, where
it had worked out of the paper and coat with the motion as I
walked, and dropped ; but not a sign of it ! I didn 't meet any-
body as I came back, and old Dan is still asleep, so I hoped
the packet had slipped out here, before I got out of the house,
and that it would be the first thing my eyes would light on in
this room, and it floored me when I saw that it wasn 't here,
and that you knew nothing about it."
" I sat down at my desk when you left," Father Morris
said, " and only rose from it to let you in, and no one else has
been in the room. You must have overlooked the package
along the road somewhere. How could it really disappear in
such a short time, when apparently you have been the only
person stirring ? There are only four houses the whole distance,
742 A MODERN' MARTYRDOM. [Mar.,
one of them empty now, and nobody 's at home at this hour
except the mothers of the families, the babies, and old Dan,
who but just hobbles about with a crutch, and he was asleep,
you say. If you Ve got your breath again, I '11 go back with
you, and we'll search the ground thoroughly."
Miller rose at once, and they passed out of the house, the
priest throwing wide open the outer door so that every inch
of the small hall could be scrutinized at a glance.
"Let us begin just here at the steps," he said; ''you take
one side of the walk and I '11 take the other, and we '11 hunt
these flower-beds carefully." They reached the gate nothing,
and turned down the walk the contractor had gone, the one
on the opposite side of the road from the four houses. The
houses were well separated from each other by orchards and bits
of garden ground. Not a depression, not a gully, not a tuft of
grass, not a patch of weeds, not a bush at either hand of the
uncared for walk, that escaped keen inquiry ; but no bundle of
bank bills, a little fortune in country reckoning, was forthcom-
ing. In the first two houses they came to, the solitary woman
in each had been too busy to take any note of the road. The
third was vacant, having been sold within the month for debt.
It had belonged to Dennis Powers, old Dan's drinking, dis-
reputable oldest son, and was built with the money of the
young fellow's wife. The wife, happily for herself, died at the
birth of her first child, a toddler now between two and three
years. They found him asleep in the hammock at the next
house, old Dan's. The grandfather too, old from disease and
decrepitude rather than years, was there, smoking his pipe in
a chair alongside. The old man had seen no one going by in
the road, but " shure a procession might have wint, for he'd tuk
more than his forty winks trying to read the paper in the ham-
mick just after dinner."
Searching every foot of the way, the two men reached the
entrance of the bank building, and the earth might have
opened and swallowed the bundle of notes for all trace they
could find. They talked with sympathizing bank officials,
old, warm friends of Miller's, and it was at the suggestion of
one of these that the contractor called in the constable and,
reinforced by him, the two retraced what was becoming for
M tiler, at any rate, a " main-travell'd road," seeking the lost
packet over a preposterous width of area till the quest ended
fruitlessly and in utter perplexity at the sitting room of the rec-
tory. The constable examined this latter carefully, asking only
1901.] A MODERN MARTYRDOM. 743
" Is everything here exactly as it was when Mr. Miller left the
first time, Father Morris?"
"Precisely," returned Father Morris, "except that now my
desk is open."
"I was sorry you asked that question of Father Morris,"
Mr. Miller said to the constable as they walked back to the
main street. "The money's gone through my fool trick of
carrying it as I did, but Father Morris knows no more where
it went than I do. He wanted to get me a proper envelope,
but I would n't have it."
"Well, I hope he's all right, but you know there's some
folks will think this business might easily have an ugly look
for him," the constable replied.
" I suppose so, but they need n't advance any such theory
to me," Miller said with some emphasis. " I 'm no detective,
but if there's a better man in this town than that young
fellow, I 'm as much out as I ever was in my life."
The news of Seth Miller's loss was all over Whitefields be-
fore sunset, and for many days was the subject of hot discussion
wherever a knot of people gathered. To have lost even fifty dol-
lars would have been an event in the country village, where
everybody knew everybody else by sight, name, or repute, if
not personally, and where serious crime and criminals were un-
heard of ; but for a sum like that which vanished from Miller's
slack guardianship to disappear, leaving no faintest clue White-
fields was lost over the puzzle. And it was not strange that
in a New England village, even in the earliest talks over the
mystery, there should be some to suggest darkly that the Catho-
lic priest could clear it up if he would ; for in the circum-
stances, where could the package have dropped, to evade
almost instantaneous search, save in his house? Had Father
Nugent been the priest involved, his years of life and labor
in Whitefields would have shielded him from suspicion in many
minds, but who knew anything reassuring about his lately
installed successor? From evil hint to open remark, " Guess
the new priest up there knows pretty well where Miller's
money is ! " was not long, and as weeks, months passed, and
the problem was still unsolved, the sinister impression spread,
deepened, and Father Morris was practically boycotted by Prot-
estant Whitefields. He was omitted from every meeting and
function wherein his predecessor had been invited to take part ;
not a social courtesy was extended him. Most of the people
744 A MODERN MARTYRDOM. [Mar.,
with whom he came in business contact made the contact
brief, and treated him with cool or scant ceremony, the ruder
sort, indeed, with rank incivility. One sweet drop there was
in his bitter cup : Seth Miller could never be brought to
admit a doubt of his innocence, and never let slip an occasion
to show him respect, or do him a kindness. As for his parish-
ioners, while they indignantly resented the Protestant belief in
his guilt, and the obloquy with which he was treated, Father
Morris was too recent a comer amongst them for ties of
familiar affection to bind priest and people together, and he
was so shy with youth, and the terrible cloud upon him, that
their faith in and sympathy for him were necessarily mute.
Late in the following spring old Dan Powers sickened in a
grip epidemic. He weathered the first attack, but a relapse
found him so weak that the doctor advised him to set his
affairs in order.
" Bring the priest," was his first injunction when the doctor
had gone, " and bring him to wanst ! " a pious haste as sur-
prising as comforting to his wife and daughter, for old Dan
had ever been of those readier to brag and fight for their re-
ligion than to practise it, though he had never given any
flagrant scandal. Father Morris returned with the envoy, and
the family were banished from the room. Old Dan before he
began the confession of his sins had something to say to Father
Morris. His breath was short, and there were many pauses.
There was evidently a matter of weighty nature on his mind,
concerning which he wanted some advice. His strength was
hardly sufficient to bear him through the ordeal. He began
his story in a hesitating fashion, but it was not long before
the weakness of the sickness overcame him.
Father Morris waited. He looked at the sick man ; the
blood seemed ready to burst through the wrinkled old face,
writhing with some terrible emotion.
At last, " No more to-day, father; I can't," old Dan said
faintly, and when the priest would have urged him to finish
his story, if possible, he turned himself silently and obstinately
to the wall.
" He was obliged to stop," Father Morris said to the
anxious, waiting women he summoned. " Send for me again
the moment he will let you, or if he takes a turn for the
worse."
Two days passed, and the messenger was sent again : Could
1 90 1.] A MODERN MARTYRDOM. 745
Father Morris come directly? The sick man had had a bad
night, and was in a hurry for him. Father Morris went at
once, but when the moment came to resume the interrupted
conversation the haste seemed over, and there was a long silence.
" Begin where you left off," the priest said gently.
"It's no use, father," Dan burst out; "I can never tell
you. I must have some other priest any priest but you."
" You are too sick to wait," Father Morris answered. " Put
me, or any man, out of your thoughts."
" Lord help me, I 'm a lost man entirely ! " the old man
groaned; "it was me, father, that got Mr. Miller's money."
Father Morris neither moved nor spoke. " It was this way,
father. I was minding the baby Dennis's little Hugh the
afternoon the money was lost. I fell asleep in the hammick,
and when I woke up he'd slipped out of the yard into the
road. He came back whin I called him, and with a parcel
hugged up in his arm. I tuk it away from him, thinking 'twas
some advertising book, and sent him in to his granny ; but
whin I saw 't was bank notes, and a power of 'em, I fell back
in the hammick wake and all in a cowld sweat. The notes
were old, so I knew they were good, and I hid 'em under my
waistcoat while I 'd considher what I 'd do with 'em. I mis-
doubted something when you came with Mr. Miller, and whin
we heard that night that he 'd lost money I knew I 'd got it,
though I didn't get a chanst to count it till next day, for I
didn't want the women to know anything about it."
" And why did you not restore it to its owner at once ? "
the priest asked. " You knew perfectly well that you were
committing a mortal sin in keeping it, and that your soul
would be damned if you died before giving it back."
"Yes, father, but 'twas an awful temptation! Here was I
past work, my old bones murdered wid earning this place, and
trying to put by a bit for the time when we 'd need it the
woman and me ; everything going out, nothing coming in, and
little Hugh to be r'ared, for his father's no good. And no-
body would ever think of that baby finding it, and him too
young to know what it was, or to remimber two minutes that
he 'd had it."
" Do you mean to tell me that you *ve used any of that
money ? " demanded Father Morris sharply.
" No, father, that I have n't. The bundle 's just the same
as whin I got it ? "
" And you are sorry that you ever concealed it ? "
746 A MODERN MARTYRLOM. [Mar.,
"That I am. I 've had no ind of trouble about it."
"And you will return it at once to its owner?"
" I can't, father ; don't ask me ! Think of the disgrace to
my family wid my name and thief in everybody's mouth!"
" The money can be returned without your name, or any
detail ; but back it must go, and by your own will, or there is
no hope for you."
" Oh, it 's hard, father, mortial hard ! I 'd give it up, but
there 's reasons I can't. I have n't told you all, and I 'm too
wake to talk any more. You '11 have to go away now, father,
and I '11 sind for you as soon as my strength comes back a
little."
That any force of mind or body should ever animate again
that exhausted figure seemed hopeless. " Pray that our Lord
will give him a little more time," Father Morris enjoined the
women, and slipping into the church on his way home he
spent a long hour there in supplication for a soul in peril.
He was roused a little after midnight that night by the third
summons.
"As quick as you can, father," the messenger said. "He's
calling for you, and he 's going fast."
In his burning anxiety to annihilate the distance, not to
be too late for that passing soul, Father Morris ran all the
way. When he reached Powers's house, it was lighted up and
filled with relatives and village friends.
" 'T is the third time the old man 's sent for his clergy,"
he overheard one man murmur to another in the group linger-
ing just outside the door. "Sure he's making a terrible pious
end at last ! "
The sick man had his eyes fixed on the door, all the life
left in him seeming to be in their gaze.
" Lock the door, father," he said, without waste of a word
in greeting, "and hang something over the keyhole. Hang
something over the window, too. Dennis is here, spying about.
Dennis knows about the money," he went on, as Father Mor-
ris sat down at the bedside. " He was here the day Hugh
found it, and was looking out of the window when I tuk it
from the child, though he never mistrusted anything till he
heard Mr. Miller's money was in such a bundle. Since then
he's threatened everything if I didn't share it with him; says
he should have it all by rights because Hugh found it. But
I could n't somehow break into Mr. Miller's money, and just
in these few months Dennis has made me draw nine hundred
1 90 1.] A MODERN MARTYRDOM. 747
dollars from the fifteen hundred I had in the bank all I had
in the world except the place here to keep him quiet. I
know 't was my own fault he got the hould on me, and I 'm
kilt wid remimberin' how I 've let him rob his ould mother
and his sister. 'T was thinking how they'd manage without
money, and the child to provide for, and fear of Dennis, that
kept me quiet, and hanging on to the package, and may the
Lord forgive me my sins ! You '11 send the money back, father
I 've no one to trust wid it and secret, for the sake of them
that's innocent. It's in that cupboard, father, the third shelf
from the top, under some papers. This is the key to the cup-
board," feebly drawing a bunch of keys from beneath the bed-
covers. " Quick, now, father, and then I can make my confes-
sion and be forgiven and die in peace."
Needless to exhort Father Morris to haste a glance at his
penitent was enough and carefully separating the indicated
key from the bunch, he speedily had it in the ward and the
door open ; but his heart sank as he saw the crammed curiosity
shop exposed. "The third shelf," right, and "under some
papers"; "but what papers?" he moaned to himself as he
felt here and there among old daybooks, almanacs, and bun-
dies of yellowing bills and papers, and nowhere came upon the
package sought, his heart bursting with the anguish of delay.
Taut with the same anguish, the sick man rose to a sitting
posture: "Take me over there, father," he pleaded; " shure I
weigh nothing no\v, and I '11 get it at once."
Was there any other way ? " But I 'm afraid you can't bear
it," Father Morris said, coming back to the bed.
" I '11 bear it," the old man said. " What does it matter
now ? Lift me up ! "
Cold with the horror of the thing, the young priest gathered
the dead-weight of helplessness in his arms, bore it to the cup-
board, and held it there through an age that old Dan himself
fumbled in vain amongst the shelf's collection. "Ah!" he
breathed at last, with feeble triumph, " I remimber 't was in this I
put it," drawing out an old bill-book; "now take me back."
Father Morris felt the collapse of the old man's last spurt
of energy as he staggered with him to the bed, but life, under-
standing, and vivid beseeching shone still in the eyes that
looked at him from the pillow, and not till the priestly hand
was lifted in blessing, and the full confession made and the
absolution uttered to its last words, did their light fade, and
the faint "Jesus, mercy!" escape with the last sobbing breaths.
748 A MODERN MARTYRDOM. [Mar.,
Whitefields was stirred with another great sensation when
Mr. Miller's money, in its original package, was returned to
him by express, with no hint of its experiences just a type-
written slip accompanying it, " From a repentant man." Old
discussions of the mystery were waged anew, but any true
elucidation of it was as remote as at first. Nor did the cloud
of suspicion lift from Father Morris. Not much reference was
made to him, but the mostty unexpressed opinion was New
England's own for implacability : " 'T was a mercy, of course,
that he repented of stealing the money ; but to steal it in the
first place!!" And just as sternly as before he was ignored
on all possible occasions.
Once Father Morris appealed to his bishop to station him
elsewhere, explaining the situation. " You think some other
cross would be easier to carry ? " his chief asked.
The young man reddened : " Perhaps that, a little," he said ;
"but mightn't it be better for the parish in Whitefields that
its priest should be one unsuspected of felony ? "
" That I must determine with such wisdom as is given to me,"
the bishop replied, and Father Morris reddened more deeply
still. "There! there!" the bishop added, putting a kind hand
on the priest's shoulder, " I do not in the least believe you
would really throw away such a chance for one of the little
martyrdoms we're reduced to nowadays."
The years wore on, ten, twelve of them, and still Father
Morris was stationed in Whitefields, though with the coming
of new industries and work-people into the village and its near
vicinage, his parish and labors were so grown that there were
rumors of a curate to come to his aid. He had not ceased to
feel his ostracism by his Protestant neighbors. He bore it,
at all events, with cheerful serenity, and in his own parish he
had accomplished that difficult feat of winning in great and
equal degree the love and loyalty of all classes of parishioners.
He had spent himself in their service without stint, and so
self-denying was his life, so fervent his faith and zeal, that his
people believed him far on the road toward saintliness. One
persistent, malignant enemy indeed he had : Dennis Powers,
who divined by what agency Mr. Miller's money had escaped
his near grasp. Dennis could not, of course, let his real griev-
ance be suspected, but he never lost an opportunity to relate
to a new-comer the story of the money's loss and return, and
the Protestant conviction as to its thief ; he opposed the sul-
1901.] A MODERN MARTYRDOM. 749
lenest of fronts to the priest's advances ; sneered at what he
did and said ; led off the weaklings of the flock into turbulence
or wickedness when he could, and was in all ways a leading
worker of evil in the parish. He still made his mother's home
his head-quarters, much against her will ; but in the intervals of
his drunken bouts he worked more than he had been obliged to
do in his father's life-time, helping for miles about in the rough,
heavy labor that was his forte. So it did not surprise Father
Morris when stopped, one day that he was driving seven or
eight miles from Whitefields, by an excited Irishman with the
news that a well that was being dug at a house near by in the
fields had caved in, to find that the victim at the bottom was
Dennis Powers.
" He was begging for a priest a while ago, for there 's no
chance for him, poor fellow ! But no priest could get near him
now. We lowered Tim Doran down part way a while ago,
and they could hear one another, but the sand 's shifted some
since then and ye can't trust it."
" Can I drive over there ? " Father Morris asked.
" Yes, sir, turning in the bar way yonder."
" Jump in, then, and take the reins."
A dozen or so men were gathered around the well's mouth,
paralyzed by the calamity. "Is he living still?" Father Morris
asked as he sprang from the carriage.
" He was, sir, when I came up, ten minutes ago, but the
sand 's closed down some since then," Tim Doran replied.
" Is there any hope that he can be got out alive ? "
" None, sir, that I see. The sand moves from such a wide
space round that we '11 have to rig up some boxing before we
dare strike down a shovel. He knows he 's got to die."
"He was asking for a priest?"
" Yes, sir, and he spoke of you, sir."
"Can you lower me down to the point where you were?"
" Indeed, sir, you can't go. The sand shifts if you breathe,
almost. You *d be going to your death for certain."
" It is my duty to go if I can, and I '11 be as careful as I
can. Help me to get into the bucket. Keep your hand on
the rope. Stop when I pull on it ; at the second pull, draw
me up. Ready ! "
They lowered him with anxious care, agony in their hearts.
At last there came a pull ; then they waited waited so long
that they knew Dennis must be living, and that the two were
speaking to each other. Would they never stop? And yet
VOL. LXXII. 49
750 A MODERN MARTYRDOM. [Mar.
the pause was but five minutes before the second pull trembled
along the rope.
" Easy, easy ! " exhorted Tim, as the windlass began to
turn ; but it had scarce made a revolution when " My God ! "
he cried, as the whole earth about the well seemed to break
at once and to be slipping away beneath them.
"Jump for your lives, boys!" And it was by a miracle,
almost, that the two at the windlass escaped being swept into
the pit.
How the alarm flew, how the whole aroused vicinity toiled
at rescue, need not to be told, for it was all in vain. Father
Morris had lived his life, and done his work. He and his long-
time enemy, and final, costly penitent had a common funeral-
the greatest funeral, the most sorrowful yet joyous, trium-
phant funeral ever known in Whitefields. The bishop himself
came to take part in the offices, and priests from near and far
crowded the sanctuary. The three Protestant clergymen of
Whitefields were in a front pew, and scarcely a prominent lay
dignitary was missing from the seats reserved for them. Not
even half the Catholics could get into the church, and they,
with the Protestant villagers, thronged the cemetery, not too
large for this time ! No one there will ever forget the emo-
tion when the two hearses drove slowly in ; the bishop, the
double line of priests, and the invited guests marching at the
head of the long procession following after.
The entire village joined to erect the monument to Father
Maurice de Luyster, that is the pride and place of pilgrimage
of Holy Souls' Cemetery. A beautiful figure of Charity crowns
it. On one side of the pedestal one reads that the memorial is
the tribute of Whitefields ; on the other are briefly recited the
important facts of his life, and the story of his heroic death ;
and below : " Greater love hath no man than this."
The boycott is broken, the martyrdom gloriously ended.
QUIMPER, WITH ITS MAGNIFICENT CATHEDRAL.
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
'HE faith of the days that are gone still lives in
Brittany. Evidences of the supernatural char,
acter that has impressed itself on the lives of
the people are visible at every step. Religion
seems to absorb a larger share of the people's
thought and to command a greater portion of their worldly
wealth here than anywhere else in France. Some one has said,
Show me on what the people lavish their wealth, and I will
tell you their characteristics. It is easy to affirm the distinc-
tively religious character of the people from the wealth of the
churches and the display of art and industry in religious mat-
ters. Through the entire year large bodies of the people move
in pilgrimages to their favorite shrine of St. Anne d'Auray.
At every step arise new chapels and churches. At Saint-
Brieuc several were built at once ; Lorient, a town peopled
with soldiers and sailors, raised at its gate a church in the
style of Louis XIV. ; Vitri gives to its church a new bell and
a sculptured pulpit ; the little villages put up in their ceme-
teries Calvaries with figures of the middle ages ; Dinan restores
and enriches its beautiful church of St. Malo ; Quimper throws
to the air two noble spires from the towers of its cathe-
752
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
[Mar.,
dral ; the chapel of St. Ilan, a model of elegance and grace,
rises in pure whiteness on the border of the sea in the midst
of the calm roofs of a pious colony, and in finishing the beau-
tiful church of St. Nicholas we have abundant evidence of
what the piety and zeal of a pastor may do in a few years
when aided by the alms and gifts of a devoted flock.
The dedication of these memorials of religious art are the
great feast days of the Bretons. They gather from near and
from far, and a more picturesque sight may not be seen the
world over than is witnessed at the great religious ceremonies.
Quaint costumes are the order of the day. The sturdy
rural population lay aside all farm work and leave their flocks
to the care of Providence, and are away for days delighting
their souls with
the ceremonial of
religious worship.
And what piety,
what recollection,
what gravity in
the deportment of
these men and
women kneeling
on the pavements
of the churches !
As at La Trappe,
so here is seen the
same complete ab-
sorption of the
human being in
the thoughts that
fill the soul. The
functions of life
seem annihilated,
and immovable in
prayer they re-
main in that ab-
solute contempla-
tion in which the
saints are repre-
sented, over-
whelmed by senti-
ments of venera-
tion, submission,
THE SPIRES OF THE QUIMPER CATHEDRAL.
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
753
THE CITY OF QUIMPER i THE SEE OF A BISHOP.
and humility. The man is forgotten, the Christian only exists.
More expressive even than the monuments are these daily acts
of devotion that evidence the habitual state cf the scul.
Walk on a market day through the square of some town of
Finisterre. It seems to be a very bedlam of barter. Rows
of little wagons are about one in every direction, ard on these,
in goodly array to tempt the purse of the buyer, are all sorts
of merchandise: velvet ribbons and buckles for the men's caps,
woollen ornaments made into rosettes for the head-dresses of
the women, variegated pins ornamented with glass pearls, pipe-
holders of wood, little microscopic pipes and instruments to
light them with, and other useful and ornamental wares. Under
the tents of these movable shops throngs of men and women
gather eager to buy what they desire. The head dresses of
the women are most curious in their variety, and even here,
where a religious atmosphere seems to prevail, the feminine
love of the pretty and the artistic asserts itself. While the
large handkerchief very often covers the head, still it runs to
bright and variegated colors. The men, too, are not a little
fastidious in their dress. They affect bright colors far more
than their Anglo-Saxon cousins across the Channel. The pan-
taloons fit tightly, resting on the hips so that the shirt may be
754
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
[Mar.,
seen between them and the vest. Their caps are broad-
brimmed and often covering the hair, that is worn long or
tucked up behind. There seems to be about them a natural
air of dignity. They pass on with measured step and they
never rush, as though they were filled with a certain disdain
for the things of this world.
The bustle of business goes on, when suddenly from the
high bell tower of the neighboring church comes the echoing
peal of midday. Twelve times it slowly strikes, then all is
hushed. The Angelus ^ings, every one pauses in the bargain-
driving, or in the
passing of change,
or in the clatter of
voices. With sim-
ultaneous move-
ment the men doff
their hats and drop
to their knees.
The Sign of the
Cross is made, and
one low murmur
tells the Angelus.
A stranger in such
a crowd must
kneel; involuntar-
ily he bends the
knee with the rest.
The midday pray-
er is finished ; they
rise again, life and
motion commence,
and a din is heard
which seems, in
contrast to the
previous stillness,
like the deafening
roar of the sea.
I happened to
be one day at one
of the beautiful churches in Quimper. It was Sunday at the hour
of Vespers. The bell of the church tower had sounded without
interruption, it seemed, from break of day, and crowds of men
and women surrounded the church talking in groups gently and
Two RIVERS RUN THROUGH THE TOWN.
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
755
THE PROMENADE DOWN TO THE QUAYS.
noiselessly. The bell ceased ; the groups broke up and sepa-
rated into two bands, on one side the men and on the other the
women, all directing their steps to the church. The women en-
tered first, and in a very short time the nave was filled. The
young women of the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin were in
white with some embroidery of gold and silver, with bright rib-
bons on their arms and belts of the same encircling their grace-
ful figures and falling in four bands at the back on the plaited
petticoat. In the side aisles the matrons arranged themselves in
even more varied costumes : gaily colored head dresses of deep
blue and yellow, blue ribbons with silver edges on the brown
jackets. All knelt on the pavement in recollected silence, their
heads inclined and their rosaries in their hands.
As soon as the women were placed, another door opened at
the side of the church and the men filed in. With grave and
measured steps they walked in line. In comparison with the
variegated and gay dress of the women, the men presented a
sombre appearance ; yet the attention was not so much riveted
by their uniform attire, their long brown vests, and their large
puffed breeches, as it was by their long features, squared heads,
and the quantity of straight hair covering their foreheads and
756
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
[Mar..
falling down in some instances on their shoulders. They
scarcely seemed men of our time and our country. Yet they
were men of a firm faith and an intense devotion. One could
not but be impressed with the fact that to these strong men the
truths of faith were the most vivid realities.
It has only been within the last thirty years that Quimper
has been in touch with the modern world by the railroad.
Formerly the only way of access to this portion of Finisterre
was by diligence from Rennes. The lack of communication
kept this province secluded and remote. The people also kept
to themselves. There was no reaching out after the novel.
They have their language, their customs, and their costumes,
and they are wedded to them and want no invasion of the new.
The Breton language is not a patois, as it is called by those
ignorant of its lit-
erature, its history,
and one might say
its antiquity. The
Bretons say of it
themselves that it
was the language
of Paradise. The
clergy are assidu-
ous in keeping it
in vogue as much
as possible, and
they do all they
can to resist the
inroads of the
outside world.
The city of
Quimper is the see
of a bishop. It is
beautifully situat-
ed in a valley sur
rounded by hills
near by, and by
mountains in the
distance. Two
rivers run through
it, making it
quaint and beau-
tiful. Curiously
THE QUAINT BEAUTY OF THE HOUSES.
THE HEART OF BRITTANY.
757
named streets,
such as Place aux
Dues, the Rue des
Gentilsh o m m e s,
the Rue Royale,
testify to the roy-
alty of the Bretons.
The Rue Royale
has ancient resi-
dences on either
side, great gardens
enclosed by high
walls. The de-
mesnes have been
in the possession
of the same fami-
lies for many cen-
turies. In this
same street is an
old house which
was the prison of
Mile, de St. Luc,
one of the early
founders of the
" Retreat." She
was confined there
during the French
Revolution with
her parents before
they went to Rennes, where they were guillotined. She was a
victim of her devotion to the Sacred Heart, and was incarce-
rated and killed because she painted and distributed pictures
of the Sacred Heart.
The quays are the favorite promenades of the people, and
in the summer military bands make the gathering under the
fine old trees pleasant with their stirring music.
The cathedral has been restored recently ; the towers make
a most striking landmark. What is remarkable about the in-
terior is the leaning nave. Whether this divergence from the
straight line was necessitated by some architectural difficulty
it is hard to say, but the people have their own pious explana-
tion. It is symbolic of the leaning head of Christ as he was
dying on the Cross.
THE LEANING NAVE OK THE CATHEDRAL.
758 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY.*
BY REV. JAMES M. GILLIS, C.S.P.
'OMPARATIVELY few saints, among the vast
number whose names adorn the altars of the Uni-
versal Church, are intimately known or rightly
appreciated. Precisely whom or what to blame
for this deplorable fact it were hard to say.
One might explain, of course, that the world may hardly be
expected to remember or to honor those men whose particu-
lar glory it has been to despise the world, and whose every
claim to renown is their success in having destroyed the idols
of the world. " If you had been of the world," says Christ,
" the world would love its own, but because you are not of
the world . . . therefore the world hateth you." But " the
world " of which the Saviour spoke, " the world," that favorite
abomination of ascetical writers, the bugbear of the hermit in
the desert and of the anchorite in his cell, that shifting agglomer-
ation of forces that combines in triple alliance with the flesh
and the devil, is rather a spirit and an influence than a con-
crete reality. The " world " is manifestly not the people of
the world : in behalf of the one Christ gave his love and his
life ; for the other he refused to utter a prayer.
This distinction must be made and remembered always.
And so, when we say it is strange that the world has not
recognized the saints and duly appreciated them, we mean to
declare that it is surprising that the hearts of men and women,
beating strong with love of human kind, have not known where
to seek among their fellows for the surest answering throb of
sympathy ; that human souls thrilling with admiration for the
heroes of the race have not instinctively recognized the true
paragons of humanity ; that the spirits of men groaning inces-
santly for God, dominated ever by "the inveterate mysticism
of the human heart," have not sought comfort in the teaching
of those who have known God best and have discoursed most
wondrously of him.
* St. Francis of Sales. By A. de Margerie. With a preface by G. Tyrrell, S.J. New
York : Benziger Brothers.
1901.] A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. 759
BIOGRAPHY ALWAYS ATTRACTIVE.
In spheres other than the religious men have not been so
blind. Biography has always been a favorite department of
literature. Why ? Because the dearest as well as " the proper
study of mankind" is man. Men like best, in their reading
as elsewhere, what touches them nearest ; and what touches
them nearest is the lives of their fellow-men.
War and politics we read of in the newspapers and talk of
on the street-corners, but love, affection, human strivings, the
vicissitudes of a soul in its struggle with itself and with the
evil powers about it : in a word, human life this is the sub-
ject we take to our hearts ; these are the matters on which
even the "heedless multitude" will read the substantial vol-
ume rather than the penny sheet ; these are the topics too
sacred for the market-place ; they are for discussion in the
quiet of the home-circle, nay, often only in the deep sanctum
of a man's own soul. There is the fact a passionate love
among men for all things human: "I am a man; nothing hu-
man is alien to me."
Here, then, is the marvel : that, among a reading people, de-
votedly attached to biography, the lives of the saints should be
untouched. Why is there so inviolable a death-line between
sacred and profane biography? Why is Napoleon studied and
St. Augustine ignored ? How can Cromwell survive the withering
scrutiny of history and live anew in popular literature, while
St. Vincent de Paul, the friend of the poor, the founder of the
Sisters of Charity, is left in comparative oblivion ? Why do
we know more about Caesar's incursion into Gaul than about
St. Francis Xavier's more marvellous conquest of the Indies ?
How can a man of the stamp of Lord Byron be known and
pitied, and perhaps loved, while a St. Philip Neri, of beautiful
memory, is left unhonored by a world that ought to be proud
of him ?
Denominational dissension, of course, is one explanation of
the obscurity that has overwhelmed the saints. If the world
were Catholic, the Roman Martyrology might be its " Calen-
dar of Great Men." And yet the disdain meted out to Catho-
lic saints by non-Catholics cannot account for the ignorance
and apathy of which we speak; for Catholics themselves, often
entirely beyond the reach or the influence of anti-Catholic
prejudice, have little real knowledge or love of the saints.
There is a multitude of intelligent Catholics to whom the saints
760 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
are little more than names, factors in the making of a church
calendar, handy at times of christenings, spoken of regularly
enough from the pulpit, but just as regularly and systematically
forgotten. The Catholic who can at will summon an incident
or a saying from a saint's life to fit a necessity of his own, or
encourage another in difficulty, is an exception. On the other
hand, even the Positivists have been glad to take to them-
selves as model men a number of Catholic saints, and Prot-
estants of various sects, in their search for examples of human
greatness, have discovered and exploited such peculiarly Catho-
lic heroes as St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa, and St. Ignatius
A REAL GRIEVANCE.
But the biographies themselves ! Are they not, perhaps, the
cause of the unpopularity of the saints ? Have not honest
Catholics, going with the best intentions to the pages of the
lives of the saints, been frightened away by unlovely and unin-
telligent treatment of the doings and sayings of the servants
of God? Undoubtedly here is something of a real grievance.
Here is a complaint worth examining ; and we may therefore
be pardoned if we delay for some moments to consider the
extent of the difficulty and its influence upon readers ; and to
question the justice of its being urged either as an excuse or
an explanation of the neglect that befalls the Lives of the Saints.
It cannot be denied that the saints have suffered much at
the hands of their biographers. A hundred faults common to
most " Lives of the Saints "might be mentioned: faults of con-
ception, faults of method, faults of style, perhaps most often
the fault of " dryness." Ordinarily we have been given too
many facts and not enough analysis of character, too much
history and not enough psychology. The deeper meaning of a
saint's life is to be found, not in the answer to the questions :
What did he accomplish? Was he a king, a prince, or a beg-
gar ? a teacher, a prelate ? Was he a master of theology and the
founder of a school ? Not these questions ; but : What was his
private life ? Was he lovable in the eyes of those who knew
him ? Was he amiable in disposition ? How does he describe
his spiritual life ? how is it helpful to those who are in the
throes of discouragement and temptation? Was he a penitent
or an innocent ? A saint from childhood or a convert to God
in maturity? What does he say of himself? ' What were his
faults, and how did he conquer them ? What records are left
of his personal habits ? This is the deliciously human inquisi-
1 90i.] A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. 761
tiveness that extracts the real practical value from a great life.
It is interesting to know that St. Thomas Aquinas was a marvel of
learning, the Aristotle of the church, but we simple strivers after
virtue would rather know the story of how he came to his invio-
lable chastity through triumph over wicked temptation ; we are
glad to admire the intellect that could frame such a monument
as the Summa Theologica, but none the less we long to look
deeper into the great heart that beat with divine love to the
rhythm of the sublime hymn " Adoro Te Devote." Again, we
had rather, we imagine, be privileged to visit the little room
in San Girolamo where the great St. Philip gathered his friends
together, and listen with them to the words of sweetness and
consolation that fell from his lips, than accompany him to his
work among courts and cardinals and popes ; we stand amazed
when we hear that one man, St. Francis of Sales, was the cause
of the conversion of 72,000 rabid Calvinists, but we have a
keener feeling of veneration for him when we hear that he, the
saint of amiability, spent a lifetime in keeping constant guard
over a testy temper. In a word, we want to know the inrer
soul of a saint, and it is in studying his heart and mind,
rather than his famous deeds, that we gain the most intimate
pleasure and profit for our own spirits.
Furthermore, there are greater mistakes in biographies than
the omission of these items of human interest. The whole
spirit of the lives of the saints has sometimes been miscon-
strued, their actions and doctrines poorly presented, the natural
attractiveness and charm of their sanctity not seldom lost
amid the indiscretions, the narrow-mindedness, the sectional or
national prejudices of their biographers.
BIOGRAPHERS POORLY EQUIPPED.
But however lamentable the deficiencies may be, we ought
neither to be surprised at them nor puzzled to explain them.
The making of an ideal biographer of a saint is often more
difficult than the making of a saint. " It is well," said St.
Thomas Aquinas when he heard that his compeer St. Bona-
venture was at work on the life of St. Francis of Assisi ; " it
requires a saint to write the life of a saint." The meaning is
plain : sympathy with his subject is conceded to be the first
requisite of any biographer, and sympathy with a saint implies
one's own sanctity; for a thorough understanding of the
thoughts and emotions of a saint, an insight into the mysteri-
ous philosophy of his actions, can be the product of nothing
762 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
but an experimental knowledge of the strange things that occur
and of the secret words that are spoken in the mystic con-
verse of a pure soul with its God. Personal sanctity, then, at
least in some degree, is a prime desideratum in a hagiographer.
But holiness alone is no sufficient equipment: our ideal saint's
biographer must be possessed of many another quality, scarcely
less rare: learning, discretion, wisdom, judgment, breadth of
view, literary ability the list might be carried on without end.
We recognize the actual need of some and the desirability of
others of these qualifications, but we should smile at our own
simplicity were we to expect to find them all combined in
the ordinary pious narrator of the lives of the friends of God.
Not every Johnson may have his Boswell ; no more, then,
may every Francis have his Bonaventure, nor every Dominic
his Lacordaire, nor yet may every Philip be immortalized by
a Capecelatro. We know the limitations of human talent, and.
still we complain when we find that not all the pages of the
biographies of the saints glisten and glow with the wisdom and
literary skill of a genius among authors; and we refuse to
read what seems tedious in comparison with the brilliant and
picturesque productions of the clever profane writers of our
day. We forget the advice of a Kempis : " We ought to read
devout and simple books as willingly as those that are high
and profound. Let not the authority of the author be in thy
way whether he be of great or little learning, but let love of
simple truth lead thee to read."
There might nevertheless be little harm done, our com-
plaints and our sneers might go for nothing, were it not that
the saints themselves become discredited and are forced to
suffer in the repute of posterity, because of the faults and the
failings, the simplicity and the unskilfulness of those who are
trying piously to make their heroes known and loved. But,
after all, the wise reader of the lives of the saints is the rev-
erent reader. He is not hasty in passing judgment on what
seems mysterious and unlovely in their doings. He remem-
bers that a saint is a saint because he has received and util-
ized extraordinary inspirations of the spirit of God : he is con-
vinced that the actions of a saint are in reality Christ-like, and
would appear so, if viewed at short range and in a clear light,
however much they may be distorted and unbeautified in the
complex process of transmission to the modern eye. Not all
the elements in the character of a saint are necessarily per-
feet, nor all his doings necessarily wise and holy, yet the pre-
1901.] A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. 763
sumption is always in his favor, against the possible misinter-
pretations of every chance biographer or reader. Of course
there are saints whom we may never come to understand or
love, and even in the lives of the saints we do admire, there
may be individual deeds that do not gain our sympathy. Per-
haps we read with a little shudder of how St. Francis Xavier
on his way to India, making an expedition from which he
could hardly expect to return, passed within visiting distance
of his mother's house and yet would not go to bid her good-
by; perhaps we are tempted to give up the mystics in de-
spair when we read that at a meeting of St. John of the
Cross and St. Teresa, they both fell into an ecstasy; perhaps
we cannot grasp the philosophy of the sanctity of a Benedict
Joseph Labr6 or a Simeon Stylites, but nevertheless it remains
true that if we are wise we shall suspend judgment. It may
be that if we are not presumptuous now, the time will come
when we can understand the value of rigor in Christian virtue
and know what it means to rejoice in the things that are
" foolishness " to the world.
No, poor biographies cannot explain the prevailing aversion
for the lives of the saints. What we say in way of criticism
is only for the sake of honesty, and when all is said that may
be said, we must contend that if there are some poor biogra-
phies, there are more that are excellent, and not a few that
are masterpieces ; and the truth and the pity is that they are all
equally unknown. To present the comparatively few failures
as an excuse for denying one's self the wealth of edification
and spiritual delight that is to be found in Catholic hagiogra-
phy is the most stupid of blunders. It is like refusing to read
Shakspere and Scott and Tennyson because, in our rambles
through literature, we have lucklessly stumbled across some
member of the " dry-as-dust school " and have wearied ourselves
in the reading of him. Let it be remembered, too, that there
are almost incredible possibilities of acquiring spiritual good
taste. Even the Sacred Scriptures were originally insipid to the
fastidious intellect of Augustine, yet upon conversion he came
to love them deeply, not alone because of their spiritual unction,
but for the beauty and excellence of their literary composition
the very qualities he had denied to them. His experience is
the experience of thousands. Who that has in later days
learned to love and revere the Imitation of Christ cannot remem-
ber the time before the coming of spiritual discernment, when
its glorious aphorisms seemed plain and unmeaning and truistic?
764 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar,,
THE REAL CAUSE OF UNPOPULARITY.
But to come to what we fear is the real cause of the un-
popularity of sacred biography, it seems to us that there is rife
an unreasonable suspicion that the true idea of what constitutes
exalted virtue is not taught and exemplified in the lives of the
saints. Minds that are timid keep these suspicions to them-
selves ; but it is coming to be customary for the more "eman-
cipated " to speak with flippant freedom of the superiority of our
"modern" and "reasonable" conception of virtue over the
"antiquated" idea presumably lauded in the "semi-mythical"
narrations of saints' lives. Expressed or unexpressed, the
suspicion is to the effect that there are two widely differing
conceptions of what makes human character admirable : the
first is that of honorable men in the world ; the second is that
of the courts of canonization at Rome. The first is the natural,
acceptable criterion : it insists on manliness, integrity, sound
sense, uprightness, and the like ; the second is a strained and
fictitious criterion, inclined to be absurd, not appealing to ripe
judgment, fanciful, even repulsive : it looks not to the beauty
of interior virtue, but to external observances fasts, mortifica-
tions, scourgings, humiliations, and the like. The two con-
ceptions it is assumed are mutually destructive: you cannot
have striking natural nobility and attractiveness of character
together with " sanctity."
There can be no other basis for this lamentable delusion
than a sheer ignorance of the actual deeds and of the true in-
terior spirit of the men and women whose names the church
has placed upon her Calendar. The fact must be that those
who have this wildly erratic notion can never have done any
systematic reading of the lives of the saints, for no one can
study into those marvellous narratives without obtaining either
a profound reverence or at least a respectful admiration for
the natural nobility of the saints. And though many, even
Catholics, would be astounded by a simple demonstration of the
fact that whatever is good in the world's conception of honor
and virtue honesty, integrity, generosity, courage in adversity,
independence of mind, earnestness, amiability, strength, the
whole category of the " natural virtues " is fundamentally im-
plied in the character of a saint ; and in theory, no one can
be a saint without them. Nor, as a matter of fact, is there
any saint in whose character they have not formed the foun-
dation of the higher supernatural virtues. But how is such a
1901.] A STUDY IN HAGJOLOGY. 765
demonstration to be made ? How can it be made (if, as we main-
tain, ignorance is the cause of the error against which it is direct-
ed), except by the destruction of ignorance, through a mere ex-
animation of facts, a simple process of reading ? What is wanted
is that we should know the saints as they are ; nothing more.
It is fortunate, then, that nowadays the psychology of
the saints is coming to the front. Lives are being written
for the express purpose of so mingling the narration of his-
torical facts with the study of psychological phenomena as
to convey a perfected, well rounded, intimate knowledge of
the personality of the saints. One recently published volume,
a unit in an admirably conceived system, gives us an intelli-
gently constructed and very readable account of the life and
works of St. Francis of Sales. No better or more apt example
could be given to confirm the contention we have been making,
that the saints when truly known are found to be essentially
lovable and admirable, and that the story of their lives is as
interesting, even from a natural point of view, as the best of pro-
fane biography.
ST. FRANCIS DE SALES.
Perhaps we cannot do better for illustrating our thesis than to
engage in a brief study of the natural character of St. Francis,
though, while admitting in all honesty that his life is one of
the best we could choose for the proof of our position, we are
convinced that a thorough examination of any saint's life
would establish the truth of what we say.
Not to know St. Francis of Sales intimately is for any
Christian a sad mistake. His is emphatically one of the most
winning of human characters. He conquers hearts at first en-
counter. To know an incident in his life, to read one of his
letters, to dip for a half-hour into one of his delicious spiritual
treatises, is to recognize his extraordinary qualities ; to know
him thoroughly, to read his works carefully is to provide one's
self with a perpetual spring of encouragement and spiritual
good cheer; to have been privileged beyond this, to have lived
in his company, must have seemed like making one's dwelling
in the serene peace and quiet of the sanctuary. Those who are
familiar with him, who have studied the many-sided beauty
of his soul, will not consider this to be inconsiderate laudation.
There is reason for speaking of the character of St. Francis
in terms of sweeping praise, for he is par excellence the saint
of universal spiritual development. He is prominent, indeed, in
our eyes as a type of sanctity, and according to present-day
VOL. LXXII. 50
766 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
ideals a favorite type ; yet the truest characteristic of his sanc-
tity is that it is without peculiar characteristics ; it is the har-
monious combination of all Christ-like qualities. Test the mettle
of his virtue at whatsoever point you will, it rings clear and
sweet throughout. As his most recent biographer has well
said : " In him there is no discord of unharmonious develop-
ment. His was a character that kept unerring time and tune,
and in which there was no exaggerated development of par-
ticular virtues to the crowding out of others. His gentleness
did not prejudice his strength, nor his patience and affability
his zeal, nor his simplicity his prudence." True, his external
demeanor seemed to disclose a preponderance of the qualities
that suggest weakness rather than strength and vigor of char-
acter. But the preponderance is only apparent. His surpassing
mildness of disposition and peacefulness of deportment were
not less the fruit of strong self-discipline than they were the
perfection through grace of a naturally well-regulated character.
In his own time his perpetual and almost preternatural
amiability was suspected of being a weakness and blemish of
character, and many would have had him sterner ; many felt
with St. Jane Frances of Chantal that he should, if only from
policy, show occasionally a masculine burst of temper. But he
himself knew " of what spirit he was." Like the saintly Father
Faber, he was aware of the value of kindness in the Christian
life, and humbly recognizing his own powers of attractiveness and
thankfully accepting the gift from God, he determined of set
purpose to make use of it for God's glory. He has confessed
his predominant tendency to gentleness in words of the most
ingenuous humility : " I do not think there is in all the world
a soul more cordially, tenderly, and to speak quite openly
more lovingly fond than I am, and I think I even superabound
in love and in expressions of love." No one who knows St.
Francis of Sales, no one who has delighted in the encouraging
gospel of love that is the groundwork of the Introduction to
a Devout Life, or who has tasted the sweet savor of the
Spiritual Conferences, will deny that the saint's judgment of
himself is just, and no one would have him different.
NATURAL CHARACTER.
For we are sure that his gentleness was not weakness ; we
know him as the robust and zealous man of God, strong and
stern with himself. Reading his encouraging lines, we think of
him as pre-eminently the teacher of hope and confidence; yet
we remember that he himself had struggled through dark
1 90i.] A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. 767
temptations of despair for the cheeriness he was to impart to
others. Though he is full to overflowing with an almost
womanly tenderness of affection, we know to a certainty that
in him the masculine virtues were not wanting. We recall
how he showed marvellous strength of will, spiritual and phy-
sical courage, persistency of purpose, perfect steadfastness in
pursuing a difficult course of action during his famous mission
in the Chablais, and that thenceforth there was not for his
contemporary critics, as there cannot be for us, the slightest
suspicion of weakness or effeminacy in his character.
This enterprise in the Chablais is an instructive incident in
his life, illustrating the phase of his character we are consider,
ing, the synthesis of the gentle and the strong elements ; to
dwell a moment upon it may not be amiss. Perhaps it was
not until this missionary campaign against the citadel of Cal-
vinistic heresy that the severe test was made of the stamina
and sterling qualities of St. Francis ; and the truth is, that not
until he had achieved his success was his real strength made
manifest. He was but a young man, a priest of 'a few years'
standing, though already provost to the Bishop of Geneva ;
yet he volunteered to undertake the extreme dangers and re-
sponsibilities connected with an attempt to reclaim for Catholi-
cism a district whence the old religion had been swept away
with the slash of the sword, and in which Calvinism had en-
trenched itself behind a bigotry as blind and savage as any
the world has ever seen. Francis planned a campaign of earnest
and energetic activity, yet his tactics were none other than
kindness, charity, and honest persuasion. Like a confident and
self-reliant general, he pursued his plans steadily, unmindful
of the criticism of a host of advisers safely ensconced at home,
and of the fierce warfare of insults, threats, persecutions, and
actual physical violence that confronted him on the field. Al-
ways patient, always self-contained, always kindly and unre-
taliating, always superior alike to disdain, to neglect, and to
violence, in the end he triumphed so signally as to leave only
a handful of Calvinists where formerly there had been but a
handful of Catholics. And this energetic missionary was the man
who could sit down and write an exquisitely beautiful letter of
consolation to a friend in affliction, who could compose a little
volume on the spiritual life that has scarcely ever been equalled
for gentleness of tone, for sweetness of doctrine, for literary
finish ; who was capable of directing elect souls in the high paths
of mystic union with God. who above all was tender and affec-
tionate, who "superabounded in love and in expressions of love."
768 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
To us, then, the incident of the conversion of the Chablais is
important not so much as a piece of history, but as a demonstra-
tion of the solid groundwork of strength that underlay the
proverbial suavity of the sainted missionary. And there is the
summary of his character ; it is well balanced. If it is pleasing
in one phase, it is none the less admirable in another ; if the
exterior edifice of his virtue is graceful in outline and delight-
ful to look upon, the interior is none the less thoroughly and
staunchly constructed ; if the saint was gentle, it was because
of no natural softness of character, but because of an abiding
determination to practise mildness and meekness ; if he was
patient, it was not that he enjoyed immunity from discourage-
ment, or that he was insensible to stupidity and obstinacy, but
because he had schooled himself to self-control under pain and
insult ; if he was confident and persevering when confidence
seemed folly and perseverance seemed obstinacy, it was be-
cause he was no weakling, but a rock of courage ; and if,
above all, he grouped his virtues into one beautifully formed
company and made them do faithful service at the beck of
divine inspiration, it was because over and above all his virtue
grace was dominant, and, as he himself explained, though he
relied much on himself, he yet the more " hoped in God against
all human hope."
A SAINT FOR THE MODERN WORLD.
A man of that stamp is one to compel admiration in any
age, but there are special reasons for recommending St. Francis
of Sales to the modern world as a representative exponent of
the Catholic idea of sanctity. He is a modern saint in time
and in spirit. We venture this statement in the hope of not
being misunderstood. Strictly speaking, there can be no such
thing as " modern sanctity " ; but it can be true and is true
that there are varying types of sanctity, appealing differently
to the people; of varying times and countries. As the church
grows old with the world, she ever shows her unflagging
vitality by bringing forth opportune types, new models in the
concrete of her unchanging abstract principles. Her thesaurus
virtutum like her thesaurus satis jactionum is unfailing and
variously stocked. She is equally productive of the " Hebrais-
tic " and the " Hellenistic," the sterner and the milder types of
sanctity ; she is mother of both, but neither can claim to be
her favorite child. The austere Baptist in the wilderness is
hers, the gentle Evangelist in the crowded city is hers ; in
her calendars the rigorous Peter of Alcantara and John of
j 90i.] A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. 769
God are honored with the sweet-spirited Philip Neri and Vincent
de Paul, and Jerome, who dearly enjoyed the clash of contro-
versy, finds place beside the peace-loving Benedict ; to her
altars Loyola contributes the strenuous soldier, and Assisi the
gentle poet ; for the man of the world she proposes the ex-
ample of an Augustine, she recommends an Aloysius to the
novice in his convent. Ever resourceful, she spends her riches
lavishly but wisely in her business of the purchase of souls.
Are the times savage and bloody, the world overrun with
armies, Mars dominant in the Pantheon, she sends a Sebastian
into the camps and supplies the ranks of valor with a
"Thundering Legion"; is the military spirit decadent, and the
world aflame with the new fire of learning, she builds her
universities, stocks them with her brilliant youth, and develops
an Aquinas and a Bonaventure ; is the age on its knees before
culture, adoring refinement, worshipping civilization (and this
is our age), the church comes forth introducing a Francis of
Sales, scholar, doctor, author, prince of Christian gentlemen.
In all that the modern world holds good he was proficient.
A youth of pleasing parts, endowed with all the polite attain-
ments and all the gracious qualities that come with noble
training; a student of no mean abilities the peer, in fact, of the
best in the schools of Paris and Padua, wearing his academic
laurels upon a modest brow ; a doctor of civil and of canon
law at the age of twenty-four ; a priest, of sublime sacerdotal
purity ; an orator, if oratory be the power of moving the hearts
and souls of men ; a writer of classic excellence, worthy to be
named among the creators of modern French prose and
withal he was a marvellous worker, author of ninety distinct
works, a tireless correspondent, credited with " an immense
multitude of letters, of which one thousand remain," an ener-
getic and successful missionary, a bishop, a judge, an ad-
ministrator : he was, in brief, little short of a marvel of activity
and of virtue.
THE SAINTLY SIDE OF THE SAINT.
But to enumerate in this wise the qualities that made
Francis of Sales pleasing in the eyes of those who met him
face to face, is to say almost nothing of him, for it gives little
notion of the peculiar glory that is his as a saint, and it is as
a saint that he will be always known and honored. We have
limited ourselves to a consideration of his external qualities
simply to show that the biography of a saint may, in mere
historical interest, compete with the lives of the men of whom
770 A STUDY IN HAGIOLOGY. [Mar.,
the world never tires. But to show this is not to demonstrate
his sanctity, and, after all, it is sanctity we seek in the life of
a saint, it is sanctity that gives him his place in our esteem
and affection. And here is the secret of the deeper value of
sacred biography. We go to the lives of the saints not for
pleasure, or even for mere edification, but for comfort, consola-
tion, encouragement, guidance in the affairs of our inner lives.
Hardly do we arrive at the consciousness of our own spiritual
nature, when we become convinced that the exterior of a man
is but an insignificant part of his whole self. The unseen
realities are the truest. The smiling countenance, the light-
spoken word, the placid demeanor, our whole external contact
with men and women these are the unrealities of life, the
clever stage-play that conceals and often belies the real life
within us the life of the soul. For we come to realize that
the real battle-ground of life, whereon is fought the fight that
is no sham, is interior, hidden behind the veil of commonplace
daily actions. That conflict is ours and ours alone ; not even
our dearest friends may so much as know that we have a strug-
gle, yet it rages fiercely ; we may turn from it for a moment
and refresh our spirits with the distraction of social intercourse,
but we know that we must return to the solitude and toil again
alone. But we cannot remain entirely alone, we must not be
utterly unguided. It would be cruel indeed could we find no
story of struggle like ours, no word or hint of advice, no les-
son in spiritual tactics, no account of victories won to assure
us that victories are won and that we may win them.
Happily, in this our necessity we have the biographies of the
saints. Why not make use of them ? Why not develop a
familiarity with at least one of the saints? why not with St.
Francis of Sales? Cardinal Newman, we think it was, who said
that, with the exception of St. Joseph, he liked best to culti-
vate those saints of whom most information can be had. Now,
there is none whose whole life, interior and exterior, we can
know better than that of St. Francis of Sales. His own writ-
ings are abundant, and the works and essays concerning him
are many. But whether our tastes and ideals shall incline us
to him, or to St. Philip Neri, or to St. Vincent de Paul, or
to St. Francis of Assisi, or to St. Antony, or to whomsoever
we will of the sainted men and women of the church, at all
events we ought not to refuse our birthright by ignoring or
rejecting those priceless documents of our inheritance the
biographies of the saints of God.
MARY TO CHRIST ON THE CROSS. 771
TO H^ISHI ON THE (g)P?OSS.
BY NORA RYLMAN.
There stood by the Cross of fesus His Mother.
JON of my gladness,
Nailed to the Tree !
jSon, King, and Saviour,
Look upon me !
Lamb I have tended,
Dying forlorn :
Head I have pillowed,
Circled with thorn !
Jesus, Son Jesus,
Once, on my breast,
Angels all gladly
Sang Thee to rest !
/ saw Thy scourging,
Saw Thy lips pale :
'Neath Thy Cross, bearing,
Saw Thy limbs fail !
Son I have loved so
All through the years,
Steep was the hill-side,
Salt were my tears !
Through my heart, Jesus,
Passes the sword,
As the rude soldier
Pierces his Lord !
White are the holy
Lips I have kissed :
Lo, the Three Crosses
Loom through a mist !
Jesus, Son Jesus,
Nailed to the Tree,
Look on Thy Mother,
Look upon me !
Where is there anguish
Like unto mine ?
Where is compassion
Like unto Thine ?
AN OPENED TOMB WITH ALL THE SYMBOLIC PAINTINGS ON THE WALLS ABOUT.
SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATA-
COMBS.
BY RIGHT REV. MONSIGNOR CAMPBELL, D.D.
ANY ancient testimonies are extant to prove that
the burial of every member of the church was
always, both in times of persecution and in the
time of peace, accompanied by religious acts, the
prayers of the church, and the presence of the
priest. It was always regarded as one of the most tender and
precious duties of Christian affection, and we know with what
reverential care the bodies of the martyrs, each relic and drop
of their blood, were gathered from the arena where they fell, and
how the faithful exposed their own lives to collect it. The
poet Prudentius describes the eager crowd that pressed round
the body of the martyr Vincent, to dip linen napkins in his
blood, and carry them home as precious treasures. The body
was accompanied by the relations, and by their brethren in the
faith, to the chant of psalms and canticles, in procession with
tapers and torches " and great triumph," as we read of the
burial of St. Cyprian in Carthage, although the persecution
NOTE. For a previous article see THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE for November, 1900.
Elements (T Archlologie Chrttienne. Par Horace Marucchi. Vols. 2 Notions Genfe-
rales. Vol. II.: Les Catacombs Romaines. Desclee, Lefebvre & Cie, Editeurs, Paris.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. 773
raged ; the legislation and the Romans' respect for the dead
repressing their hatred of the living, and preventing its violent
manifestation. A similar pomp of triumph accompanied the
remains of St. Agnes from the Forum to her parents' villa on
the Nomentan Way. The " pious office of Deposition," or
burial, was performed in one of the chambers of the cemetery.
Before the body was laid in its niche the sacrifice " pro dormi-
tione," for repose, as St. Cyprian calls it, or an earlier witness,
Tertullian, " oblatio pro defunctis," the oblation for the de-
parted, was offered ; the body meanwhile resting before the
tomb it was to occupy. This is what St. Augustine tells us
was done at the funeral of his mother, Monica, "when the sac-
rifice of our Redemption was offered for her, with her body
laid out before her grave, according to custom." The immense
number of cubicula makes it probable that it was in them that
the oblations for the dead were offered on the day of deposi-
tion, on the third, the seventh, the thirtieth, and the anni-
versary day. These private offices were distinct from the solemn
synaxis, which was offered in the full assembly of the faithful,
in a church, or, in times of danger, in the larger chambers of
the catacombs. The body was then placed, without coffin of
any sort, in the grave, laid face upwards, with the hands com-
posed by the sides, wrapped in linen covered with a thin stratum
of lime, other linen and more lime. Flowers and green leaves
were scattered over it, the niche was closed, and aromatic
liquids sprinkled on the marble.
THE MO3T ANCIENT REPRESENTATION OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. CHRIST IS
THE ICHTHYS, OR FISH, UNDER THE APPEARANCE OF BREAD.
774 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar.,
EDICTS AGAINST ASSEMBLIES IN THE CATACOMBS.
In the second half of the third century edicts were multi-
plied against assemblies in the cemeteries. It was a cry of the
rabble, and began in Carthage : " Areae Christianorum non
sint " Down with cemeteries of the Christians! It soon found
an echo in Rome. Septimius Severus resisted the clamor for a
time, then yielded. But it was in 257 that Valerian first con-
fiscated them, and forbade them to be entered under penalty
of death. Notwithstanding these prohibitions the Christians
continued to penetrate into many parts of the subterranean
galleries, abandoning to the enemy the edifices constructed
above ground, demolishing the approaches and stairs, and
blocking the ordinary communications ; substituting other secret
entrances through caves and sand-pits, with strategical protec-
tions that can still be traced in the catacombs. Assemblies
held in such exceptional conditions required no special crypts
to be excavated and adapted as subterranean churches. Any
cave or recess was fit church for those of whom " the world
was not worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in
dens and caves of the earth." Still, some of the larger cubicula
present every feature of a small church, with its primitive
arrangement : the episcopal chair, seats for the presbyters, the
isolated altar, divisions to separate the men from the women,
vestibules for the penitents and catechumens. It was in one
of these chambers that Pope Sixtus II. was surprised in a
crowd of worshippers and beheaded in his chair, which was
long preserved with stains of his blood. Another time, on the
Salarian Way, a number of the faithful had gathered to pray
at the tomb of two recent martyrs, Chrysanthus and Daria,
when they were discovered by the pagans through a lucernare ;
the ways were blocked upon them, earth and stones were cast
down, and men and women, priests and children were crushed
and buried under the mass. The spot was rediscovered many
years after, and St. Gregory of Tours describes how, when the
stones and earth were removed, the skeletons were exposed in
various attitudes just as death had found them ; vessels of silver
and what was required for the service of the liturgy were scattered
about : all was left undisturbed, and the piety of Pope Damasus
enclosed the remains behind a grille, for the satisfaction of
devout curiosity, and chronicled the event in one of his metri-
cal epitaphs inscribed at the entrance.
1901.] INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. 775
A PERIOD OF PEACE.
But persecution came to an end. The sanguinary struggle
was followed by peace, and the Catacombs put on an air of
triumph. Crowds from all parts of the world came to venerate
the martyrs at their tombs. The crypts became too small for
the concourse, and
had to be enlarged.
_, . ,
New stairs made an
easier access. Basi-
licas came to be
erected over the
graves of the princi-
pal martyrs, without
displacing their bod-
ies, and so became
embedded in the
catacombs. Dama-
sus had a great share
in the transforma-
tion. Many of the
decorations, much
of the masonry, near-
ly all the festive in-
scriptions, fragments
of which remain,
were his work or the
work of his imme-
diate successor, Siri-
cius. It was in that
time of enthusiasm,
and revival of the
cult of the martyrs,
that St. Jerome, then
a school-boy, used to spend his holiday afternoons with classmates
wandering through the mazes of the cemeteries, as he tells us
himself. Shortly after, in the expression of the same writer,
the Empire of Rome was decapitated, and when a single city
was lost the whole world perished. Rome was taken by Alaric.
It was laid in ruins. The Goths broke into the cemeteries,
carrying away sacred relics, plundering treasures, destroying
the mosaics, and breaking the marble epitaphs into fragments.
The devastation was repeated when Vitiges, in the first decades
THE VENERATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN IS EVIDENT
FROM NUMEROUS PICTURES IN THE CATACOMBS.
776 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar.,
of the sixth century, led his hordes to the Eternal City. The
Christians of Rome now began to inter around the basilicas
which had been raised over the cemeteries, and even in the
city itself ; and the catacombs in their plundered state were
only visited by pilgrims. Attempts were made to repair the
injuries ; but the Queen of the World was now in penury, and
in the restorations conducted by Pope Vigilius no marbles were
at hand to replace the inscriptions of Damasus and Siricius,
and the Damasian verses were inscribed again in rude imita-
tive characters on the reverse of marble slabs that had fallen
from profane monuments in the ruined city. In 568 John III.
ordered celebrations to be resumed at the martyrs' tombs on
their anniversaries, at the cost of the Lateran Palace, a pre-
scription renewed in 735 by Gregory III.
BODIES WERE REMOVED.
The final storm was approaching : the Lombards under
Astolphus laid siege to Rome in 756. Then, with reluctance,
for it was against the traditional sentiment of the Roman
Church to remove the bodies of the martyrs from the place of
their original deposit, the popes decided to translate them to
comparative security within the city walls. . Paul I. was the
pioneer in this work. Stephen I. and Adrian I. strove in vain
to save the catacombs, and great operations were executed
without effectually protecting them. Paschal I., Sergius II.,
and Leo IV. were compelled to imitate Paul. In this way the
older city churches came to be filled with relics, and there is
no difficulty in understanding the statement, at first sight ex-
traordinary, which is read on an inscription in the Church of
St. Praxede, that on the twentieth of July, 827, Paschal I. caused
two thousand three hundred bodies taken from the catacombs
to be placed in its crypts. After this the cemeteries were
totally neglected. A few, in close proximity to the extramural
basilicas, continued for a time to be visited ; but gradually
most of these were also forgotten, and the only one of the
forty-six cemeteries which form the vast Christian Necropolis
that continued without interruption till the sixteenth century
to receive the visits of the pious or the curiou,s, was the ceme-
tery " ad catacumbas," the catacomb which gives its own name
to all the rest.
VIALS ON THE TOMBS.
Glass vessels of various kinds are sometimes found attached
to the outside of loculi and arcosolii. These gave rise to a
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. 777
strange hypothesis : that they contained consecrated wine, the
remains of the oblation. The intolerable abuse condemned by
certain local councils in Africa and Gaul, of giving the Euchar-
ist to the dead, had no connection with these supposed eucharis-
tic vessels. Those councils
of the Eucharist un-
der the species
of bread, that
was placed in
the graves
is impossibl
that in Rome,
where we know
how scrupu-
lously careful
the faithful
were to let not a
drop of the con-
secrated gift
fall to the
ground, such
an irreverence
could have been
tolerated. If
any of these
vessels have
been found containing sediment of wine, which is doubtful, it
must have been a relic of those ignorant devotees of the fourth
and fifth centuries, who thought to do honor to the martyrs by
sprinkling wine upon their tombs. The vessels of glass or terra
cotta found outside the tombs usually contained balsams, and
served for the aspersions at the time of burial, and are seldom
found in the portions of the cemeteries excavated during the per-
secutions. Of three hundred vials found in the catacomb of St.
Agnes, and the Ostian cemetery, almost all were collected in gal-
leries opened after the age of Constantine. But another set of
vials was often enclosed in the loculus with the body ; these con-
tained blood. The presence of these is considered a sure sign
of martyrdom. St. Ambrose, searching for the bodies of Sts.
Gervase and Protase, is decided by the discovery of the vial.
In the Roman catacombs vessels have been found with blood
still in a liquid state. One of these was kept in the Church of
r " vri| *f afcr V
GRAFFITI ON THE WALLS OF THE CATACOMBS RELATING
THE HISTORY OF THE MARTYRS.
778 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar,
St. Ignazio till last century. The liquid was ruddy and fresh.
It, unfortunately, fell from the hand of a distinguished visitor-
In 1872, in the cemetery of St. Saturninus in the Villa Poten-
ziani, purchased for King Victor Emmanuel, the workmen dig-
ging the foundations of a new building came upon the fifth
level of the catacomb, and discovered in one of the loculi,
which they barbarously destroyed, a glass vial about three in-
ches in diameter, full of a red fluid, which was subjected to
chemical analysis and proved to be blood. But the blood of
the martyrs, collected in sponges or linen cloths, was usually
taken home to be preserved ; precious heirlooms, as Prudentius
calls them.
INSCRIPTIONS ON THE GRAVES.
Most of the loculi are nameless, the greater number of the
epitaphs anterior to the peace were quite precarious in char-
acter and hastily executed ; there was no idea of handing down
a copious biography to be read after eighteen hundred years.
They contain mostly a simple name, an aspiration, a salute, a
farewell, In Peace. The day of deposition is often given, to
mark the anniversary, which had to be kept ; but very few of
the more ancient inscriptions give the year. It was impossible
to be anything but brief, when martyrs were dying as graves
were closing, and the fossors had not sealed their latest de-
posit when the roads were covered with the bearers of another.
Although the destruction of the church's records by Diocletian
has deprived us of the careful registers of the regionary dea-
cons, we know that at times the persecution was so fierce that
the number of those who suffered passed reckoning, and they
were buried in heaps in polyandra, or burned together. Sulpi-
cius Severus says that no war ever waged was so deadly as
this persecution, although no triumph ever equalled the tri-
umph of the Christians, who after ten years' slaughter were
still unconquered. In this great multitude there are few his-
toric names, and the graves of most are undistinguished by
any mark. Their register was the Book of Life, and the lost
Dyptichs from which their names were read to the assembly.
There was no distinction of rank in the catacombs. All mem-
bers of the Christian flock, from the pontiff to the last cleric,
the slave and the senator's lady, united in oneness of belief,
and expecting the same resurrection, rested in one common
cemetery. The only ambition was to be laid in death near to
those who had received the palm of martyrdom. Nothing was
1901.] INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. 779
THE BEAUTIFUL DECORATIONS ON THE WALLS OF THE CHAPELS.
allowed to stand in the way. Loculi were purchased "retro
sanctos," " inter sanctos," "ad sanctos," behind or at the side of
the martyrs, walls were broken down, mural paintings mutilated,
crypts deformed, in their anxiety to secure the coveted place.
Efforts seem to have been made to moderate this indiscreet
fervor, and a deacon had inscribed on his own tomb an admoni-
tion to strive rather to live after the model of the saints than
to be laid near them in death ; and the great admirer of the
martyrs, Pope Damasus, who carved his charming verses over
so many of their shrines, with all his love for them, contents
780 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar.,
himself with recording his longing, and his fear, in the follow-
ing beautiful lines :
" Hie, fateor, Damasus, volui mea condere membra,
Sed cineres timui sanctos vexare piorum."
THE FUNERAL AGAPE.
Another observance connected with the funeral rites of the
catacombs is the Agape, or feast of charity, that followed the
strictly religious function. It is known that the Agape, insti-
tuted in the time of the Apostles, was part of the Eucharistic
rite, and had no relation to funeral services. St. Paul con-
demned their abuse. The funeral agape was an expression and
an exercise of Christian charity for the weal of the deceased.
It consisted of a banquet given to widows and the poor, when
distributions or doles were made to the clergy, the indigent,
and the deserving. In certain respects they resembled the pa-
rentalia of the pagans, but differed in this : that only relatives
were asked to the parentalia, while poverty and the Christian
faith were the qualifications for the agape, without regard to
blood, and pagans, even if relations, were excluded. In the
fourth and fifth centuries abuses crept in, and St. Ambrose at
Milan was the first to forbid them, and soon they fell every-
where into disuse. The spirit of the agape still lingers in some
country places in Italy, and perhaps a trace of it is left in the
doles of our own country.
It may be asked, were the catacombs ever used as places of
assembly for religious rites not associated with the burial of
the dead ? We have the testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria
that in time of persecution every sort of place, a field, a desert,
a ship, a stable, a prison, served for religious meeting. And
long before him Justin the apologist wrote to a prefect of
Rome that Christians met in groups as they might, where and
when they could with safety. And Tertullian tells us that the
pagans well knew the days of their assemblies, and surprised
them in their concealment. He, rigid Montanist as he was, re-
proached Christians with bribing the inquisitive and the agents
of police to be allowed to hold their services in peace. There
is abundant testimony to show that when the Christians were
denounced by informers, or betrayed by apostates, and sought
to death, they did seek refuge sometimes in the darkness of
the sepulchral crypts, not only to celebrate the divine myste-
ries in the undisturbed silence of the night, but to put their
igoi.] INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. 781
own lives in safety. This gave occasion to some of the Gentile
calumnies against them, and to the opprobrium of being looked on
as a people that loved to hide in the dark "latibrosa et lucifugax
natio."
SEVEN CENTURIES OF ABANDONMENT.
From the ninth to the sixteenth century the cemeteries,
with the one exception, were entirely abandoned to the
weather. The neglected entrances were soon choked up and
forgotten. If some of the noblest entrances were still exposed,
seven hundred years stripped them of all that the barbarians
had left, and all knowledge of their purpose being lost, they
came to be used as cellars. Visitors from distant lands must
have now and then penetrated into some of the recesses, for
their names, written in charcoal with the dates 1433, 1451,
1473, 1483, were found in the cemetery of Callixtus. The
mysterious Academy, headed by Pomponius Leto, has also left
signs of its presence. A spark of interest was kindled in 1578
when accident laid bare a noble region of a cemetery on the
Salarian Way, with mural paintings and epitaphs and sar-
cophagi. Many went to see the place, then it was covered up
and forgotten. Anto-
nio Bosio was then an
infant, three years old.
A native of Malta, he
was brought to Rome
when a child, and placed
with an uncle who was
agent for the Knights.
At seventeen years of
age he made his first
descent into the cata-
combs. After laborious
preliminary study of
Latin, Greek, and the
Oriental Fathers, de-
crees of councils, his-
tory, legends, the
Schoolmen, and mar-
tyrologies, he devoted
thirty-six years to un-
tiring explorations. He found his way into each of the ceme-
teries, and his name, written by himself, may be read in their
galleries. The fruit of his life's labor, his Roma Sotterranea, was
VOL. LXXII. 51
A BRONZE MEDAL OF STS. PETER AND PAUL FOUND
IN THE CATACOMBS. PROBABLY THE MOST AN-
CIENT LIKENESS OF THE APOSTLES.
732 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE CATACOMBS. [Mar.,
not published
till after his
death, at the
expense of
Prince Aldo-
brandini. After
such a revival it
is singular that
apathy should
again follow.
But it was not
for long. In
1700 Fabretti
was appointed
to the office of
Custodian o f
the Catacombs,
and after him
Boldetti, whose
excavations for
thirty years re-
sulted in amass
of collections
torn from their
place without
any indication
of their origin, and deprived of nearly all historic value, so that
his book is a mine of perplexing curiosities, and his work in
the catacombs one of simple devastation and plunder.
Others with more or less success followed, till a new direc-
tion was given fifty years ago to the study by a return to
Bosio's system of classification and topography, which in the
master hand of De Rossi has shown that Christian archaeology
is not a barren speculation, or food only for the devout, but
is, like the archaeology of profane or classic antiquity, a scien-
tific study. Reconstituting its principles, co-ordinating topog-
raphy and epigraphy, sculpture and painting, he has created
criteria and canons that enable us to confirm, to elucidate, to
enrich, and even to create history by the help of marbles,
bronzes, wood, ivory, or crystal ; in a word, of monuments
irreffragable in their testimony, safe from the corruption to
which a written text is exposed, or the doubtfulness of a dis-
puted reading.
SYMBOLIC OF SCRIPTURAL SCENES.
1901.]
GOOD FRIDA Y.
783
600D
y>es, it is fair as otber daps are fair !
Wouen clouds and purple skp, tbe wind's soft lure,
Bird sons and murmuring stream ; all thins* conspire
Co shea a sweet enchantment on the air*
find pet mcsccms, a spirit of sadness broods
Cuer tbe eartD, tbe shadow of a tear,
this burdened sprap dotD bear its burning tear,
.flnd in mp heart an ancient grief intrudes.
Percbance 'twas sucb a dap as tbis, wben Be
Tor utter oue toiled up tbat Wap, to gain
Releasement for our souls from bonds of sin.
Pea, sucb a dap all wrapt in ardent revelrp,
till tbe great heart of nature beaded witb pain,
rtnd built itself a tomb to sorrow in !
784 THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mar.,
THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS.
BY F. MACBENNETT.
'HIGH of the Bahama Islands deserves the title
of being the place of landing where Columbus
first went ashore is a question which has been for
many years diligently studied, but with results
not at all satisfactory either to the investigators
themselves or to the students of history. Great enthusiasm
was stirred up for the four-hundredth anniversary of that mem-
orable event, and a considerable amount of interesting and
useful literature (with not a little silly stuff) was produced both
here and abroad, with a view to penetrating the obscurity
which three centuries of official neglect had allowed to gather
around the history of Columbus. A strange fate seemed to
have pursued him during life and to have raised clouds over
his memory ; and even the whereabouts of his remains is still
uncertain. That the precise island on which he first set foot
in the New World should, after the lapse of centuries, yet re-
main unidentified was extraordinary ; and the eminent critic as
well as accomplished historian, M. Henri Harrisse, styles it a
" curious problem which will, for yet a long time, exercise the
sagacity of critics and historians."
THE LOG OF PONCE DE LEON.
What seems strange is that in all but one of the investiga-
tions so little heed was given to an entry in the log of Juan
Ponce de Leon's famous voyage in search of the ' Fountain
of Youth," which resulted in the discovery of Florida on Easter
Sunday, 1513. It is that "on March 14 they arrived at Gua-
nahani, which is in 25 40', where they refitted a vessel pre-
paratory to traversing the Windward Gulf of the Lucay Islands.
This island, Guanahani, was the first which the Admiral Chris-
topher Columbus discovered, and where on his first voyage he
went ashore, and which he called San Salvador." Com. Mac-
kenzie, who traced the course of the great discoverer across
the Atlantic Ocean for. Washington Irving's Life and Voyages
of Christopher Columbus, in referring to this statement, throws
a slur on the accuracy of the latitudes given in the chronicles
1901.] THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS.
85
Sketch-Map of the Bahama Islands
of that time. This is no doubt well deserved in many instances;
but the inaccuracies are very often due to the carelessness of
the chroniclers themselves, and perhaps to that of copyists as
well. In this case Com. Mackenzie makes so high a latitude as
25 40' N. find no land until it reaches the Berry Islands thus
passing right by Northern Eleuthera, where Bridge Point stands
in 25 35' N., about five miles away. But a means is left to
show that Juan Ponce de Leon must have been close to the
latitude he mentions, 25 40' N. The run to his second an-
chorage at Caicos Island, 275 nautical miles from Aguada in
Puerto Rico, his point of departure, was made in about four
days making a fair allowance for his stop at that uninviting
spot " The Old Man's Island " (which was doubtless one of the
Turk Islands) ; but the party needed some rest, and were fur-
ther, no doubt, inquiring the whereabouts of the " Fountain of
Youth." Juan Ponce de Leon thus made the small average of
abDut 69 knots a day, or 2 7-8 knots an hour. This is easily
786 THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mar.,.
accounted for by the pleasure seeking character of himself
and his boon companions ; and the probability is that this low
speed was subsequently increased to about 3^ knots, or 84
knots a day, and Juan Ponce de Leon must now have become
anxious to reach the "Fountain of Youth" as speedily as pos-
sible, so that his next two anchorages before Guanahani were
likely of short duration. From the Qth to the i4th (when he
reached that island) are five days ; and, deducting a half day
for the two anchorages, there remain four and a half days, in
which he should have covered about 378 nautical miles. This
would bring him to 25 34' 17" N. On starting he had headed
N. W. by N. to clear the land, but must soon have changed to-
N. W. in order to touch at the Turk and Caicos Islands, steer-
ing afterwards N. W. 5-8 W. to range the chain of islands
along the eastern edge of the Great Bahama Bank. A steady
N. W. by N. course would have carried him away from land
Doubling the north point of Eleuthera Island (for there is no
safe place to refit on its eastern shore), he anchored off its
western side, whence a straight course N. W., up the Provi-
dence Channel, lay right open to him into the Florida Gulf.
And, indeed, in that direction he says he resumed his voyage.
The Bimint Islands, on which the " Fountain of Youth " was
thought by this rich old politician to be located, are on
the N.W. corner of the Great Bahama Bank, at the outlet of
the Providence Channel into the Florida Gulf. But he was
carried past them, whether through the connivance of his pilots
and pleasure-bent courtiers, or through the action of the winds
and currents, will never be found out. But the entry in his
log that the island where Columbus first landed was in 25 40'
N. is sufficiently close to exactness to warrant the conclusion
that Northern Eleuthera was the scene of the memorable
event of October 12, 1492. This conclusion gains additional
support from a plotting of the Great Discoverer's own log or
journal.
COLUMBUS'S LEAGUE.
Before attempting this, however, the exact length of his
league must be determined. The historian Oviedo, who was
acquainted with Columbus and intimate with all of the naviga-
tors who frequented the West Indies, gives several distances in
the Spanish marine league of the period, which help with the
aid of our modern charts to determine the length of the league
referred to. He states that from Ferro Island, in the Canaries,
1901.] THE TRUE LANDING PLACE CF COLVMBVS. 787
to Cape Bojador, on the African coast, was accounted sixty-
five leagues. With a fair allowance for offing, that is the dis-
tance according to present charts. He puts the distance
between Cape San Antonio (Cuba) and Cape Catoche (Yuca-
tan) at forty leagues, which is correct ; and across the mouth
of the Laguna de Terminos (Bay of Campeche) he makes ten
leagues, which is exactly what the Admiralty charts make the
distance. Hence this valuation of three nautical miles to the
league is the one taken in the present reckoning.
THE LOG OR JOURNAL.
Starting, then, from Gomera, in 28 o' o" N. and 17 8'
20" W., on the morning of September 6, 1492, he learned from
a caravel coming in from Ferro Island that three Portuguese
caravels were hovering around there to intercept him. This
he thought was due to resentment on the part of their king
because he had given his services to the sovereigns of Castile.
That day and night he was becalmed ; and next morning he
found that he was yet between Gomera and Tenerife Islands.
All day Friday (Sept. 7) and up to three hours of the night
on Saturday he lay becalmed. At length, about 9 P. M., a
breeze sprang up from N. E., and he shaped his course west-
ward. He met a head sea which bothered him. That day and
night he logged nine leagues, or twenty-seven knots. The
next day, which was Sunday, he ran nineteen leagues ; but
made up his mind to report less than he made, in future, so
that if the voyage should prove long his crews and company
might not get alarmed and become dismayed. During the
night the run was thirty leagues, or one hundred and forty-
seven knots. This day he found fault with the helmsmen for
falling off on the N. E. and even a half point beyond, concern-
ing which he frequently scolded them. The record from now
till the I3th is simply entries of the runs, except that on Tues-
day they fell in with a big piece of mast, which they failed to
secure. It had belonged to a vessel of about one hundred and
twenty tons. On the I3th Columbus reported the currents
against him ; and at nightfall he noticed that the compasses
north wested, and in the morning still somewhat. The squadron
was then in about 28 40' 59" W. by 28 o' o" N. Several
birds were seen on the succeeding days; while from the 161 h
on, the breezes were very mild and the mornings very pleasant ;
and the Admiral states that all that was lacking were the
nightingales, the weather being like that of April in Andalusia.
788 THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mar.,
On that day they also began to meet patches of grass, which
made them suspect that some island was near, but Columbus
held that the mainland was further on. On the i/th the
pilots found the compasses north-westing again a full point, and
the crews began to fret and seemed worried, but did not say
about what. Columbus knew this, and ordered the pilots to
take another observation at daylight, and they found the com-
passes all right. He explained that it appeared the North Star
changed its position, and not the needles. He was at this
time in 36 22' 41" W. by 28 o' o" N. The crews found the
sea water less salty than since they had left the Canaries, and
the temperature always more agreeable. All hands were more
joyful, and each vessel did its best to be in the advance to
first sight land. Columbus noted that all the signs came from
the W., adding, " where I trust in that High God, in whose
hand rest all victories, He will soon give us land." On the
l8th Martin Alonzo Pinzon, of the Pinta, which was a great
sailer, reported that he had seen a great multitude of birds
going westward; and that he hoped that night to sight land,
and for this purpose he kept so much ahead. The appearance
of birds became frequent, and light rains were occasional; all
of which were looked upon as indicating the nearness of land.
But Columbus did not wish to lose time beating about to
locate it ; yet he felt certain that north and south of him
there were islands, but he was determined to follow on to the
Indies, adding, " The weather is good, for, please God, at the
end all will be plain."
O.i this date the Nina reported 440 leagues from the
Canary Islands ; the Pinta, 420, and the vessel on which
the Admiral sailed, 400. In the present reckoning the log of
the Pinta is taken as the correct one, for the reasons to be
given at October i.
Up to this date the little squadron had covered 420 leagues,
or 1,260 knots, and its position was in 40 54' 17" W. by 28
o' o" N.
On the 20th an albatross came from W. N. W. flying S. E.,
which they regarded as a sign that it was leaving land at
W. N. W., for these birds sleep ashore and in the morning fly
to sea in search of food, but do not go farther out than
twenty leagues, they were told. On this day they went W. by
N. 22^ knots, which brought them to 41 19' 14" W. by 28
4' 22" N.
On the 2ist they sav a while; showing that they were
1 90 1.] THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. 789
near land, the log states, for they always swim near to it.
Course W., 39 k., to 42 4' 23" W. by 28 4' 22" N.
On the 22d they had headwinds; and Columbus states that
this was very necessary for him to have, " for my people were
getting very excited because they thought that there were no
winds on these seas that would carry us back to Spain." No
grass, but later it became very thick. Course W. N. W., Qok.,
to 43 38' 31" W. by 28 38' 55" N.
September 23 they saw a turtle and birds, and much grass.
The company murmured at the smooth sea and calm weather,
because it would never blow hard enough there to get back to
Spain. Subsequently the sea rose without any wind, which as-
tonished them. Columbus states that that high sea was neces-
sary for him : " it had not been witnessed save in the days of
the Jews when they came out of Egypt, against Moses, who
was taking them out of captivity." Course N. W., 66k., to 44
3(' 37" W. by 29 25' 46" N.
On the 24th they made 43>^k. W. to 45 21' 28". W. by
29 25' 46" N.
September 25 Columbus and Martin Alonzo Pinzon had a
long talk about a chart which he had sent the captain three
days before, on which it appears were marked out certain
islands in that part of the ocean. Pinzon agreed that they
were in that neighborhood ; but seeing that they had not
come up with them, the cause must have been the currents,
which were always carrying the vessels towards N. E.; and
Columbus added that they had not gone as far as the pilots
stated ; and while on this subject he told the captain to send
back the chart. When Columbus received it, he and his crew
and pilots began to make measurements with a piece of twine.
FALSE REPORTS OF LAND.
At sundown Martin Alonzo Pinzon went up on the bow of
his vessel, and with great glee calling the Admiral, asked his
congratulations, as he saw land ; and when the Admiral heard
him, he states that he fell on his knees to thank the Lord ;
and Pinzon shouted " Gloria in Excelsis Deo," in which he was
joined by his people. Those of the Admiral's ship did the
same ; and on the Nina they ran aloft and into the rigging,
all swearing that there was the land ; and so it seemed to the
Admiral, and about twenty-five leagues off. They all kept
affirming so until night fell. Columbus reported the run as
only 13 leagues, instead of the 21 actually made. He says he
79O THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mar.,
did this so that the distance should not appear long. To this
end he kept two records, a smaller one which was fictitious,
and a correct one. The sea was so smooth that the sailors
took a swim. Courses: W., 13^ k., to 45 36' 56" W. by 29
25' 46" N.; and S.W., 5ik. f to 46 18' 2" W. by 28 49' 32" N.
September 26 they made W., 48 k., to 47 12' 45" W. by
28 49' 32" N. ; and S. W., 45 k., to 47 48' 52" W. by 28*
17' 37" N.
Weather reported delightful and the sea smooth, and much
grass. On the 3Oth a note is appended to the effect that the
stars which are called " Pointers " (guardias) when night falls
are close to the arm of the cross-staff to westward ; and when
morning breaks, they are on the left beneath the arm and to
the N. E. ; so that it appears that during the night they da
not advance more than three lines, which are nine hours : and
this every night. Las Casas adds that " this is what the Ad-
miral states here." Likewise the needles go N. W. a point,
and at daybreak they are exactly with the Pole Star, for which
reason it appears that the star moves like the other stars, and
the needles always seek their true position.
Columbus was an adept at manipulating compass cards. He
was a man of wonderful resources, a keen observer of men and
things, of great courage, ever ready to meet and master the
most adverse surroundings. His knowledge of human nature
was such that few men, if any man ever did, standing almost
alone with a crew and company like his, in so perilous a situa-
tion, came out, not merely alive but a great hero. It is re-
corded that on one occasion when ordered to Tunis with a
small force to attack a superior one, his men mutinied and
wanted to go to Marseilles for reinforcements. Columbus
apparently acquiesced ; but, by altering the compass cards, he
so deceived them as to arrive off Tunis instead of Marseilles,
and going into action proved victorious. As it is apparent
that on this voyage he fixed the cards, and sailed wholly by
compass and the Star, no variation is here reckoned.
THE TWO RECORDS.
On the ist of October the pilot of the Santa Maria ex-
pressed his fears that they had now gone from the Island of
Ferro 578 leagues to the W. The shorter record which the
Admiral showed the crew footed up 584 leagues ; but the true
reckoning which the Admiral made and kept for himself, states
Las Casas, was 707. The log, however, foots up 680^ leagues
1901.] THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. 791
thus far. This discrepancy may have been due to confusion
originating in his efforts to quiet the crews and company with
him. The journal or log, up to September 19, conforms with
the record of the Nina, which was higher than that of the
Pinta, Martin Alonzo Pinzon's vessel, and still higher than that
of the flagship. Possibly the present large reckoning of the
Admiral is due to a similar conformity all along from Sep.
tember 19, and was finally corrected to the figures given in
the journal since that date to accord with the log of the
Pinta, whose captain and pilot were evidently considered by
Columbus to be the ablest in the squadron. The interview
here related with the pilot of the flagship shows that Colum-
bus did not take that gentleman into his confidence on the
subject of the distances run. As to the pilot of the Nina,
there is no indication of his standing with his captain, Vicente
Yaflez Pinzon. But the pilot of the Pinta, Francisco Martinet
Pinzon, was the youngest brother of the captain, and without
doubt had the assistance and supervision of that celebrated
navigator.
The entry of 60 leagues on September 10, made in Roman
numerals (as all such entries were), lends itself to the easy
making of a mistake in copying or in footing up : XL and
LX on the correct record, and XLVIII with XXVIII on the
fictitious one. And, that some such error may be suspected
arising from ill formed characters is suggested by what Las
Casas states under date of October 8 where he says that "at
times during the night it seems they made fifteen miles an
hour if the letter [numeral] does not lie (si la letra no es-
mentirosa)" Then, again, on September 10 (two days out) the
entry thus reports the longest run of this first stretch to the
W., making the daily average 36.6 leagues. The day before
Columbus had been complaining of the bad work of his helms-
men, and on the I3th that the currents had been against him.
On the 1 7th and i8th he covered respectively 50 and 55
leagues, stating that on the former date the current favored
him and on the latter he had a placid sea. These entries
seem to warrant the suspicion that the record of 60 leagues on
September 10 is an error for 40. The other long records of
the voyage, those of the 4th, 5th, and loth of October, were
made in very smooth sea and delightful breezes, as the journal
there states. For these reasons the reckoning of the Pinta is
here taken to be the correct one.
On October 2 the patches of sea-weed were coming from the
792 THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. [Mar.,
E., contrary to their usual course. The sea and weather were so
fair that the Admiral records his thanks to the Almighty.
On the night of the 6th Martin Alonzo Pinzon said it
would be well to steer W. S. W. ; but it seemed to the Admiral
that Martin Alonzo in making this remark did not have in
view the reaching of Cipango, for the Admiral felt that if they
missed that they might not be able to reach the land ; it was
better to go at once for the mainland and afterwards for the
islands. There was now great rivalry to get ahead, the Nina
being the lightest and generally leading. She fired a gun, as
the Admiral had ordered to be done when land were sighted.
The vessels were also to gather around him at sunrise and
sunset every day, Columbus stating thit those hours were the
most favorable for the vapors of the atmosphere to afford a
more extended view. As by the afternoon they had not
descried the land which the Nina had reported, and because
of a great multitude of birds flying from N. to S. W., going
ashore to roost, as he thought, or fleeing from the approach
of winter, and because he knew that most of the islands pos-
sessed by the Portuguese had been discovered by them through
birds for these reasons he consented to quit his course to W.
and head W. S. W., determined to keep that course for two
days. He began to sail in that direction before the sun had
set an hour. From September 26 to the evening of October 7
the squadron had covered due W. 1,110 k., and was in 68 48'
30" W. by 28 17' 37" N.
Had Columbus still failed to heed the suggestion of Martin
Alonzo Pinzon he would have fetched up off the Florida coast,
if not carried N. E. by the Gulf Stream. Several years later
that current carried off one of Juan Ponce de Leon's vessels,
never more to be heard from. He had a better equipped and
stronger squadron than Columbus, and crews not fatigued from
a month's voyage. Had the Admiral succeeded in landing his
small company anywhere on that part of the coast, the fierce
tribes that inhabited it would have given him a far different
reception from that accorded him by the gentle natives of the
Bihannas. Juan Ponce de Leon lost his life in a bittle with
them, and his survivors were glad to get back whence they
had come. Had Columbus, with his small party and poor
caravels, reached Florida, the world would most likely never
have known his fate.
The first run, at night October 7. on the new course*
W. S. W., was 15 k., to 69 4' 13" W. by 28 11' 51" N.
190 r.j THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. 793
Monday, 8th, the journal states that it seems they ran 15
miles [about n^ knots] an hour, but adds : -'if the letter does
not lie"; that is, the Roman numeral in the log. And they
covered on that date 34^ k. W. S. W. to 69 40' 17" W. by
27 58' 36" N. Next day they made 15 k. to S. W., which put
them in 69 52' 13" W. by 27 47' 55" N., from which posi-
tion they ran W. by N. 18 k. to 70 12' 8" W. by 27 51' 5"
N., turning to W. S. W. for 61^ k., which brought them into
71 1 6' 6" W. by 27 27' 27" N.
Wednesday, the loth, at 7^ knots an hour and sometimes
9, at other' times 5^, the day and night footed up 177 knots
W. S. W., leaving them in 74 18' 26" W. by 26 19' 25" N.
The crews and company could no longer stand the suspense,
and complained of the long voyage ; but Columbus encouraged
them, arousing hopes of profit, adding that they were com-
plaining too much, for he had come out for the purpose of
reaching the Indies and had to keep on until he should find
them with the aid of our Lord. The confidence and firmness
of the Admiral on this occasion were sublime.
SIGHTING LAND.
Thursday, the nth, the course still W. S. W., they covered
81 k. by sunset, when they were in 75 41' 32" W. by 25 48'
17" N., and where they met various indications of the near-
ness of land, in the shape of cane-stalks ; sticks, one of which
appeared to have been wrought with iron tools ; birds came
close to the vessels; shore grass, and a piece of plank. After
sunset Columbus resumed his original course due W. at about
9 knots an hour, and up to two hours past midnight made
about 67^ knots when the Pinta, the best sailer, sighted from
the N. the Paps, two hills on Royal Island, at 2 A. M. Friday,
October 12, 1492, about two leagues distant.
Columbus said that at ten o'clock the night before he had
seen a light, as if a candle were being raised and lowered, and
in this he was confirmed by his immediate companions; but his
position at that hour was too far from lard the lowest kind
at that to have seen any light there, at a distance of over
thirty nautical miles. Even a torch signal, common among the
Indians of that archipelago, could hardly have been seen under
the circumstances ; and the probability is that whatever light he
saw was either a light of one of his own vessels, bobbing up
and down, or of an Indian canoe. If he saw it on either
hand, it must have been the latter ; if ahead, the former. The
791 THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OP COLUMBUS. [Mar.,
journal throws no light on this point. When land was sighted
he ordered the squadron to heave to and stan-d off and on
until daylight, a period of some four hours. He was now in the
GDlfo de Barlovento spoken of by Juan Ponce de Leon in his
entry of March 14, 1513, and which is known now as the
Providence Channel. It sets to S W. with a drift varying
from one and a half to four knots an hour as it sweeps around
the elbow at the lower end of Egg Reef, where it forms a
bight between Charles, George, Royal and the Egg Islands
(in front of which this Egg Reef forms a very dangerous
barrier), and Northern Eleuthera. He had been carried S. W.
by this current from the night before; and below the elbow of
Egg Reef it sets strongly on to the Bank. Now, standing on
and off in it for four hours or more, under shortened sail, he
found himself at daylight off the position marked on the map
as his probable anchorage October 12, 1492.
Columbus's straight run of 67*^ k. W. should have carried
him to 76 59' 28" W. by 25 48' 17" N. were it not for the
S. W. set and heavy drift of the current on his light draught
vessels, steadily bending his course south westward.
Toward the close of the rainy season (latter part of Octo-
ber, for the true date of his landfall was the 2ist) Northern
Eleuthera presented the water-logged aspect which Columbus
describes, as a glance at the chart will show ; it is the most
luxuriant and beautiful of the archipelago, and would natur-
ally be one of the most populous ; its form is triangular, of
about ten geographical miles to a side, the eastern one stretch-
ing S. E and S. some thirty-odd miles in a narrow strip like a
pea. These peculiarities led to its subsequent designation as
the "Triango" and the " Triangula," as well as to Las Casas*
statement that Guanahani was pea-shaped.
On Sunday Columbus started in a N. N. E. direction on the
inside of the peninsula where he was anchored to have a look
at that pea shaped portion which lay to the eastward of his
present position, and to see the settlements along shore.
The Indians hailed him to land, but the reefs close to the
shore all along were too dangerous for that. After having
become satisfied that this region was not the mainland, as
Fernando Columbus states, he turned back to resume his
westward journey. Before doing this he wished to lay out a
fortress: he had noticed a strip of land like an island, though
not one, but which in two days could be cut off so as to form
one, and on which he found six habitations. This strip of
1901.] THE TRUE LANDING-PLACE OF COLUMBUS.
795
.-- No p*<pt;bU ti'de m .
. , v
WHERE COLUMBUS ANCHORED, OCTOBER 12, 1492.
land was where he had landed, the present Current Island
with Current Cut the latter a very narrow pass between the
little peninsular strip and Northern Eleuthera. He had also
examined and sounded to some extent the great expanse
which he saw beyond the Bight of Eleuthera, whose entrance
is the narrow Fleeming Channel "large enough to hold all
the vessels of Christendom." The chart will show the charac-
ter of this " hondo " in which the water is " as still as in a
well " (Es verdad que dentro de esta cinta hay algunas bajas
mas la mar no se mueve mas que dentro de un pozo). And the
chart shows that in the Bight of Eleuthera there is a wide
"hondo," or "pot," with soundings ranging from fifteen to
thirty feet, and that there is no perceptible tide. From Cur-
rent peninsula he could see many islands, and determined to
seek those S. of him.
796 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. [Mar.,
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY.
BY REV. JAMES J. FOX, D.D.
WELL-KNOWN historian once expressed his re-
gret that more of the correspondence of private in-
dividuals is not available for the study of the past.
The future historian who will turn his attention
to the doings of our generation will have no rea-
son to make a similar lament. Every day the press sends
forth a fresh batch of biographies and autobiographies crammed
with the letters of celebrities or nobodies, reflecting the char-
acteristics, customs, habits, aims, tastes, fashions, and foibles of
contemporary life in every stage of society. Few of these vol-
umes will prove to have a more permanent interest than the re-
cently published Biography of Thomas Henry Huxley, in which
is recorded the origin and progress of the most remarkable
movement in modern thought.
Born in 1825, near London, Huxley received but little edu-
cation ; yet his own statement, that he was " kicked out into
the world, without guide or training, or with worse than none,"
is somewhat exaggerated. In 1846 he entered the British navy
as assistant surgeon. He spent four years abroad, engaged
chiefly in scientific research in natural history and zoology.
On his return to England he had already attracted notice in
the scientific world, through some papers which he had con-
tributed to the various journals. After a period of hesitation
as to his future course he finally devoted himself to science.
It was after the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species,
in 1859, that Huxley stepped into prominence as the most
ardent and aggressive champion of the Evolution theory. In
1860 took place the famous Oxford meeting, in which the
friends and foes of Darwinism met for the purpose of discuss-
ing it. The most distinguished of the clerical party was
William Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, a man of culture and
great ability as a speaker. His scientific knowledge, however,
was neither extensive nor accurate. Towards the end of his
speech he addressed some flippant personalities to Huxley.
The latter saw his opponent's blunder, and when his own turn
to speak came retorted fiercely and effectively.
1 90i.] THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 797
RECOGNIZED ADVOCATE OF EVOLUTION.
The result was that Huxley became at once the recognized
advocate and defender of Evolution. Henceforward his role
was, to use his own words, to be " Darwin's bull-dog " and
"gladiator-general" for science. His celebrity . is principally
due not to his scientific work, but to the voluminous con-
troversial literature in which he undertook to promote the
acceptance of the Evolution doctrine, and to discredit all
philosophical and religious convictions which clashed with the
new gospel. His scientific attainments, certainly, conferred upon
him, in the eyes of the public, an authority which he would
not otherwise have possessed. But it was usually upon ques-
tions of Metaphysics, Ethics, and Religion that he crossed
swords with his opponents in the polemical arena. He knew,
and was honest enough to admit, that upon the most funda-
mental questions over which he was in conflict with orthodoxy
the existence of God, free-will, the immortality of the soul
physical science has nothing whatever to say. One of his ex-
plicit declarations on this subject is worth keeping in mind-:
" If the belief in a God is essential to morality, physical science
offers no obstacle thereto ; if the belief in immortality is es-
sential to morality, physical science has no more to say against
the probability of that doctrine than the most ordinary ex-
perience has, and it effectually closes the mouths of those who
pretend to refute it by objections deduced from merely physi-
cal data."* What an eloquent commentary this admission
supplies on the perpetual cry of superficial popularizers that
Science has demolished the foundations of religious belief !
Giving all due consideration to the scientific side of Huxley's
intellect, there is in his life-record and in the character of his
writings very solid grounds for maintaining that Huxley's natural
bent was towards metaphysical speculation, at least as much
as towards Natural Science. Even in his boyhood he perplexed
himself over such problems as what would become of things,
if their qualities were taken away. At an early age he became
familiar with Sir William Hamilton's Logic. In 1861 his friend,
Sir John Hooker, advised him to devote himself to pure
science and let metaphysics and modes of thought alone.
Had he followed this advice, it is safe to say that, though
he would probably have attained a much higher rank in
science than he reached, he never would have acquired the
* Collected Essays, p. 144, ed. Appleton, 1894.
VOL. LXXII. 52
798 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. [Mar.,
unhappy celebrity which came to him as the persistent foe,
not alone of Christianity but even of natural religion. His
most vigorous efforts were put forth, not in the realm of scien-
tific knowledge but in iconoclastic polemics. It was to his
abilities as a writer and a dialectician that he chiefly owed his
prestige.
AN ABLE POLEMICAL WRITER.
Though admiration of his abilities must be mingled with
condemnation of the immoral use which he made of his bril-
liant gifts, one cannot read his works without recognizing his
powers of exposition, his clear, terse, and vigorous style. These
qualities, together with a quick eye for any tactical blunder of
an opponent, made him a formidable foe, and enabled him,
Belial-like, to make " the worse appear the better reason." One
of the best examples of the unerring sweep with which he fell
upon a blunder and turned the tables upon an adversary, irre-
spective of the merits of the real question at issue, is found in
his criticism of Mivart's Genesis of Species. Mivart asserted that
Catholic theologians had long ago advanced views of creation
which anticipate the broad lines of the Evolution theory. In
proof of his statement he offered apposite citations from St.
Augustine and St. Thomas. But instead of resting his case
here, he wished to have the authority of Suarez too behind him.
Unfortunately for him, the passage which he brought forward
from Suarez did not bear on the subject, though there was
some semblance of relevancy in the phraseology. Huxley con-
sulted Suarez, and at once perceived that Mivart had blundered.
In an article published in the Contemporary he showed the true
meaning of the passage. Besides, he produced from the work
in which Suarez treats ex professo of creation other passages in
which the learned Jesuit rejects the opinion of St. Augustine,
and intimates that only respect for St. Augustine restrained
St. Thomas from rejecting it too. Thus Huxley " refuted
Mivart out of the mouth of his own prophet." The concise-
ness and clearness with which Huxley pointed out the true
gist of the passage cited by Mivart is no bad index of his
acumen.
HE WAS A TYPICAL AGNOSTIC.
By all who reprobated Huxley's tenets he was esteemed an
iconoclast. To this designation his biographer demurs. With-
out discussing whether he can be justly accused of iconoclasm
190 1.] THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 799
with regard to the ranged conditions of civil society, there is
no doubt but that the term iconoclast may be applied with full
force to him as far as his position towards philosophy and
religion is concerned. He endorsed the estimate of philosophy
made by Kant : " The sole use of all philosophy of pure rea-
son is after all merely negative, since it serves not as an organ-
on for the enlargement of knowledge, but as a discipline for
its delimitation, and instead of discovering truth has only the
modest merit of preventing error." Towards the end of his
life, when replying to the reproach that his work had been
destructive, he acknowledges the charge.*
His vaunted Agnosticism is nothing but the thesis that on
the great problems which in every age have occupied the
human mind and the human heart nothing can be known.
His naturally sceptical bias was strengthened by reading Man-
sel and Hamilton. The former, as Huxley saw clearly, de-
fended natural and supernatural religion after a fashion which
resembled the proceedings of the man in Hogarth's picture,
who is up a tree industriously sawing off the branch on which
he is astride. The turn of mind which the reading of Mansel
promoted Hume developed and fixed. Huxley's sympathies
were ever with the leveller, never with the builder. " I be-
lieve," he writes, "in Hamilton, Mansel, and Herbert Spencer
so long as they are destructive, and I laugh at their beards as
soon as they try to spin their own cobwebs." f This bent of
Huxley's mind was, no doubt, intensified by his training in
natural science, which led him in all matters of inquiry to look
for the same kind of demonstration as is to be found in scien-
tific proof. When Mr. Lilly accused him of putting aside as
unverifiable everything beyond the bounds of physical science,
he easily refuted the charge. But, at the same time, he de-
clared his belief that the methods of physical science are the
only ones capable of reaching truth. Elsewhere he wrote with
reference to the immortality of the soul : " I know what I
mean when I say I believe in the law of the inverse squares,
and I will not rest my life and my hopes upon weaker con-
victions. I dare not if I would." \ To assume this position
towards metaphysical evidence, and the evidence drawn from
our moral nature, is to reject it a priori. And the unreasona-
ble demand that all demonstration must conform to that de-
ducible from scientific observation and experiment in the
physical world is largely responsible for Huxley's Agnosticism.
* Life, vol. ii. p. 319. ^ Ibid,, i. p. 262. J7&., p. 234,
8oo THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. [Mar.,
II.
HUXLEY AS A MAN.
As Huxley's philosophical and religious opinions were so
well known during his life-time, few will .look through his
Biography for further light on that subject. The reader's in-
terest will be rather centred upon Huxley the man. And
probably those who reprobate his doctrine will be on the look-
out for anything that might indicate a contradiction between
his innermost feelings or convictions and his professed belief.
If there can be detected any evidence to convict him of con-
scious intellectual dishonesty, it is too microscopic to be worthy
of notice. And fairness demands the recognition of his many
good qualities of heart as well as of mind. The domestic life
of his father and mother, Mr. Huxley tells us and the corre-
spondence bears out his assertion was " a supreme example of
sincerity and devotion." He was frank and honorable in all
his dealings. Throughout his life, says his biographer, he dis-
played " a proud spirit of independence, intolerant of patron-
age, careless of worldly honors, indifferent to the accumulation
of wealth." That a man whose conduct deserves this praise
should have risen from humble beginnings to the position
which Huxley attained in English public life affords strong
proof that, apart from his religious, or rather irreligious, prin-
ciples, he was possessed of sound moral qualities. Thirty years
after he had attacked Wilberforce he appeared once more at
Oxford to address an Oxford audience. On this occasion
graduates and undergraduates, reverend and very reverend
members of the Anglican Church, flocked to see and hear him
who had become one of the best known men in England. Vast
indeed was the contrast between the temper of the churchmen
who had boiled with indignation on hearing " a certain Mr.
Huxley " retort irreverently upon Samuel Wilberforce, and the
respectful interest with which the crowd which filled the Shel-
donian theatre followed the imperfectly audible words of the
lecture on Evolution and Ethics.
The change which had taken place in the estimate made of
Huxley was due, no doubt, in a large measure to the great
progress which Darwinism had meanwhile made. In 1883
Huxley had said that " Evolution was getting made into a
bolus for the ecclesiastical swallow." Before 1893 the bolus
had been swallowed by a great number of the Anglican clergy,
though with a good deal of wry faces. But after due allow-
1 90 1.] THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 80 1
ance is made for this factor in the change of sentiment towards
Huxley, a considerable residue remains to be credited to his
own personal prestige.
HIS RELATION TO RELIGIOUS BELIEF.
When one remembers the life-long hostility of Huxley to-
wards religion and its fundamental doctrines, it will seem, per-
haps, to some that to acquiesce in his biographer's claim that
the most pronounced characteristic of Huxley was an uncom-
promising passion for truth, would be to admit a paradox. If
a man sincerely desirous of truth remains untouched by the
arguments for God's existence and immortality, what, it may
be asked, becomes of the claims of sound philosophy to show
the reasonableness of these dogmas ? To answer this question
we must discriminate between unconscious bias, or dominant
prejudice, and conscious intellectual dishonesty and falsehood.
We must further remember that the objective value of a
demonstration is one thing ; its power of driving home convic-
tion on an unwilling mind quite another. We have already
alluded to the genesis of Huxley's scepticism. And if we take
into account his original cast of mind, his prejudice against all
but scientific evidence, his revolt against religion as he first
came in contact with it, his arrogance towards authority a
trait which he cherished in himself, and which he admired
when displayed in an offensive manner by his grandchild we
shall have no difficulty in understanding how he might fancy
he was but insisting upon adequate proof when he refused his
assent to the truths of religion. Like another sinner,
" His honor rooted in dishonor stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true."
Nor is the admission of Huxley's honesty any disparagement
of theistic and Christian grounds of belief. The evidence of
the great fundamental truths is not of the same kind as that
which compels our assent to the proposition that two and two
make four. Neither is it such as we have for the law of the
inverse squares, which may be verified as often as we please.
Unlike these two latter kinds, it will not force itself on a mind
which faces it in sceptical hostility. Cardinal Newman remarks:
" Truth certainly, as such, rests upon grounds intrinsically and
objectively and abstractedly demonstrative, but it does not fol-
low from this that the arguments producible in its favor are
unanswerable and irresistible ; . . . the fact of revelation is
802 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY, [Mar.,
in itself demonstrably true, but it is not therefore true irre-
sistibly ; else how comes it to be resisted ? " *
If there ever was a reverent mind desirous of truth, pursu-
ing it with humility and a deep sense of responsibility, New-
man's was such a mind. Now let us hear himself declare what
effect the theistic arguments drawn from the external universe
produced on him. " The world," he says, " seems simply to
give the lie to that great truth of which my whole being is so
full. ... If I looked into a mirror and did not see my
face, I should have the sort of feeling which comes upon me
when I look into this living, busy world and see no reflection
of its Creator. Were it not for this voice speaking so clearly
in my conscience and my heart, I should be an atheist, a
pantheist, or a polytheist when I look into the world." f It is
not to be understood that this estimate is accepted and en-
dorsed, because it is quoted. It is offered merely to show how
faint an appeal these arguments for God's existence made to
at least one mind free from all prejudice against the belief in
God. And if they failed to reach Newman, we may well
believe Huxley's statement that they did not convince him.
HIS CONCEIT OF OPINION.
In offering what may seem an extenuating plea for Huxley's
unbelief, we are very far from implying that he was not re-
sponsible for his abuse of the brilliant gifts which he had
received. One cause of his failure to see the light lay not in
the intellectual, but in the moral side of his nature. That fault
was what the moralist calls pride of intellect. He showed no
reverent desire to seek God. He would not believe unless he
were allowed to dictate the sort of demonstration that was to
be submitted to him, just as the Jews specified the special
miracle which alone would convince them. It is true that he
frequently referred to the modesty of his Agnosticism ; but his
professions of modesty were always a boast, not a humble con
fession. No Grecian sophist ever vaunted his ability to prove
anything more than did Huxley his to demonstrate that be-
yond the things of time and sense we can know nothing. It
is an elementary teaching of the Gospel that God resisteth the
proud and giveth his grace to the humble.
Though he continually lavished his scorn upon those who
presumed to speak on matters of natural science without having
a thorough scientific knowledge of their subject, yet he him-
* Grammar of Assent, p. 410, ed. Longmans, 1895. f Apologia, p. 241, ed. Longmans, 1895.
1901.] THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 803
self is never more dogmatic than when handling questions of
Christian theology and early Christian development, subjects
concerning which his information was but fragmentary and
superficial. Throughout all his controversial writings the
dogmatic tone,* the intolerance, the perpetual sneer, the per-
vading insinuation that those who differed from him must be
either fools or knaves, betray the arrogance which lay so poorly
masked behind the professed modesty of his Agnosticism.
Even when he makes a concession or assumes the tone of com-
pliment, the deferential bow is accompanied with a satirical
grin. In his correspondence, too, we hear a constant chuckle
of self satisfaction over his ability to give an adversary a drub-
bing. This continual boastfulness is scarcely reconcilable with
the statement that " his fight was as far as possible for the
truth itself, for fact, not merely for controversial victory or
personal triumph. "f
III.
HIS INCONSISTENCIES.
Notwithstanding Huxley's profession that in weighing
evidence he tested all that asked for his assent by one unvary-
ing standard, it is clear that he had one set of weights and
measures for what suited his own tenets and another set for
religious truth. As an illustration of this we need go no
further than his belief in Evolution. A pivotal postulate
of this theory when extended to the realm of sentient being is
that life originated from non-life. Yet in his " Lay Sermon "
on Spontaneous Generation he admits there is no evidence that
spontaneous generation has ever taken place. The presence
of an equal difficulty against the acceptance of a religious
truth would have been for him a sufficient reason to con-
temptuously reject it. Again, he felt how the simplest acts of
conduct, such as asking a friend to reply to his letter, involve
the absurdity of Determinism. Yet its absurdity did not cause
him to give up Determinism. As he recognized that the uni-
formity of nature is no warrant for assuming that the laws of
nature are fixed by an inexorable necessity, he conceded that
science can show no a priori objection to the possibility of
miracles, and that consequently the question upon which the
credibility of miracles depends is the validity of the testimony
adduced in their favor. Then he rejected the miracle of our
Lord's resurrection on the grounds that the proofs that death
*For a characteristic attack on an opponent " he was roundly lectured by the Spectator
in an article under the heading ' Pope Huxley,' " Life, vol. i. p. 350.
\ Life, vol. ii. p. 429.
804 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. [Mar.,
had taken place are insufficient ; yet they are as unimpeachable
as those we have for the death of Julius Caesar ; and they
have not been challenged even by Bauer or Renan.
THE SANCTIONS OF THE MORAL LAW.
The theory of moral sanction with which he professed to
be satisfied is so palpably inadequate, that one finds difficulty
in believing that it could be found satisfactory by his exacting
mind. But he was reduced to the dilemma of either support-
ing it, or of having to admit one of the strongest arguments
of natural reason for the immortality of the soul and the ex-
istence of a moral Governor of the Universe. Who can doubt
but that his prejudice against the latter alternative was the
weight which turned the balance in favor of the former? There
is no need for future rewards and punishments, he contended ;
for virtue brings its own reward, and vice its own punishment
here and now. The man who violates the moral law, he
asserted, " descends into hell," through the torture of self-
reproach.
Now, that guilt is attended with remorse is a truism. To a
conscience that acknowledges in sin an offence against the love
of a merciful Father, and an outrage offered to the Majesty
of the Creator, the sense of guilt is a piercing sorrow. But sup-
press these two conceptions, and what remains in self-reproach
but a feeling of dissatisfaction with one's self for having failed
to live -up to one's higher possibilities. If the punishment
which the experience of this feeling carries is sufficient to
avenge the outraged moral order, then, judging from the leniency
of the penalty, it is idle to speak of any immeasurable gulf
between right and wrong, between the just man and the
profligate.
But let us grant, for argument's sake, that vice may some-
times be its own avenger. Let us admit, for instance, that
Huxley descended into a very hell of self-reproach, and expi-
ated under the lash of conscience those early excesses which
he so frankly confessed. As he had, according to his own
statements, drunk deeper than most men of Circe's cup, so, we
shall suppose, the avenging Furies tortured him with a severity
which few experience. His sufferings from the worm that
dieth not may have exceeded those caused .by the loss of his
first child, whom he mourned so deeply. Yet his own experi-
ence did not justify him in formulating as a dogma the opinion
that the same sequence between vice and punishment always
holds. Everybody knows that no such proportion between
1 90i.] THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. 805
guilt and remorse exists invariably. Instead of self reproach
increasing in the direct ratio of delinquency, it tends to dimin-
ish inversely with the number and gravity of moral offences.
This is an experience which mankind has everywhere sum-
med up in such phrases as a seared conscience and a har-
dened heart. A good man will experience more self-reproach
for one lapse from virtue than will the profligate for countless
crimes. The first step of the profligate, too, may have been
attended with feelings of compunction ; but let him only per-
severe and he will come to a state when remorse has no
meaning for him. These are facts to which the man of facts
tightly shut his eyes.
A DESPOILER OF MEN'S HEARTS.
It is claimed for Huxley that one of his ruling motives was
a constant desire to apply knowledge to the guidance of life,
" to help the struggling world to ideas which should help them
to think truly and to live rightly." " I should," he wrote,
" like to be remembered as one who did his best to help the
people." His endeavor to help the people resolved itself,
chiefly, into a persistent effort to destroy their belief in God
and the immortality of the soul. Now, whatever might be his
personal estimate of the basis on which these beliefs rested,
he knew these beliefs to be an immense force for good among
those who hold them. He knew that they are to the vast
majority of those who;n his words might reach the deepest
source of consolation and strength against the countless shocks
that flesh is heir to. He acknowledged that in throwing them
off he had "stripped himself of the hopes and consolations of
the mass of mankind." A man whose dearest wish would be
to help the people to li\re rightly, and whose action would be
guided by prudence with an adequate sense of responsibility,
would not attempt to deprive the people of these powerful,
helps to right living, and deep sources of solace for the ills of
life, unless he was in a position to offer the faltering conscience
and the desolate heart something better in their stead. Before
destroying in others these bulwarks against vice and sorrow and
soul-weariness, he would feel that he must be very sure not
merely that those beliefs are unverifiable by scientific proof,
but that they must positively be false.
This was not Huxley's case. He had nothing to offer for
all he strove to take away. His only philosophy for the trials
of life was what he describes as the " grin and-bear-it " philo-
sophy. When he announced to his sister the tidings of their
806 THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY. [Mar.
mother's death the only comfort he could suggest was, " I
have no consolation to offer you, my dearest sister, for I know
of none." He admitted that after all had been said on the
subject by science, the Christian doctrine of God and immor-
tality might be true. " I may be quite wrong," he wrote in
1860, "and in that case I know I shall have to pay the penalty."*
Again, when the tale of his years had almost touched the Psalm-
ist's term, and his life's work was behind him, he let us see in
his Irenicon that the Agnosticism with which he endeavored to
inoculate other consciences had not proved an effective ano-
dyne for his own he had not " done his day's work always
with a light heart, with no sense of responsibility, no terror of
that which may appear when the factitious veil of Isis the
thick web of fiction man has woven round nature is stripped
off."f Had he loved the people wisely he would not have felt
called upon to deprive them of the chief safeguards of their
morality, and the chief source of their consolation.
The appearance of this biography has brought forth a great
deal of indiscriminate eulogy on the subject of it ; and much
more for the views with which his name is identified. As one
peruses the articles, reviews, and short notices which have re-
cently appeared in all kinds of newspapers and periodicals, one
has evidence if evidence were wanted of the blind, uncritical
fashion with which Evolution in its extreme form is popularly
accepted, not as a theory but as a fact. Huxley once said
that Evolution was in danger of becoming a superstition. His
forecast has been more than verified : it has reached its apotheo-
sis. Its advocates bring forward as an unanswerable argument
in its favor the truth that its application has proved to be a
source of vast progress in physical sciences. Two other truths
are overlooked. One is that a theory may be legitimate within
certain boundaries, yet false when extended to a class of phe-
nomena lying entirely without those limits. The other we
allow Huxley himself to state : " Any one who has studied the
history of science knows that almost every great step therein
has been made by the anticipation of nature ' that is, by the
invention of hypotheses which, though verifiable, often had very
little foundation to start with ; and not unfrequently, in spite of
a long career of usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous
in the long-run." \
* Life, vol. i. p. 238. f Ibid., vol. ii. 320. t-^-, vol. ii. p. 521.
i. Hewlett: Richard Yea-and-Nay ; 2. Weale: Memlinc; 3.
Gilder: Autobiography of a Tom-Boy; 4. O'Connor-Repplier:
Motifs ; 5. Montague-Dyer : Written in Red; 6. Harland : Car-
dinal's Snuff -Box ; 7. Valdes-Smith : Captain Ribot ; 8. Spof-
ford : Book for All Readers ; 9. McCarthy : Round of Rimes ;
10. Latimer : Last Days of Nineteenth Century; n. George:
Henry George; 12. Collis-Ingersoll : Abraham Lincoln; 13. Dunlop : Daniel
O'Connell; 14. Banfield : John Wesley; 15. Thrasher: Tuskegee; 16. Maher:
Psychology; 17. Jastrow : Psychology.
1. Richard Yea and-Nay * is, without doubt, an altogether
extraordinary work extraordinary in the strict sense of the
term, for it is surely and easily out of the order of the innu-
merable ephemeral novels that are being constantly flooded forth
over the reading world. Nowadays, when the common test of
the value of a novel seems to be the number of copies that
are gobbled up by a fiction-gluttonous public, and when the
ambition of publishers seems to be nothing but to turn out
enough books to "make a belt around the world," or to "cram
the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral many times over " (as we have
seen it expressed), it is a distinct pleasure to come across one
at least that is worth reading, careful reading, and even per-
haps re-reading. It is our opinion that this romance from the
pen of Maurice Hewlett is such a one. Everybody knows that
it has been patronized and lavishly praised by a literary critic
so discriminating as Frederic Harrison. It is much to say we do
not find his praise of what he calls Mr. Hewlett's " great feat"
extravagant. To summarize the excellences of Richard Yea-
and-Nay we may put them thus : unlike many recent books
having the same ambition, it succeeds in being an " historical
romance " worthy of the name, for it has overcome the con-
fessedly great difficulty of investing historical facts with a con-
sistently sustained dignity of imagination and idealization ; it
* The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay. By Maurice Hewlett. New York : The
Macmillan Company.
808 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
is a vigorous and impressive delineation of the character of
its hero, Richard Coeur de Lion, the bi-natured " Yea-and-
Nay " ; it is written in a strikingly unique and powerful style,
picturesque, compact, pregnant, boldly figurative ; and it is,
in the main, an artistic production, well schemed and suc-
cessfully executed. Such praise would seem to be all-inclusive
had we not to qualify it by admitting the exceptions to these
general good qualities. Take the style, for instance, perhaps
the most important of the factors that make the work remark-
able. It is, as we say, unique, but this virtue sometimes lapses
into a fault, for there is not a little evidence of conscious
straining for the unordinary in expression ; again it is, as we
say, powerful, but sometimes it becomes almost too ruggedly
so; it abounds in bold figures, but the boldness sometimes be-
comes alarming and makes one wonder at the writer's temerity
in the use of words, even if one is not ready to condemn him.
Or take the work from the point of view of conception and
creative skill : it is for the greater part artistic because true,
but we doubt very much whether the conception of Jehane's
sacrifice of herself into the hands of the " old man of the
mountain " be not both inartistic and untrue ; in fact, we are
inclined to believe that it violates all pretence to verisimili-
tude. But for some reason or other, as Richard himself to his
chronicler and confessor Milo, so Mr Hewlett to his reader
seems attractive even in his faults, for the> are bold and
kingly faults. Indeed, as one closes the book he easily for-
gets its faults, and remains with the conviction that the
author is a writer of a new power. Will he be read as wide-
ly as the favorites who (if we may believe their publishers)
number their readers by the tens and even hundreds of thou-
sands? We are inclined to think, with Mr. Harrison, that
the " easy-going millions " will not take to Richard Yea-and-
Nay ; but that matters little it remains true that it is almost,
if not quite, a masterpiece. We think it even desirable that
the book be unattractive to those, at least, who have not the
mind and the discretion to understand and to judge how far
they are to accept as accurate some of Mr. Hewlett's de-
scriptions of conditions and facts arising from the strange
mingling of piety and savagery in the Christian people of the
time of the third Crusade.
2. Among the most interesting of the Messrs. Bell's art
publications is their series of Hand-books of the Great Masters
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 809
in Painting and Sculpture, about a dozen of which have been
issued already under the editorship of G. C. Williamson. The
latest volume* of the series is that devoted to Hans
Memlinc. It has been prepared by W. H. James Weale, a
gentleman who both previously and subsequently to his con-
nection with the National Art Library at South Kensington
has spent a great deal of time in making researches in the art
archives of Belgium and Holland. He is to be congratulated
on the appearance of the present book. It is a brief critical
study of the life and work of an artist excelled perhaps
only by the Van Eycks out of all the Early Netherland school.
As a matter of fact only during the latter half of the century
just closed has anything like a careful study of that school
been attempted, and there is still room for considerable critical
work both in clearing up its history and in identifying the
works of its different members. The bibliography and catalogue
in the present volume indicate the careful and helpful way in
which the writer has gone about his work. There is a hand-
some photogravure frontispiece and forty illustrations, some of
which are not any too satisfactory.
3, Here undoubtedly is a " one sitting " book.f The Auto-
biography of a Tom-Boy suggests something naughty, but to
whisper the truth we confess having enjoyed it immensely.
And we fear greatly that there is enough human perversity in
our boys and girls and indeed in their elders, who ought to
be more sedate and sensible to make them chuckle over this
story of the escapades of a typical torn-boy. Miss Gilder's
quick, hurried, snappy style carries one along buoyantly, and
Florence Scovel Shinn's pencil has done not a little in the
way of exposing the innate wickedness of the wild little heroine.
4. Introduced by an essay from Miss Repplier's pen and
handsomely bound in stamped leather, Motifs ^ will find many
readers favorably disposed toward it at the start. But the
contents of the booklet rather disappoint one. In the midst
of some clever epigrams appear others that are almost com-
monplace ; in style, too, the author offends occasionally by
sentences that are artificial. Too frequent inversion is a dan-
* Hans Memlinc. By W. H. James Weale. New York : The Macmillan Company,
t The Autobiography of a Tom-Boy, By Jeannette L. Gilder. New York : Doubleday,
Page & Co.
\ Motifs. By E. Scott O'Connor ; with Introduction by Agnes Repplier. New York :
The Century Company.
8 io TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
ger against which Miss O'Connor must guard. Let us hasten
to say that there is in her pages much fine sentiment well ex-
pressed, her best inspiration evidently being drawn from the
conception of human love as an influence necessarily enno-
bling the participants.
5. A lurid title * and opening scene showing a name
written by a dying man with his own blood give promise of a
delightfully blood-curdling story after the style of Old Sleuth.
But alas ! there are no desperate gangs of criminals with strange
oaths, underground passages, and miraculous transformations
and escapes. These people are dully respectable, and the de-
tectives are misled by false clues very much after the manner
of ordinary human beings. Of course the prize-winner is a
newspaper reporter, and from his vaunted superiority over a
supine police force, as well as from the composition, one might
infer the book to be written by reporters. Aside from one
fanciful flight, " the man whose name was on his mind's lips
entered," the style is very direct and clear. We are grateful
for being spared elaborate scenery descriptions and character
painting everybody is appropriately tagged at the outset.
From time to time the reader feels that the correct clue has
been found, and the interest is sustained until the denouement
appears in the form of a confession. One instinctively reverts
to " The Mystery of Marie Roget," and wonders why the
bright young reporter did not profit by M. Dupin's example
and read the other New York papers for clues. We judge,
however, that he was the only man of the metropolitan press
at work on this case.
6, The latest issue of literary statistics shows that The
Cardinals Snuft-Box,\ in many quarters of the country, holds
a place among the most popular novels of the day. We think
it deserves its popularity. It is a bright, sprightly, clean tale
in which the reader's interest is held from beginning to end
by means of the author's rare knack of weaving every-day
trifles into a gracefully told tale of simple affection. If the
title suggests to the reader visions of some deep-woven plot of
statecraft, or ecclesiastical intrigue, he will be disappointed.
There is no Mazarin or De Retz ; the snuff box is no heredi-
tary talisman ; it does not play any pait resembling that of
* Written in Red, or the Conspiracy in the North Case. By Charles Howard Montague
and C. W. Dyer. New York : Brentanos, Cassell Publishing Company.
t The Cardinars Snuff-Box. By Henry Harland. London and New York : John Lane.
190 1.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 811
the Diamond Necklace. The story is well under way when the
snuff-box is bought as a present for the cardinal by his niece,
the heroine ; and its place in the machinery of the plot is to
give an excuse to the hero to present himself to her at a time
when, by playing at cross-purposes, they are almost on the
point of separating without discovering their mutual affection.
There are many delicious touches of humor, especially in inci-
dents where the good old Italian housekeeper is sadly per-
plexed by the behavior and language of her mad cap English
master. Glimpses of Italian scenery are introductd without
any apparent straining after effect, such as is frequently obvi-
ous in some other novels in vogue at present.
7. English readers are rarely afforded an opportunity of
enjoying any of the masterpieces of fiction which appear in
the language of Cervantes. The translation of A. Palacio
ValdeV La Alegria del Capitan Ribot* will convince them that
Spanish literature to-day is not unworthy of that which has
preceded it. The motive of the author, he declared, was to
offer " a protest from the depths against the eternal adultery
of the French novel." The heroine, Christina Marti, is a
splendid delineation of- noble, graceful, delicate womanhood.
Her wifely loyalty, unsullied even by a momentary hesitation in
thought, spurns contemptuously the blandishments and the
threats of the polished profligate, her husband's friend. When
she finds that the good-natured, honest, but very human Cap-
tain Ribot, who is the naive narrator of the tale, is smitten by
her attractions, she, like a true woman, with kindly prudence
appeals successfully to what is best in him. He becomes the
worthy friend of her and her husband ; and his joys are the
joys of virtue and self-sacrifice. One of the charms of the
book is the glimpses it gives of modern Spanish life, in which
blend so closely Southern gaiety and Spanish dignity. The
charms of Valencian skies and landscape are around us as we
read ; and everywhere is apparent that delicacy of touch with
which nature, perhaps by way of compensation, has so gener-
ously endowed the Latin races and doled out in but step-
motherly fashion to that formidable personage the Anglo-
Saxon.
8. To every one interested in the writing or collecting of
books, but especially to librarians, public or private, Mr. Spof-
* The foy of Captain Ribot. By A. Palacio Vald6s. Translated by Minna Caroline
Smith. New York : Brentanos.
812 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
ford's new volume* will prove exceedingly interesting. The
author is known to the world through his connection with the
Congressional Library, and as one reads the conviction grows
that here is a man who perfectly understands his subject, who
knows exactly what he is writing about. Therewith springs up
an ever increasing admiration for the enormous mass of infor-
mation which Mr. Spofford possesses information gained at
first hand and covering, apparently, every conceivable point in
his chosen field. We know of no work that even rivals the
present one. Bookbinding, book buying, book-listing, book-
shelving, book-choosing, book reading, libraries, librarians, library
regulations, library reports on these and a multitude of other
subjects we find the opinion of an expert clearly stated. The
book is, indeed, one " for all readers."
9. In A Round of Rimes \ the author has gathered together
a number of fugitive short poems, most of which have already
appeared in various magazines. The first gleanings of an
author in the field of poetry usually contain much that is of
but little interest except to his immediate circle. In this little
volume, however, there are two or three pieces which, breath-
ing of the Celtic muse, are worthy of a pennant place in Dr.
Brooks's New Anthology. When Mr. McCarthy abandons Irish
themes for general and well worn topics his inspiration is less
fresh, and a certain deficiency of technique becomes more ap-
parent. There is, however, in almost all of his work a promise
of better things to come.
10. Few writers of the present day, or indeed of any day,
who have devoted themselves to the Muse of History have dis-
played such powers of production as Mrs. Elizabeth W. Lati-
mer. And only a special favorite of Clio could successfully
cover the vast field over which Mrs. Latimer ranges. So great
is the complexity of modern life, so numerous the interests,
and so rapid the development of events, that most students
find all their energies exhausted in grappling with the chroni-
cles of one country. Many find ample scope for their abilities
in the investigation of a particular phase, or a very limited
period of a .single nation. Mrs. Latimer, however, intrepidly
undertakes the task of presenting the history of several Euro-
pean nations in the nineteenth century. Spain, Italy, Europe
* A Book for all Readers. By Ainsworth Rand Spofford. New York : G. P. Putnam's
Sons.
\ARoundofRimes. By Denis A. McCarthy. Boston Review Company.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 813
in Africa, Russia and Turkey, England, and France have each
been treated in a separate volume from her prolific pen. Her
latest book* is a sequel of these others. It is divided into
six parts : I.France; II. Russia and Turkey; III. England; IV.
Europe in Africa ; V. Italy and Austro-Hungary ; VI. Spain
the Spanish-American War. In a preface the author offers an
apology for having omitted Germany from her nineteenth cen-
tury studies. In treating the history of Italy she has dealt so
extensively with German affairs up to 1888 that there hardly
remained enough material for a separate volume upon them.
And Germany since 1888 has, she says, been treated when she
was writing upon France and Italy. She excuses herself for
omitting many other subjects which the title of her book would
seem to promise. Though the Boer War has been followed up
as far as the capture of Pretoria, our own war in the Philip-
pines is not recounted. But Mrs. Latimer thinks that Spain
having yielded up her sovereignty over these islands the sub-
sequent proceedings need interest her no more. If German
and Filipino are disposed to resent their exclusion from Mrs.
Latimer's book, perhaps they will find solace in the apophthegm,
" Happy the country that has no history." Readers who may
be inclined to complain of the absence of any critical estimate
of the events recorded, and of any attempt to get at the bot-
tom facts, must remember that work of this kind cannot be
done on the morrow of the occurrence. A great deal of what
is essential to a true estimate of our contemporary history
will not be made public for at least another generation.
Mrs. Latimer has availed herself of the only data at her
disposal daily newspapers, various magazines, and occasional
books of travel and adventure. From these sources she has
produced a very readable volume, which will help to entertain
that large class who desire to enjoy a panorama of recent his-
tory with the minimum expenditure of intellectual effort. Of
course the nature of the sources from which Mrs. Latimer has
drawn will impose the necessity for extreme caution on the
part of any future historian who may be tempted to draw upon
Mrs. Latimer's accumulations.
The most interesting feature of the book is her apprecia-
tion of men and events. They are usually made from a de-
cidedly personal point of view. But if Mrs. Latimer has her
prejudices she is not a rabid partisan ; and she displays her
* The Last Days of the Nineteenth Century. By Elizabeth Wormsley Latimer. Chi-
cago : A. C. McClurg & Co.
VOL. LXXII. 53
8 14 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
leanings with a naivete' which disarms criticism. It is a pleas-
ure to find, too, that when the occasion arises, she is willing
to acknowledge that a former opinion of hers needs correction.
In the present volume she has, we think, provided herself with
an opportunity of displaying this charming trait in a subse-
quent work.
11. In one sense the Life of Henry George* is an excellent
specimen of biographical work. It is written by a member of
the household, who saw and knew Henry George in his private
as well as in his public life, who loved and understood him,
and who is, therefore, peculiarly well equipped to reveal to the
outside world the real life and inner nature of the man him-
self. The author has made the best of his opportunities, and
the reader, after finishing the volume, feels that he knows
Henry George in a way that few readers of biographies can
know the man of whom they read. But the book has the
defects of its qualities. The author is both a son and a disciple.
He believes in George, as George believed in himself. He
accepts him as a prophet, and makes an act of faith in his
entire gospel even in the obiter dicta. The note of finality
that runs through the work jars on the reader who may
admire, and perhaps reverence, the character of Henry
George, but who is not quite prepared to subscribe to the
infallibility of his teaching. It must be remembered, however,
that few men have exerted so strong or so wide-spread an
influence as Henry George. He may almost be said to have
established a cult ; and the tone of this book is one that will
awaken a thoroughly sympathetic response in the hearts of
thousands. And even to those who dissent most radically from
the economic teachings of Henry George, this narrative of his
life will appeal strongly, if they will only distinguish between
the man and his message. The biography brings out strongly
the qualities that made him loved, admired, believed in. It
portrays vividly a character that represents one of the noblest
types of American manhood, and the reading of it is an inspira-
tion. The rugged honesty of his character, the purity of his
motives, the lofty sense of duty, put the stamp of nobility on
Henry George; and the magnificent tribute of respect that his
fellow citizens of every class and condition paid to his memory
at the time of his death was an inspiring reminder that we
* The Life of Henry George. By his Son, Henry George, Jr. New York : Doubleday &
McClure Company.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 815
still reverence idealism wherever it is found. The lives of such
men well deserve to be written ; they deserve, still more, to
be read. It should be remarked that in his presentation of
the relationship of the Anti-Poverty Society principles to the
teaching of the Catholic Church, the writer has failed to state
the case accurately. His words indicate what is not true
that the Catholic authorities finally sanctioned the doctrine that
private ownership in land is against natural justice. The error
is due, we trust, to the fact that the author, being unfamiliar
with theological language, missed the meaning of certain very
necessary distinctions. The same excuse cannot be given for his
attributing of motives to every one who sided with the ecclesias-
tical authorities in certain unfortunate incidents connected with
the Anti Poverty crusade. In this instance the author's
language is intemperate and ill-justified.
12. It is not particularly clear even after one has read this
book * what Abraham Lincoln's religion really was beyond the
fact that it seems to have been of a fluctuant Protestant form.
The pamphlet gives some pleasant anecdotes of Mr. Lincoln
which illustrate his natural kindness and goodness, and in so
far is worth reading. It is interesting, too, to notice how the
President's personality is still vividly remembered after all
these years by those with whom he came in contact.
13. The latest biography of Daniel O'Connellf is a terrible
book for those who would feel kindly towards England. Let
us hope that its chronicle of fraud and violence on the one
side, and of death and exile on the other, may not hinder a
fair-minded estimate of better conditions between England and
Ireland in our day if we are to have them.
The writer's purpose is not a personal biography, and hence
he sketches the public life of the Liberator almost exclusively,
yet with occasional scenes and incidents of a personal nature.
The work is all well done, and though the author is not
Irish appreciatively, even sympathetically. But the reader of
no more than ordinary historical knowledge will find some in-
formation too easily taken for granted by the writer.
No subject people have ever been favored by Providence
with a nobler political leader than the Irish race in the person
* The Religion of Abraham Lincoln. A Correspondence between General Charles Collis
and Colonel R. G. Ingersoll. New York : G. W. Dillingham Company.
t Daniel CPConnell and the Revival of National Life in Ireland. By Robert Dunlop,
M.A. New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons.
816 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
of O'Connell. The dreary annals of oppression are relieved by
his heroic figure. Rage and disgust and thirst for vengeance
are tempered by the feeling of laudable pride in the Irishman's
heart, as he follows this history of the greatest of popular
tribunes, both in purity of motives and splendor of success.
Mr. Dunlop does not go too far in saying that O'Connell
created modern political Ireland. And in achieving this mira.
cle he did no man injustice, least of all any Englishman. His
life was for hope, courage, concord among the Irish, met for
the most part by the English government's scorn, deceit, and
blood shedding. " Do you think," he once said to his coun-
try's enemies, " that such measures will put an end to the agi-
tation for the repeal of the Union ? The present generation
may perish ; coercion may destroy the existing population ; but
the indignant soul of Ireland cannot be annihilated." The
truth of this prophecy is seen by a glance at the present
political relations of Ireland to England.
The sovereignty of an Irish Catholic among all the heroes
of peaceful politics is evidenced by this book. The limitations
of brute force in repressing national sentiment are plainly
shown. Also the wisdom of holding back a warlike but
unarmed race from a mad rush on batteries and bayonets,
and directing their energies into the patient arena of the
hustings.
The book is clear in style, and earnest in sentiment ; the
author both interesting and impartial.
14. One* of the series of tiny volumes known as the West-
minster Biographies is devoted to John Wesley. In its way it
is quite a model of biographical writing. The author displays
a not very common ability to present clearly, concisely, and in
pleasing language the salient facts of his hero's life. The tone
of the book is perfectly unaffected, free from exaggeration, and
dispassionate. It leaves us with a vivid picture of the man who
did so much to elevate and spiritualize the English middle-
classes that we can forget all his weaknesses in admiration for
his earnest and unselfish devotion to his religious ideals. Un-
conventional, democratic, courageous, he wins our respect and
even our admiration. Yet the biographer has not tried to con-
ceal the fact that at times his hero was violent, somewhat
headstrong, changeable, and rather uncertain in doctrine. The
little work will be of special interest to those who are pleased
* John Wesley. By Frank Banfield. Boston : Small, Maynard & Co.
TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 817
by short and graphic pictures of great popular movements.
A curious fact, noted here, is the influence exercised by The
Imitation of A Kempis over both Wesley and Whitehead.
15. Tuskegee* is an account of the history, methods, results,
and prospects of the famous colored normal and industrial
school in Alabama. The little volume is its own advertise-
ment to those interested in the race problem in the South,
while to the least sanguine of men who realize that some solu-
tion of the negro question must be provided, the study of the
institution here presented cannot but bs full of suggestion and
hope. The contents, in substance, point out that nothing is
better calculated to give the Southern negro energy, indepen-
dence, and the knowledge of how to make an upright living than
such an educational system as thit so splendidly developed by
Mr. Booker Washington and those associated with him. The
very detailed information in the book gives practical demon-
stration of the success of the undertaking a success which it
richly deserves, and which the country is glad of, and wishes
to be yet more thorough and more wide-spread.
16. A book well worthy of the attention of Catholic stu-
dents of philosophy is the new re-written and enlarged edition
of Father Maher's Psychology. \ Those who are acquainted with
the three former editions recognize a great improvement in the
present one. It is up to date, critical, and merits a wide cir-
culation.
A striking and praiseworthy feature of the new volume is
the extensive consideration given to the modern or experimen-
tal school, something too often neglected by Catholics. Some
have thought the school at least materialistic in tendency, if
not essentially irreligious. The number of works which pur-
port to have demolished traditional beliefs may have afforded
some justification for this notion, but we must not mistake the
interpretations put on the results of modern research for the
results themselves. Happily nowadays every one is coming to
believe, with Father Maher, that " most of what is true can be
assimilated without much difficulty by the old system." It is
likely that the fear which arises in timorous souls at the very
mention of materialism would soon disappear did the Catholic
* Tuskegee. By Max Bennett Thrasher. Boston : Small, Maynard & Co.
t Psychology. Stonyhurst Philosophical Series. Rev. Michael Maher, S.J. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co.
8i8 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
philosopher, after a thorough examination of mental phenome-
na and honest criticism of the Agnostic interpretations of them,
explain them in the light of Spiritualism. If we are to do any-
thing toward lessening the number of followers of the modern
non Christian thinker it must be on his own grounds, following
him as far as true research and experiment will allow, and
there bringing in the aid of an enlightened metaphysic. This
is recognized as a legitimate method even by non-Catholics,
notably by Professor Ladd, who says that, regarding the first and
last things of mind, its origin, nature, and destiny, mortality of
incorruptibility, Physiological Psychology is unable to pronounce;
"if it remain faithful to its own mission, it entrusts the full con-
sideration of these questions to Rational Psychology, Ethics,
Metaphysics, and to Theology." The method described is that
pursued by Father Maher. First Experimental Psychology
claims his attention and then the Rational, though the two are
not kept completely independent ; that, he claims, being im-
possible. Very thorough historical sketches have been added
to the present edition, and also a supplement on hypnotism.
The general reader is assisted by various "hints on judicious
skipping," so that those who are unable or disinclined to study
the whole book can, by very little labor, acquire some knowl-
edge of the sound rational basis upon which the belief in free
will and a spiritual and immortal soul rests. For those desir-
ing to go more deeply into the questions at issue there are
given lists of books for reference. The volume will form a
notable addition to our psychological literature. We note with
pleasure that since its publication the author has been made
an LL.D. by the University'of London an honor conferred on
only one other person in the last ten years.
17. It affords us real pleasure to note a newly published
collection * of essays contributed by Professor Jastrow, within
the last decade, to scientific magazines, popular and profes-
sional. The book furnishes a valuable and readable history of
those strange opinions which pass current under the titles
occultism, telepathy, psychical research, mesmerism, and the
like. In tones frankly authoritative but in no way supercilious
or phirisaical, the writer addresses himself particularly to lay-
men. But neither they nor Professor Jastrow's own confreres
in science will, we opine, be wholly appreciative ; for the soi-
disant staff of the regular army of psychology look askance at
* Fact and Fable in Psychology. By Joseph Jastrow. Boston : Houghlon, Mifflin & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 819
expeditions into the land of the strange and wonderful. Nor
are the "eternally gullible" without grievance. Theirs is men-
tis gratissimus error, and they may show a very poor welcome
to any who attempt to disillusionize them.
Often, in the investigation of the occult, the question is
rather, "Why are these stories told?" than "Are these stones
true?" Professor Jastrow, however, has turned his attention,
at least more than is customary, to the second question. Pre-
cisely in this it is that he may have offended. " But," as he
well says in defence of his position (p. 69), "the civic con-
science of the psychologist may convince him that the removal
of error is often an indispensable requisite to the dissemina-
tion of truth." And this sounds the key-note of his writing.
Of his wholly scientific attitude, as also of the logical acumen
displayed, the critical notices have been entirely favorable.
Professor Jastrow need have no fear of the carping of ultra-
conservatives. For included in the number of those who accom-
pany him on the path that conducts to the exposure of popular
fraud and fashionable freak are scientists, not only representa-
tive but also leading, physicists, physiologists, physicians, and
psychologists. The prosecution of psychical research proper
now constitutes a department apart, and has begotten a litera-
ture in itself.
Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Christian Science get de-
servedly brusque treatment at the hands of our author. This
is a happy sign of the healthy activity of science, and a con-
soling contrast to the imaginative chatter of personal para-
graph makers.
Somewhat aside from the main theme of the book 1 appear
the five last studies. The first of these, "The Natural History
of Analogy," makes an interesting supplement to Mill's well-
known work. In the fifth and concluding one, " The Dreams
of the Blind," an account is given by Helen Keller of her own
dream life a charming, almost powerful portrayal. As a psy-
chological study it furnishes a fitting finale to this excellent
work.
There is a defect, common enough it is true, but one which
this author should long since have learned to remedy. When
he quotes he fails to give any reference more than the author's
name. The phrase, as Professor James characteristically ex-
presses it, "looks well enough in print; but without any note
to it, it is extremely tantalizing to the student." There is pre-
cedent for the citation of the work and page from which quo-
820 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
tation is made. Since imitation is counted perhaps the most
important psychological factor in mental development, but is
beset with great difficulties in child-study, why did Professor
Jastrow not take the excellent opportunity here presented of
its subjective study ? The result would have been, possibly, of
double worth. But this is a comparatively small, if vulnerable,
point in a most valuable book.
I. A DICTIONARY OF ARCHITECTURE.*
We have at hand an instance of one art paying tribute to
another art : an example of what book-making can do to illus-
trate the noble vocation of architecture.
It would be a mistake to suppose that only architects, civil
engineers, and their pupils may benefit by this book, for there
is no art so popular as that which builds majesty into stone ;
every intelligent person may enjoy this cyclopaedia of the
glories of material construction, the nearest approach to man's
best effort at imitating God's splendid universe.
Furthermore, the descriptions, though technical enough to
aid the professional student, are at the same time quite intel-
ligible to the average reader, besides being written in excel-
lent English. But over and above the descriptive part we have
here many beautiful historical pieces, including narratives of
events and notices of personages. As every one knows, the
nobler specimens of the builder's art are memorials of saints
and warriors and statesmen, the very foremost being shrines
of divine worship, which is all the more interesting because no
art is so entirely traditional as this. Is there anything quite
new in building? Tradition has a dogmatic place in this sci-
ence, and lends to the study one of its greatest charms. Cer-
tainly the whole human history is told in its homes and temples
as indeed the present work shows to perfection.
The biographical sketches of architects are of extreme in-
terest. On almost every page the reader is entertained with a
well-written account of some genius of the divine art of pic-
torial or emblematic expression, whose creations in stone or
bronze are memorials of his love of the beautiful, often united
to his love of God and of the true religion. Every architect
* A Dictionary of Architecture and Building, Biographical, Historical, and Descriptive*
By Russell Sturgis, A.M., Ph.D., Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and many
Architects, Painters, Engineers, and other expert writers, American and foreign. In three
volumes. Vol. I., A-E. Sold by subscription only. New York : The Macmillan Company.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 821
of note from the earliest annals of this sovereign vocation will
be found well represented here, if, as we may be certain they
will, the other two volumes will equal the excellence of this
one. The dictionary is, therefore, a biographical one of the
profession of architecture and of its sister arts.
Mr. Russell Sturgis is the editor. He is one of our
foremost authorities upon architecture and kindred arts and
sciences. Among the many fellow-contributors whom he has
chosen for he himself, besides being editor, is also a leading
contributor are found the names not only of distinguished mem-
bers of the profession, but also of teachers in American and
foreign institutes and universities. The honesty of the work
and its reliability are guaranteed, among other ways, by the
signatures of these contributors to the more important articles.
If we remember that this is the pioneer work of its kind in
our language, there being no dictionary of architecture in
English unless it be a work in eight large volumes begun in
1850 and finished forty years later, we can realize how great a
boon the publishers have now given the artistic public.
We may say that this work is as much a cyclopaedia as a
dictionary, such is the patient and elaborate treatment of the
weightier matters. But the features peculiar to a dictionary
and embracing all its advantages are to be found here, viz.,
ready reference and alphabetical arrangement carried into
detail. The combination of this advantage with that of ex-
tended treatment of specially important topics leaves little to
be desired in the matter of plan. Students making a thorough
course of artistic study will therefore find this work indispensa-
ble.
As an example of the practical fulness of detail character-
izing this dictionary we may instance the department of brick-
work. It is treated of in thirty four different numbers, making
a summary of all that may be known on ancient and modern
use of burnt, clay for building purposes ; and this (ending with
a paragraph on the appropriate bibliography) is exclusive of
other series of articles (to be given in the two succeeding
volumes) on Keramics and Terra Cotta. And while using this
or any other part of the work the reader is offered the ad-
vantage of frequent cross references for both the fuller mean-
ing of terms and the more elaborate description of subjects,
by which means the student may easily obtain a wider view of
his topic. What is said of brickwork may be also said of the
accounts of the other departments of the building trades, so that
822 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
not only architects but builders and contractors and intelligent
mechanics will find valuable assistance in this work.
Considering the fierce " battle of the styles," raging among
architects and artists no less in our day than in former genera-
tions, the editor and his staff of contributors are entitled to
high praise for their impartial, even their sympathetic feeling
in their historical and scientific descriptions of the Classic and
the Gothic styles. These are spoken of and pictured in all
their beautiful variety with equal sentiments of admiration.
This is to be accounted for, mainly at least, by the sense of
justice in Mr. Sturgis, who has sought in each particular field
a recognized expert, especiall)' for articles of more than ordin-
ary importance, as an exponent of each point of interest.
The printing is perfect, and the same is to be said of the
binding. The illustrations are to be counted by the hundreds,
making by themselves a pictorial treatise, and illustrating in
whole and in detail all the famous edifices in the world. In
this one volume alone, besides the innumerable smaller plates,
there are thirty-six full-page pictures of various masterpieces of
architecture.
2 SHALER'S STUDY OF LIFE AND DEATH *
"A naturalist's judgment of life and death" is presented
by Professor Shaler in his recently published work. While
the author's chief purpose is to inquire what is the meaning of
the individual's life in the great Universe, he directs at-
tention, in a subordinate manner, towards the question whether
the new view of modern scientists concerning man's origin
is more likely to weaken or to reinforce the sense of duty
towards one's self and one's fellows. The practical fruit which
the author would gather from this study of life is to make
some approach towards a reconciliation of our death with the
great order of the Universe.
Examining the problem from the stand-point of the natural
sciences it might be said, almost exclusively from the biologi-
cal point of view alone Professor Shaler has excluded all
data derived from religion, ethics, and metaphysics. Nor does
he draw, except incidentally, from the testimony of conscious-
ness for any light to guide him through the tangled and im-
mensely complicated subject which he attacks. When we take
* The Individual : A Study of Life and Death. By Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, Professor
of Geology in Harvard University and Dean of Lawrence Scientific School. New York :
D. Appleton & Co.
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 823
into account the limited field of evidence to which the professor
restricts himself, we hardly expect him to make any very
positive contribution towards a reconciliation of man's death
with the scheme of the Cosmos. And the professor himself
recognizes that none of his views rests on arguments that ap-
proach to anything like the nature of demonstration. Most of
his conclusions are put forward only tentatively, or as clothed
with some fair amount of probability The prudent reserve
and scientific caution which he displays is in pleasing contrast
with the dogmatic attitude commonly assumed by so many
rationalistic writers who propose their theories, or more fre
quently theories which they have at second hand from others,
as indubitable facts of science. To be sure, the professor as-
sumes the evolutionary hypothesis of man's origin, body and
soul, from the beast as an indisputable fact. In handling his
subject he makes this view the " open sesame " of knowledge.
The individuality of man is for him essentially the same as
the individuality of the atom. He applies the terms person and
personality indifferently to a molecule, a star, a bird, or a
human being. It may be that this deliberate ignoring of well-
established meanings is to be set down to the professor's in-
tention of excluding all help from metaphysics. Yet when he
himself recognizes that the human individuality, when compared
with that of all beings lower in the scale of existence, is
transcendent and unique (p. 344), why should he refuse to avail
himself of a traditional use of terms which safeguard this im-
portant distinction ?
Although the professor is an evolutionist, he does not hold
that this view of the universe is inconsistent with the belief
that an examination of the Cosmos leads to the conviction that
it is the work of a Supreme Intelligence. Though he attaches
little importance to the teleological argument as it was formu-
lated by Paley, he holds that the response of Nature to our
mind implies that behind the harmony of natural phenomena
lies the originating Mind. "The facts connected with the
organic approach to man afford what is perhaps the strongest
argument, or at least the most condensed, in favor of the
opinion that there is an intelligent principle in control of the
universe. To those who have devoted themselves to natural
inquiry, at the same time keeping their minds open to the
larger impressions which that field affords, there generally
comes a conviction as to the essential rationality of the
operations" (p. 313). Yet the camp followers of evolution,
824. TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.,
shutting their eyes to obvious logic, are perpetually clamoring
that the evolutionary view cuts away the ground of the theistic
argument !
In the problem of the value of life and the meaning of
death the centre of interest is the question of immortality. In
the last chapter, which is consequently the most important one
in the book, the professor brings to bear on this consideration
the views which have been developed throughout his work.
Here he renders a distinct service to the cause of truth by
showing how unfounded is the dogmatism of those naturalists
who pretend that natural science offers any valid argument
against the belief in personal existence after death. Their
false assurance he traces to two chief sources. The first con-
sists in an illegitimate extension of the principle of the con-
servation of energy, and an unwarranted view of the nature
of causation. The . other " influence which has made for the
existing limited and incorrect conception as to the scope of
our knowledge of the universe" "may be defined as the idol
of the commonplace or the instinctive state of mind which
leads us to assume that what we see is all that is to be
known " (p. 298).
On the other hand we are not offered anything that can be
called a positive argument in favor of immortality. Professor
Shaler finds in his point of view scarcely anything more than
reasons which allow us to entertain the possibility and cherish
the hope that for the individual all does not end in death.
"To these conceptions of the historic place of man and the
relation of his selfhood to the stream of life in which it ap-
pears there is possibly in time to be added evidence to show
that his intelligence in a personal form endures after the criti-
cal point of death" (p. 331). We agree with the author, after
carefully reading his study, that " what the naturalist has to
show is shadowy and inconclusive " ; and we can hardly share
his hope that any extension of physical science will ever throw
any more light on the question of immortality. For the argu-
ments in proof of immortality lie in another realm of inquiry.
If, however, as we have already said, natural science offers no
grounds for a belief in immortality, neither does it, as the pro-
fessor shows, offer any grounds for a denial. " No well-trained
observer who has carefully remembered his experience with
phenomena is likely to affirm that he finds in that of death
anything that can fitly be termed proof that the mind does
not survive."
1901.] TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. 825
The attempt of some scholars to find in spiritualism and
its pretensions a proof of immortality Professor Shaler con-
siders a waste of time. Many sound observations on different
topics are to be found as obiter dicta throughout the work. A
few pages devoted to what the author calls inherited or auto-
matic thought touch on a subject of much interest, of which
but little is known. Another feature of the book worthy of
notice, as showing the logical, temperate, and sober method of
the writer, is that we nowhere find him, as is now the com-
mon custom, running off into metaphysical speculation and
then laying down his views as the conclusions of natural
science. If his example were followed, many polemical " scien-
tists " would find their occupation gone.
Having ungrudgingly recognized what is meritorious in Pro-
fessor Shaler's work, we must uncompromisingly condemn as
false, and injurious to the interests of morality, the low esti-
mate which he forms concerning the importance of the bear-
ing which a belief in immortality has upon the moral life.
The man who thinks that he will not survive the grave must
form a very different judgment as to the value of conduct from
that entertained by him who is convinced that for himself and
all other human beings with whom his path brings him in con-
tact there is another life to which this is but the prelude.
3. FATHER DE ANDREIS, THE LAZARIST MISSIONARY.*
The Life of Father De Andreis brings to our notice
another saintly pioneer of Catholicism in our country a priest
whose virtue and sanctity thus far have been too little known.
The lives of the truly apostolic men whose gigantic efforts
laid the foundation of the church in America must ever be for
us a source of righteous pride, a comfort, a consolation, and
to those who are continuing their work, a strong incentive.
Moreover, they furnish matter of admiration for all fair-minded
and appreciative men. Few of us realize the consuming love
of God and souls that actuated these early missionaries. The
labor with which they planted the seed of God's truth, and
tended its growth, is for the most part still untold. History
makes but a passing mention of their deeds, conveying no true
* Life of Felix De Andreis, C.M., First Superior of the Congregation of the Mission in
the United States. Chiefly from sketches written by Bishop Rosati, first Bishop of St.
Louis ; with an introduction by the Right Rev. John J. Kajp, D.D., Archbishop of St. Louis.
St. Louis : B. Herder.
826 TALK ABOUT NEW BOOKS. [Mar.
idea of what their labor meant, not relating their story of
awful hardships bravely encountered and cheerfully endured.
But while reading such a book as the life of Father De
Andreis we begin to realize the trials and privations which
these true apostles underwent. From his own words we infer
how great they must have been. " I know," said he, " that
were it not for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, I
would not stay where I am for all the gold in the world."
The school of suffering is the true school of saints. And in
many of these missionary priests we discern men worthy to
be numbered among God's saints. They are of the number
born to shine simply with the unseen love of God, and to
offer their holy lives as a sweet incense to the Almighty,
drawing down a benediction upon the land of their labors.
Among these heroes of the Gospel Father De Andreis was
an acknowledged leader. Their esteem for his learning and
reverence for his sanctity made him their counsellor in all un-
dertakings, and the model upon which to fashion their own
lives. An Italian by birth, and desiring to become a priest,
he was early attracted toward the life led by the sons of St.
Vincent de Paul. He was held in the highest admiration
both by his superiors and by the pope and cardinals, and it
was only after much negotiation that his community was pre-
vailed upon to allow him to accompany Bishop Dubourg to
America. His work in the diocese of St;. Louis lasted only
about three years. Yet, during that short time, so great was
the impression which his character and life made upon all who
knew him that veneration still clings round his name.
The book is written in a simple and unpretentious style.
Dealing with a period early in the history of the church in
America, it contains much that will prove interesting and in-
structive. The life is compiled from sketches by Bishop
Rosati, first Bishop of St. Louis, who was the friend and dis-
ciple of Father De Andreis ; it merely wishes to accomplish a
work of love and devotion, and to make known for the greater
manifestation of God's glory a life that will be a source of
edification and spiritual help.
Le Correspondent (10 Jan.): P. du Lac continues his study
The Jesuits. Paul Nourrisson gives a description of the
General Assembly of French Freemasons held in 1900.
L. de Lauzac de Laborie writes on the last years of the
Empress Josephine.
(25 Jan.) : In an obituary M. de Vogue records the
death of the Due de Broglie, the last survivor of the
famous group who in 1855 gave the Correspondant
new life. M. de Meaux, formerly inspector of finances,
indicates by figures that the charge of hoarding up
wealth made against the French Religious is based upon
prejudice. Senator de Lamarzelle, continuing the dis-
cussion of reasons for the government's attack on the
Religious, finds it in their strong religious and social in-
fluence over the people. M. Goyan shows admirably
the deep religious sentiment that shaped the life of the
late M. Olle Laprune. M. Baudrillart makes answer to
the critics who regard Quo Vadis with disapproval. M.
Bertrin refutes by a telling array of statistics the charge
of disproportionate criminality preferred against the
French clergy and religious.
Revue du Monde Catholique (i Jan.): The French translation of
Sienkiewicz's Let us Follow Him is continued in this
issue. In a second anonymous letter of Y to Z, Monseig-
neur Dupanloup is attacked most severely as a greatly
overrated man.
(15 Jan.) Sequels appear to the above.
Revue Thotniste (Jan.) : A discussion of St. Thomas's doctrine
on the best form of government is begun by Father
Montague, O.P. Dom Renaudin, O.S.B., begins the proof
of a thesis very acceptable to all Catholics: "There is
nothing to prevent the doctrine of the Assumption of
the Blessed Virgin from being placed among the dogmas
of the Faith."
Revue Be'ne'dictine (Jan.) : Dom Baltus gives a very admirable
summary of the work of the Abb Michiels on the
" Origin of the Episcopacy."
828 LIBRARY TABLE. [Mar.,
Revue du Clerge" Francais (i Jan.) : L. Philibert, writing of
Ultramontane affairs, tells of the unfortunate ill-feeling
aroused among the people of Italy by the refusal of the
Sacred Penitentiary to sanction the use of the queen's
prayer for the assassinated king. M. Brunetiere is
enthusiastically made welcome to the ranks of the de-
fenders of Catholicity in France, and his discourse at
Lille highly praised by the Abb6 Delfour. One of the
most pleasant memories of the holy year 1900, writes the
Abb6 Tartelin, is the international congress of the Third
Order of St. Francis. The writer explains at length the
value of the "Third Order" to society, and recalls with
pleasure the evidences of new interest in the life of St.
Francis. In the " Tribune Libre " an end is put to the
discussion on the " Devotion donnant, donnant" which
seems to have aroused much interest. The privilege of
having the last word is given to M. Hemmer, the op-
ponent not of the devotion to St. Antony, as he ex-
plains, but of the pseudo devotion which, he claims,
too often takes its place to the advantage of the shop-
keepers and the disadvantage of the pious faithful,
(i Feb.) : Father Vacandard sums up the result of long
researches on the authorship of the Imitation by Mgr.
Puyol, who believes it to be the work of Gersen (not Gerson).
Dom Mackey, the English Benedictine, so well known by
his writings on St. Francis de Sales, tells of that saint's
ideas about the training of priests. The next issue will
contain an article on St. Francis' ideal of a seminary.
In a remarkable paper on the religious philosophy of
Pascal, Father Laberthonniere, of the Oratory, insists
upon the spontaneous personal and interior character of
the Christian religion. He says the church has taught
us very explicitly that " there are no passive virtues."
Revue de Deux Mondes (15 Jan.): M. Doumic writes on the
"platitudes of Paul Verlaine."
L'Univers (14 Jan.): M. Tavernier describes a controversy
carried on between Father Gayraud and M. Doumergne
in consequence of the latter having asserted that Brune-
tiere's speech at Lille contained heresy because it spoke
of V proving " the authority of the church.
La Vie Catholique (16 Jan.) ; A sharp criticism rebukes the
writer in the Matin for declaring that " M. Leyques has
given M. l'Abb Loisy a position to compensate for his
1901.] LIBRARY TABLE. 829
having been expelled from the Catholic Institute and
excommunicated by Cardinal Richard." M. Loisy was
not excommunicated, nor has he been compensated.
La Quinzaine (16 Jan.) : P. Folliolley, after a long interval, re-
sumes his work upon Montalembert and gives some
previously unpublished information about the latter's
relation with Mgr. Parisis during the curious complica-
tions caused by the attempt to re-establish the Chapter
of Saint Denis. M. Welschinger draws from the second
volume of Von Moltke's military correspondence details
regarding the siege of Metz and of Paris,
(i Feb.) : Two French writers having published a couple
of volumes on John Ruskin last month, one of them,
M. Brunhes, contributes a carefully studied eulogy upon
" Ruskin : Art-Critic, Writer, and Social Apostle." Studies
upon Pasteur, le Due de Broglie, and M. Brunetiere
deserve 'notice.
Etudes (20 Jan.) : P. Ch6rot, continuing his study of
Quietism at Bourgogne, insists on the fact that the
Jesuit fathers were opposed to, instead of, as is often
believed, in favor of Fnelon. P. Abt presents a paper
showing that at present certain lodges of Freemasons
are existing in defiance of the civil law. Since the article
was published a Socialist deputy has spoken in favor of
amending the Bill on Associations, as its present pro-
visions would militate against the Socialists. P. Prelot (a
translation of whose paper on Religious appeared in the
Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Feb., 1901) writes upon the
intimate connection of the Priesthood and the Religious
state by reason of their common attraction to perfection,
and says: "If any state implies an authentic and official
profession of sanctity it is that of the priest, by virtue
both of his priestly consecration and his august ministry."
P. Martin, well known as a contributor to the Etudes,
gives an account of a new volume on the Cures at
Lourdes by Dr. Boissarie, successor to Dr. de Saint-
Maclou, who founded a bureau to record wonderful cures
performed at the grotto.
Civilta Cattolica (19 Jan.): A very complete summary of the
recent Pastoral of the English Bishops is given with the
comment that the document is as timely in Italy as in
England. An interesting review of a book upon Fre-
VOL. LXXII. 54
830 LIBRARY TABLE. [Mar.,
quent Communion, by Archbishop Gennari, indicates the
reasons for believing that frequent and at times daily
Communion is favored greatly by the mind of the
church.
(2 Feb.) : Criticism of atheistic evolutionism apropos of
a recent book. Scoring of S. Molmenti, a Catholic
deputy who recently declared in the Chamber that he
hoped the occupation of Rome would some day be
recognized as legitimate.
Rassegna Nazionale (16 Jan.): Ten pages are devoted to a trans-
lation of a chapter from External Religion by Father
Tyrrell, S J., a book (reviewed in THE CATHOLIC WORLD,
October, 1899) which has created a great deal of atten-
tion in several European countries, and with other writ-
ings of the same author has been in part translated
into French. (See La Quinzaine, 16 July, 1900.) S.
Conte, reviewing Cardinal Capecelatro's recent Life of
Paula Frassinetti, enumerates the numerous works of the
distinguished writer. A lecture by S. Fornaciari on Can-
to xviii. of the Inferno, delivered at San Michele, in
Florence, is reproduced.
Contemporary Review (Jan.): John H. Rigot writes to say that
in its present condition Dublin University constitutes a
menace to the faith of its Catholic students.
Fortnightly Review (Jan.) : William O'Connor Morris declares
that Lord Roseberry's Napoleon gives evidence that its
author is not deeply versed in the literature of the Na-
poleonic age. The % Hon. Stephen Coleridge writes an
Open Letter on Vivisection in protest to the Secretary
of State. Frederic Harrison gives remarkably strong
praise to the writer of Richard Yea and-Nay, which, he
says, is a true Romantic epic in the good old-fashioned
style.
The Month (Feb.): Reviewing An Englishwoman's Love-Letters,
M. D. Petre speaks instructively on that very puzzling
question* the relation of human to divine love. Father
Lucas contends that Religious Art has still a great fu-
ture before it, if it will cultivate the beauties and ignore
the mere conventions of the past. Father Thurston, in
what appears to be a final article on The Rosary, sums
up the rebutting evidence and then sifts it ; he com-
ments upon the famous will of Anthony Sers.
1901.] LIBRARY TABLE. 831
The Tablet (26 Jan.) : Father Coupe, S.J., criticises Mr. Bal-
four's recent plea for a religious unity which should
tolerate doctrinal variations.
(2 Feb.) : It is remarked that the Coronation Oath of
Edward VII. contains clauses so highly insulting to
Catholics that they were long ago removed from the
oath proposed to members of Parliament. Part of a let-
ter to The Guardian is reprinted, and in it Dom Gasquet
protests against the unjust suspicion that he criticised
the late Roman decision on Anglican Orders. There is
a summary given of a striking sermon by Father David,
O.S.F., on the Temporal Power of the Pope.
The Critical Review (Jan.) : An able review of Cape's English
Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries is fur-
nished by Robert S. Rait. Though short, it gives a
clear picture of the times. Professor James Orr, of Glas-
gow, gives an excellent critique of Ritschl's Christian
Doctrine of Justification. The general book notices in
this magazine are worthy of much commendation.
The Biblical World (Feb.) : There are three peculiarly good
articles in this issue. In " Atonement in non-Christian
Religions " George S. Goodspeed gives a valuable con-
tribution to the study of comparative religions. William
R. Harper writes on " The Priestly Element in the Old
Testament " in an enlightening way, and " Ezekiel's Con-
tribution to Sociology," by Rev. A. W. Ackerman, pre-
sents a new and profound view of the teaching of that
great prophet.
Catholic University Bulletin (Jan.) : Dr. Shahan deplores the
unjust exclusion of the Pope from the Peace Conference
at the Hague, and shows how it effectually helped to
make the Conference the failure it is now acknowledged
to have been. Hon. Carroll D. Wright speaks encour-
agingly of the social influence of the factory on the lives
of operatives, claiming that " the factory reaches down
and lifts up; that it does not reach up and drawdown."
He talks of " the ethical mission of the factory," and
declares that "gentlemen in charge of factories are the
managers of great missionary establishments."
IT will not be out of place in these Notes to
call special attention to the leading article in this
issue, on the attack that the French government
is making on the Religious Communities. American public
opinion is beginning to count for a great deal in France, and
if the true nature of the religious state is appreciated by the
American press, and if the weight of the latter's influence is
thrown in favor of liberty of association, not a little will be
done to stay the raised hand of the French Anticlericals.
The latest Encyclical, on Christian Democracy, is a lucid
document. While it deals largely with conditions in Europe, it
is evidently inspired by the devotion of the Holy See to the
cause of the plain people throughout the world. Its publica-
tion was first announced last fall at the close of the Inter-
national Congress of the Third Order of St. Francis, but it is
said that powerful influences originating with the monarchical
governments, especially the German absolutism, endeavored to
suppress it. It gave too much recognition to the democracy.
It voiced over-much the lights of the people. But Leo is in-
flexible, When he sees the right, nothing on earth can stay
him from doing it. The letter is masterly in its grasp of the
social situation. It is prudent in its wise and discriminating
distinctions. It is conclusive and far-reaching in its practical
application of the principles of former encyclicals. It will be
diligently read by the social economists of our own country.
The Friars in the Philippines seem just now to be the
victims of a storm of accusations. There is evidently a concerted
movement on the part of the press, secular as well as Protestant,
to defame them in the good opinion of the honest people of this
country. Let us above ail things be honest. Who are the Friars ?
1901.] EDITORIAL NOTES. 833
They are men who from their youth have sought the higher
life. They have prepared themselves for the Catholic priest,
hood by years of study, prayer, and service. They have cast
behind them the luxury of civilization, the sweet companionship
of their own, and have crossed the seas to bring the glad tid-
ings of the Gospel to the heathen. They are men of high
ideals, and it is presumed that they make a diligent effort to
attain them. It is inconsistent for any one who knows aught
of human nature to think that such men should be corrup-
tionists, libertines, or despoilers of men's hearts. The accusa-
tions brought against them are vague generalities. It is
necessary to specify names, dates, and accusers, if any evidence
is to hold before any judicial tribunal. These have been sadly
lacking in all the accusations brought against the Friars in the
Philippines. "They are wealthy," it is said. When did it be-
come a crime in the eyes of the American people to be
wealthy ? They are not wealthy. They are men who are
vowed to poverty. They do not possess in their own right
the clothes they wear or the beds they sleep on. Even if the
various orders as a corporate whole possess considerable prop-
erty, they have come by it legitimately, and the revenues of
their landed estates are not used for their personal luxuries,
but for religious and educational purposes. Not one of the
accusations against these men can be substantiated. It is ab-
solutely true that 90 per cent, of the people in the Philippine
Islands do want the Friars to remain among them.
If the American government is going to stay in the Islands
it would seem to be the wiser policy to conciliate the Friars
and not to antagonize them. In the many islands of the archi-
pelago they have great influence over the people, and if the
people are ever going to be reconciled to the American rule it
will be largely through the influence of the Friars.
834
STATISTICS OF PARISH SCHOOLS.
[Mar.,
STATISTICS OF PARISH SCHOOLS.
IT is a significant fact that a large number of citizens of
the United States do not need any compulsory law, since they
take the initiative in educating their children, and cheerfully
pay the cost of their religious training. By an unjust discrimi-
nation, attributed generally to rancorous non-sectarianism, these
patrons of the parish schools belonging to the Catholic Church
are also obliged to assume the whole burden of providing in.
struction in the secular branches required for good citizenship.
The following figures are taken from the official reports at the
close of the year 1900 prepared for the bishop of each diocese
named in the list :
In New York State are to be included the
Diocese of Ogdensburg, . . . 15 Schools.
Syracuse, . 16 "
Albany 33 "
Rochester, . . .41 "
Buffalo 68
Brooklyn, .... 64 "
Archdiocese of New York, . .187 "
Total in New York State, 424
Archdiocese of Baltimore,
. 81
Boston,
61
Chicago,
. 130
Cincinnati,
IOO '
Dubuque,
. 118
Milwaukee,
. 150
New Orleans,
. 106
Oregon,
23
Philadelphia,
. in
St. Louis, .
. 138
St. Paul,
79
San Francisco, .
32
Santa Fe,
Diocese of Alton.
61
Belleville, .
. 58
Boise,
4
Burlington, .
. 18
Charleston, . ..
5
Cheyenne, . .
Cleveland,
140 '
Columbus, .
. 40
Concordia,
16 '
Covington, .
35
Dallas, . ...
19
Davenport, .
. 42
Denver, .
16
Detroit,
64
Duluth, .
9
Erie
. 42
Fargo, . . .
12 '
Fort Wayne, . .
. 73 '
3,500 Pupils.
4,840 "
13,000 "
15,229
21,324
29,929
48,417
136,239
21,077
37.747
48,200
26,472 "
14.255
27,703
15,721
2,021 "
40,133
24.430
14,230
13,000 "
7.388 "
6.533
300 "
4.647
602 "
32,361
9,648
1,850
6,865
2,160
5,500
4,150
17,200
1,200
8,146
1, 600
12,038
STATISTICS OF PARISH SCHOOLS.
835
Diocese of Galveston,
27 Schools.
'
' Grand Rapids, .
46
*
' Grt en Bay,
73
1
1 Harrisburg,
35
' Hartford,
53
<
Helena, .
9
"
' Indianapolis, .
92
"
Kansas City,
4i
La Crosse,
72
"
' Leavenworth,
35
Lincoln, ....
15
1
' Little Rock,
32
Los Angeles, .
24
1
' Louisville, .
H5
'
' Manchester,
32
'
' Marquette, .
20 "
' Mobile
19
' Nashville, ....
18
' Natchez
' Natchitoches,
12 "
'
' Nesqually,
17
<
96
' Omaha
36 -
' Peoria, .
56
' Pittsburg,
120
' Portland
2O "
' Providence,
36
' Richmond, .
16
"
' Sacramento, . . ' ."
9
"
' St. Augustine,
ii
"
' St. Cloud, . . .
25
' St. Joseph
H
"
' Salt Lake,
3
"
' San Antonio,
39
' Savannah,
7
' Scranton, ....
37
' Sioux Falls,
10
' Springfield, ....
39
'
' Trenton, . . . ".
39
' Tucson, ....
7
' Wheeling,
10
>
' Wichita
25
' Wilmington, .
j
10
' ' Winona, ....
20
Vicariate-Apostolic of Brownsville, .
7
" " " Indian Terr.,
25 .
" " " North Carolina,
8
Prefecture-Apostolic of Alaska,
4,039 Pupils.
10,178 "
11,960 "
6,547
23.000
2,133
14,612
5,100
10,430
4,006
L494
1.837
2,349
13,800
9.990
5,586
2,806
2,470
865
2,600
34,8-17
4,838
8,700
32,722
7,819
17,100
2,304
1,148
2,023
3.3 00
1,171
281
4-769
2,301
n,3i7
1.075
16,381
8,000
900
1,619
1,907
2,354
3,600
1,136
2.413
512
Grand Total, . . . 3,753 " 853,725 "
To remove an erroneous impression it is necessary to state
that the children attending Parish Schools have homes sup-
ported by their parents, who are entitled to all the civic honor
that belongs to tax-payers. The figures given above do not
include any statistics of children educated in the numerous
Orphan Asylums under Catholic management. Academies,
Colleges, and other institutions devoted to higher education
are also omitted.
THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT AND THE NUNS.
VERY few people outside of Italy appreciate the real malignity of the Revo-
lution. The Law of Guarantees on its face seems to be enacted with some
degree of moderation. Lt places many safeguards about the august person
of the Holy Father, but these liberties are granted in something of the same
spirit that the cat allows the mouse release from its all-devouring claws, only to
pounce on it again with greater fierceness. The Holy Father by the logic of
his position, by inalienable historical rights, by the highest sanction, divine as
well as human, ought and should, of necessity, be absolutely free. He should
not possess his freedom as a benefaction from any government. His liberty is
inalienable; and inasmuch as the Law of Guarantees seems to make his free-
dom of action a gracious bestowal of a favor, he has not been able to accept it.
He must preserve the attitude of protestation. It is for this reason the status
quo of the Holy See has persisted for these thirty years. The Holy Father is
not and cannot be the vassal of any civil principality.
But it is not so much in its attitude towards the Holy Father that the Revo-
lution has shown its claws as it is in relation to church property and the re-
ligious communities. It is among the religious women, who are the most
helpless, that its awful severity has been felt.
The.government in its greed for gain laid its avaricious hand on the con-
vents and monasteries, and in order to possess itself of them completely, it
turned out the consecrated women and devoted men on the mercy of the world,
and thus condemned them to a violation of their vows or to a lingering death
amidst suffering and privation. Very few were found to accept the former
alternative. The latter, therefore, has been their lot for these thirty years, and
their only crime has been that they have sought and loved a life of service to
God and their neighbor. The government has made a show of compensation.
In its wonderful generosity, in lieu of the sequestrated wealth of religious prop-
erty, it has granted to each sister a pension of four or five sous a day, and even
this little was paid when it suited the caprice of the local officials.
The result of this wonderful generosity on the part of the government is
the existence to-day in Italy of several thousand nuns who are on the verge
of starvation. One community writes to the Association in Aid of the
Despoiled Nuns, which has been organized to succor them in their dire need;
"We retire to our cells when the sun goes down to spend the evening in utter
darkness. The scant pension we receive is barely able to provide oil necessary
for the lamp before the Blessed Sacrament." The superior of another com-
munity asks for an alms in order to enable her to get a few eggs for a consump-
tive nun who can hardly eat anything else. Still another says that " during
the last few days with the melting of the snow the water has penetrated even
into our poor mattresses, and we have been obliged to sleep in chairs, for we
had no money to repair the broken roofs."
These few glimpses reveal a state of affairs that seems to place the con-
secrated women of Italy along with the victims of the famine in India. Yet
this is the opening of the Twentieth Century of enlightenment and civilization
and the Italian government holds its rank among the Christian governments.
The " Association in Aid of Despoiled Nuns " has on its list of beneficiaries
over 400 convents, and were it not for the work of this energetic society many
would have actually died of starvation.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD MAGAZINE will forward to the proper persons
any aid the charitably inclined may think well to give for this worthy object.
The Catholic world
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