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SEVEN DAYS
BOOK.
.'5.
'I- "^
L «.*
^- . ■
\
'PS^-
X
:\
-^*
NOV 2 1 1904
l^arbart) College l.tt)rars
PROM THK BEqyCST OP
JAMES WALKER, D.D., LL.D.,
(CUts of z8i4)
PORMSR PRXaiDBNT OP HARVARD COLLBOB;
** Preference being given to works in the Intellectual
and Moral Sciences.'*
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD,
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
General Literature and Science.
PUBLISHED BY THE PAUUST FATHERS.
VOL. LXXIX.
APRIL, 1904, TO SEPTEMBER, 1904.
NEW YORK :
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD
120 West 60th Stref.t.
i<50'.
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C ? 3L3 -^
/
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CONTENTS.
Africa, A Mission in. {Illustrated^^ . 599
American Principles versus Secular Edu-
cation. — Thomas F. Woodlock^ . 711
Anglican Church, Present Conditions in
the, 662, 826
Baxter, Richard. — Dudley Baxter ^ . 726
Belated Wooing, A. — Jfary Catherine
Crowley^ 473
Black Hand, The. —Su^enie Uhlrich^ . 769
Books, The Latest, m, 255, 399, 547,
680,832
Brittany and its People. — Thomas
O'Hagan^ Ph.D., . .222
Brownson, Orestes A., LL.D. — M, /.
Harson^ i
" Buggins : a Friend of the Throne "
{^Illustrated,)— M, F, Quintan, . 736
Catarina — Georgina Pell Curtis, . 86
Catholicism, The Recommendation of.
—Rev, Joseph McSorley, C.S P , . 427
Columbian Reading Union, The, 140, 281,
422, 565, 704. 849
Cousin to a King.— Z^//tf Hardin Bugg, 524
Daj's Harvest, A. — Joseph F, Wynne, . 105
Dead Village, K,—Sophia Beale, . . 670
Department of the Interior, The Work
of the. — William H. De Lacy,
D,C.L,, 61
"Down the Court." {Illustrated,)—
M. F. Quintan, .... 299
Educational Question, Notes on the :
England— America— Ireland, . 96, 248
Efficiency, Absolute and Relative. — /.
C. Monaghan, 719
Electricity and Orthodoxy. (Illus-
trated.)— fames /. Walsh, M.D.,
Ph.D., 369,482
England, A Glimpse of 0\^.— Dudley
Baxter, 159
English Poetry, Lyric Elements in Old.
— Estelle McCloskey Daschbach, 74
Famous Church, The Story of a. — Ber-
nard St. John 5C0
French Home-Life in the Fourteenth
Century.— Z?tfr/(fy Dale, . . . 638
Gasquel, Abbot, O.S B.— -^ v, Ethelred
L. jaunton, 623
Oath, In the Land oi.—M. F. Quintan, 242
George M. Searle, CS.P, The Very
Reverend , {Frontispiece. )
Ghosts of the Abbey, The. — Agnes
O'Farrell Rowe, . . .613
Gregorian Centenary, The Thirteenth.
{Illustrated.) — Marie Donegan
Walsh, 22
Guido Rent's " Choir of Angels," in the
Oratory of St. Sylvia, {Frontispiece.)
Holy Family, The, {Frontispiece.)
Immigration Problems. — /. C. Mon-
aghan, 285, 512
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales.— dtfr/«
^elsh 753
Japan, Mission Work in. — A. I. Du P.
Coleman, 68
Lambs of the Campagna, Two Little. —
E. F. Mosby, 655
Library Table, 130, 269, 415, 557, 694, 844
Mallinckrodt, Herman Joseph von.
{Illustrated.)— Rev. George F. Wei-
bel,S./., .... 209,312,439
Marquette, P^re, {Frontispiece.)
Mary and Elizabeth, {Frontispiece.)
Moore, Thomas. {Portrait.) —Robert
M. Sillard, 584
"More Lasting than Bronze."— 71 B,
Cm 348
Momiog Toilet, A, {Frontispiece.)
Mosely Commission, Notes on the Re-
port of the, .... 392, 541
Mozart and the Church. — Rev. Ethelred
L. Taunton, 39
Mystery of the White Thorn, The.—
Shiela Mahon, i8x
Napoleon Brodeur, The Victory of. —
/. G. Menard, 627
Nozaleda, Mgr., and the AntU Clericals
of Spain.— fFa//^ M Drum, S.J., 569
Paris, Mission Work in. — Countess de
Courson, 8x3
Prayer, Progress in. — Rev. '/oseph Mc"
Sorley, C.S.P., . . . .333
Reformation, The. — The Cambridge
Modem History. — Rev. fames /.
Fox, D.D., 143
Religion, Authority in. — Rev, Joseph
McSorley, C.S.P., .... 50
Schwarzwald, A Little Journey in
the Estelle McCloskey Dasch-
bach, 761
Sculpture at St. Louis, The. {Illus-
trated.) — Zoe Fleming Dunlap, . 459
Sea and its Inhabitants, The. {Illus-
trated. )— William Seton , LL. D., . 1 92
Southwell, Robert: Poet, Priest, and
Martyr. — /Catherine Brigy, . 777
Spain, Anti-Clerical Tactics in. — Rev.
Walter M. Drum, S./,, . . . 797
St. '' late at Assisi, Memories of. — G.
• V. Christmas, 650
Superior-General of the Paulists, The
New, 677
Temperance Movement in F.ngland,
The —Rev. fames M. Rear don, . 356
Th^baud's Reminiscences, Father, . 789
Trappist Monastery in Japan, A. —
Francis McCullagh, . . .155
Trinity Collejje and Higher Education.
— M. McDevitt, , . . . 3S7
Vaudeville Romance, A. — MaryJ^athe- .
rine Crowley, . igttized by GOOgk
IV
Contents.
POETRY.
Columba and the Dove.— P. /. Cole-
man^ O20
Q,om^^^xi^h\,^Thomas B, ReiUy^ . 355
CoTV^TwwW.'-WafridWilbtrforce^ . 386
Easier.— /u/iaH E. fohnstone^ , . 48
Easter Cry, An. — Charles Hanson
Tewne^^ 85
Eternal Canticle, The.— i". L, Emery, . 73
"Follow thou Me."Sister M. Wil-
ft ed, O.S,B., 752
His Hand, In the Hollow of.— iT. H,
Law/ess, 499
Knock, The.— /«?^» /erome Rooney, . 347
Lady of Saguenay, Our.— J/. F.
O'Brien^ 510
Magnificat.— iV^. G. /. ^Kinlock, . .158
Montmorency, The Falls of. — Julian E.
Johnstone, 190
Night is Young, When the.— ^. E,
tVade, 598
Prayer, The Unanswered.— i^. F. Mur-
' phy, 669
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Africa from South to North through
Marotseland, 680
America, A New Discover)* of a Large
Country in, 134
American Education, Religious Free-
dom in, 267
Ancient World, Political Theories of
the, 365
Apologia pro Vita Sua, .... 683
Beloved City, Letters from the, . .125
Bishop and His Flock, A, . . .261
Burden of the Times, The, ... 685
Carter, The Life and Letters of Thomas
Thellusson, Canon of Christ Church,
Oxford, and for Thirty six Years Rec-
tor of Clewer, 119
Catholic Church in New Jersey, The, . 263
Christian Worship, .... iii
Clerg^, De T Education du Jeune, . 123
Columban : Saint, Monk, and Mission-
ary, 258
Dante's Inferno, Introduction to, . . 689
'* Divina Commedia," Comments of
John Ruskin on the, .... 268
Emmet, Robert, 553
Faith of Men, The, . . . .691
God : Being a Contribution to the Philo-
sophy of Theism, .... 547
Goodness, The Nature of, . . .118
Gospels as Historical Documents, The, 399
Greater America, 550
Hammurabi, The Code of, King of
Babylon, 255
Hamack and Loisy, .... 406
Health, The Aristocracy of. . . .127
He that Eateth Bread With Me, . .688
Histoire de la Th^oiogie Positive depuis
I'origine jusqu'au Concile de Trente, 548
India, The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints
of 114
Irish Life in Irish Fiction, . . . 692
Israel, The Early Story of, . . . 690
Issues of Life, The, . . .413
Jesus Christ ihe Word Incarnate, . . 842
Jesus, The Sufferings of, . . . 260
Joan of the Alley 127
Lent and Holy Week 686
Life of JesuF, New Light on the, . . 402
Life of Christ, Prayers and Meditations
on the;
Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, Letters
of, .
Louisiana Purchase and the Explora-
tion, Early History, and Building of
the West, The,
Matters of Faith, Guidance from Robert
Browning in, .... .
Missionary in the Family, A,
Newman, 839
Non Serviam, ...... 131
North SUr, The, 414
Oxford Conferences on Prayer, . . 549
Phtlosophes, Les Grands, . . .120
Pine Grove House, The, . 692
Poets of the South, . . . •123
Pope Pius X , Life of 687
681
83s
128
X16
"3
Prescott, William Hickling,
Priest, The Young, ....
Prospero, My Friend, . . . .
Reason and Virtue, The Canon of,
R6cit de la Creation dans la Gen^se
expliqu6 d'apr^s les D^couvertes les
plus ricentes, Le,
Religious Life, Elements of, .
Rome and Reunion,
Sacred Heart, The Mercies of the,
Sainte Anne, By the Good, 4
Sainte Colette de Corbie,
St. Ignatius' Pulpit, Sermons from,
St. Patrick in History, .
School of the Heart, The, .
Sermons, The S)mbol in.
Silent Places, The, ...
Sinai— Ma'&n P^tra ; Sur les Traces
d'lsrael, ....
Songs by the Wayside, .
Spanish, A Practical Course in,
Sunday-school, Principles and Ideals
for the
Truth, Glimpses of.
Veil of the 1 emple, The,
Venice, The Oligarchy of,
Via Dolorosa, ....
Where Saints Have Trod,
Wilderness was King, When,
Woman
266
554
126
405
"3
122
260
684
687
408
262
260
556
412
691
690
261
832
410
688
693
117
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«APRI1.^« tSO^-P^
Orestes A. Brownsoiit LL D. M. J. habsok.
The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary, 604-1904.
MABIE BONBGAN WALSH.
Mozart and the Church. bbv. bthelbbd l. taunton.
Easter. julian b. johnstone.
Authority in Religion. bbv. josbph Mosobley, c.s.p.
The Work of the Department of the Interior.
WILLIAM H. DB LACT, DC L.
Mission Work in Japan. a. i. du p. colbman.
The Eternal Canticle. s. l. embrt.
Lyric Elements in Old English Poetry.
B8TBLLE MoOLOBKEY DA8CHBACH.
An Easter Cry. chables habsob towbe.
Catarina. geobgina pell cubtis.
Notes on the Educational Question : England— America— Ireland.
A Day's Harvest. Joseph f. wybne.
The Latest Books.— Library Table.
Prftocy ^5
I #3
THE OFFICE OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD, NEW YORK.
p. O. Box 9, station N. Digitized by GoOQIc
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lo pieces iUib washboard ; gunc
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PEARLINE
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The Hours of wbr
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I. .
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. LXXIX. APRIL, 1904. No. 469.
ORESTES A. BROWNSON. LL.D.*
•• A~man of courage and a great American."
BY M. J. HARSON.
RESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON was one of
the giants of the nineteenth century. He tow-
ered above his fellows as towers the average
man in a group of boys. Great in physical pro-
portions as compared with most men, he was
still greater in his intellectual endowments. A fine and massive
head crowned his tall, broad-shouldered, and sturdy body, and
his strong, expressive face, fearless eyes, and long, shaggy hair
impressed the beholder with a conviction of leonine power.
To have him on your side was like having a regiment in your
defence; to have hini against you was like facing an over-
whelming battalion. Many phrases have been used in describ-
ing his many-sided qualities, but the one which has pleased
me most, and which seems to embrace all the others, is that
he was "A Man of Courage, and a Great American."
Orestes Augustus Brownson, LL.D., the distinguished re-
viewer, controversialist, publicist, and philosopher, was born at
Stockbridge, Vt, September i6, 1803, and died at Detroit,
Michigan, April 17, 1876.
His father, Sylvester A. Brownson, a native of Hartford
County, Conn., and his mother, Relief Metcalf, a native of
Keene, New Hampshire, were among the early settlers of
Stockbridge. The elder Brownson died shortly before Orestes
• An additss delivered before the Catholic, Club of New York City, January 19, 1904.
Ths Missionary Sociktt of St. Paul thk Apostlb in thk Statb
or New York, 1904.
TOL. LXXlX.— 1 Digitized by Google
2 Orestes a. brownson, LL.D. [April,
was born, but his mother, who by the way was born on the
American Thanksgiving following Burgoyne's defeat, lived until
December, 1865. Dr. Brownson was one of a family of six
children, three boys and three girls. His eldest brother,
Daniel, became distinguished as quite an orator; his second,
Orin, became a Catholic late in life. His twin sister, Mrs.
Ludington, died in Bay City, Michigan, December, 1892. She
never became a Catholic, but one of her daughters did.
Dr. Brownson's father died without leaving any estate, and
his mother had a hard struggle in bringing up her children.
At the age of six he was placed with an aged couple who
lived on a farm about four miles from the little town of
Royalton, Vt. He was treated with great kindness and
affection by them, and brought up as well as could be ex-
pected from persons in their condition of life, but according
to the most rigid form of New England orthodoxy. Living
with these old people he was debarred from the sports, plays,
and amusements of children, and, as he says in The Convert:
" I had the manners, the tone and tastes of an old man before
I was a boy — a sad misfortune, for children form one another
and should always be suffered to be children as long as pos-
sible."
He learned to read at an early age, and with a great fond-
ness for reading, had scarcely any books to read but the Scrip-
tures and a few religious treatises. He had read the Bible
through before he was eight years old, and knew a great part
of it by heart before he was fourteen.
Hence it is not surprising that his precocious mind turned
early to thoughts dealing with the mysteries of life, and that
they should take a deeply religious turn. The prevailing
thought of the early part of the last century was religious and
controversial, and an examination of the old quarterlies and
newspapers gives an insight into this phase of New England
life, which one would not otherwise be prepared to believe.
When men met together, whether in the little shops, country
stores, at their firesides or elsewhere, religious discussions were
indulged in with the same vigor and earnestness as political dis-
cussions are indulged in now during a hotly contested presi-
dential campaign.
When about nine years old Brownson was permitted to
accompany a much older boy to the middle of the town.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes a. Brownson, ll,d. 3
about four miles distant from his home, to witness a muster,
or general training, of a brigade of militia. On returning home
he was asked what he had seen which interested him most,
and he replied that he had seen two old men talking on reli-
gion. In speaking of this incident in The Convert he says :
"In fact I was so interested in their discussion that I quite
forgot the soldiers, though I came of a military family, and
almost forgot to eat my card of gingerbread. The discussion,
I remember, was on free-will and election, and I actually took
part in it, stoutly maintaining free-will against Edwards, who
confounds volition with judgment, and maintains that the will
is necessarily determined by the state of the affections and the
motives presented to the understanding."
In the town in which he lived were Congregationalists,
Baptists, Universalists, Methodists, and ''Christians," a sect
founded in northern New England in 1800. The two latter
being the more numerous, he usually attended their meetings.
He said that the only difference that he could discover between
the Methodists and the Christians, in those days, was that the
Methodist preachers appeared to have the strongest lungs,
preached in a louder tone, and gave the most vivid pictures of
hell-fire and the tortures of the damned. He was so impressed
with this kind of preaching that he became constantly afraid
that the devil would come and carry him off bodily. He tried
to get religion, and had almost made up his mind to submit
to the Methodist form of belief. At this time he was only
twelve years of age, and in his distress of mind he visited an
old lady for whom he had a great affection, who was a rigid
and sincere CongregatiOnalist, and stated his case to her.
She replied : " My poor boy, God has been good to you and
has no doubt gracious designs towards you. He means to use
you for a purpose of his own, and you must be faithful to his
inspirations. But go not with the Methodists, or with any of
the sects. They are new lights, and are not to be trusted.
The Christian religion is not new, and Christians have existed
from the time of Christ. These new lights are of yesterday.
You yourself know the founder of. the Christian sect, and I
myself knew personally both George Whitefield and John Wes-
ley, the founders of Methodism. Neither can be right, for they
come too late, and have broken off, separated from the body
of Christians which subsisted before them. When you join any
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
4 Orestes a. Brownson, LL.D. [April,
body calling itself a Christian body, find out and join one that
began with Christ and his Apostles, and has continued to sub-
sist the same, without change of doctrine or worship, down to
our time."
This advice deterred him from joining the Methodists, and
two years afterwards his aunt gave him some books on Univer-
salism to read. The perusal of these books, aided by his aunt's
intelligent commentaries, shook his early belief in future re-
wards and punishments, and unsettled his mind on the most
important points of Christian faith. This state of religious
uncertainty and unrest, without his affiliating with any of the
prevailing sects, continued until his nineteenth year. While
pursuing his academic studies at Ballston, N. Y., in 1822, he
became a Presbyterian, but soon meeting with men of various
religious opinions he changed his views, and became a Univer-
salist minister in 1825, at the age of twenty-two. He received
his letter of fellowship as a Universalist preacher at Hartland,
Vt., and remained there a year, continuing his studies part of
the time with the Rev. S. C. Loveland, a man of some learn-
ing and the compiler of a Greek lexicon of the New Testa-
ment, and was ordained at JafTrcy, N. H., in the summer of
1826.
During the year 1824 he taught school in what is now a
portion of the City of Detroit, but he suffered so from fever
and ague that he could not longer remain. Coming East in
1825, he taught school at Elbridge, Onondaga County, N. Y.,
where he met his wife, Miss Sally Healy, and was married to
her in 1827. Miss Healy was said to be a woman of a singu-
larly sweet and beautiful character, and was received into the
church soon after Brownson was, and died at Elizabeth, N. J.,
in 1872. Her cousin, the Hon. John P. Healy, of Boston, was
the trusted law partner of Daniel Webster, and between
Healy and Brownson the warmest friendship always existed.
From this union of Dr. Brownson and Miss Healy eight chil-
dren were bom, seven sons and one daughter, and all finally
became Catholics. Two died in childhood. Orestes A., the
oldest, died at Rockville, Dubuque County, la., April 29, 1892.
John, the second, a lawyer, died at St. Paul in 1857. William,
the third, was coming home to enter the army when he was
taken sick and died at Virginia City, Nevada, in 1864. Henry
F., the fourth, was a major in the Third Artillery Regulars
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes a, Brownson, ll,d. 5
during the war and until 1870. For the past twenty years he
has been practising law in Detroit, Michigan. He is a gradu-
ate of Holy Cross College, of Georgetown University, and of
the University of Munich. In 1856 he published a translation
from the Spanish of Balmes' Fundamental Philosophy. In later
years he published translations from the Italian of Tarducci's
Christopher Columbus and John and Sebastian Cabot, He has
written a Life of his distinguished father in three volumes, and
has collected and edited his entire writings in twenty volumes.
Miss Brownson, the only daughter, wrote a Life of Prince
Galitzin, and several stories, one of which is Marian Elwood,
She married Judge Tenney, of New Jersey, in November, 1873,
and died a few years later, leaving two daughters. Edward, the
youngest child of Orestes A., was a Captain A. D. C. in the Civil
War, and was killed in battle at Reams Station, Va., August
24, 1864. He was a graduate of St. John's College, Fordham,
while the other brothers took their degrees from Georgetown.
At the time Brownson became a Universalist minister he had
already acquired a considerable reputation as a bold and ori-
ginal thinker, by contributions to the Gospel Advocate^ the lead-
ing Universalist organ. He afterwards became editor of the
Philanthropist^ and was a contributor to all the leading peri-
odicals. He was at this time in the full enthusiasm of youth,
with a magnificent physique, a powerful voice, unconquerable
energy, fiery, fearless, and terribly in earnest. After his ordi-
nation he returned to New York State, where he had lived most
of the time since his fourteenth year, and although beginning
to acquire a prominent position in the Universalist denomina-
tion, he found that on closer scrutiny he could not reconcile
his reason to its teachings, and in 1828 withdrew from its com-
munion.
About this time Robert Dale Owen was before the pub-
lic with his plans of world- reform. This movement drew the
attention of Dr. Brownson to the social evils which exist in
every land, and to the inequalities which existed in our own.
His sympathies were enlisted, and he became a socialist in the
highest and broadest sense. He was prominent in the forma-
tion of the Workingmen's Party in New York, and for some
years found vent for his activity in devising, supporting, reject-
ing, and refuting theories and plans of world-reform. Of the
effectiveness of these plans he presently despaired. He found
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
6 Orestes a. brownson, ll.d. [April,
that if he wished to build up society, to effect something posi-
tive, he could not proceed a single step without religion, and
without it all efforts were impotent. He therefore resumed
preaching as an independent preacher, and being attracted to
the study of^Unitarianism by the writings of Dr. William Ellery
Channing, in 1832 he became pastor of a Unitarian congrega-
tion at Walpole, N. H. Four years later he organized, in Bos-
ton, "The Society tor Christian Union and Progress," of which
he retained the pastorate until he ceased preaching in 1843.
His friends at this time were William Ellery Channing, Theo-
dore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, Na-
thaniel Hawthorne, George Bancroft, John C. Calhoun, George
Ripley, and men of this class. Among the younger men were
Henry D. Thoreau, Isaac T. Hecker, William D. Kelley, and
Charles A. Dana, and he had a more or less intimate acquaint-
ance with all the prominent men in literature and politics.
The influence of Brownson on the thought of the day —
political, social, philosophical, and religious — was not exceeded
by that of any other man in the country at this time, and his
influence in individual cases was wide and far-reaching. The
deep friendship and affection which existed between himself and
Father Hecker to the end are well known. Hon. Amos Perry,
of Rhode Island, who succeeded John Howard Payne as consul
at Tunis, was a classmate and intimate friend of Thoreau at
Harvard, and he has told me that during their college career
Thoreau's thought was almost entirely dominated by Brownson,
and that he spoke of him with greater admiration than of any
other writer. Perry asserted, moreover, that Thoreau told him
that his profound love of nature was inspired by Brownson, not
by Emerson, as is generally supposed.
William D. Kelley was employed in a jewelry shop in
Boston when he first attracted the attention of Brownson, who,
perceiving his great natural talents, induced him to take up the
study of law and got him into the law-office of Hon. John P.
Healy. After Kelley's admission to the bar he returned to his
native city of Philadelphia, entered Congress in 1861, and will
be remembered as one of the leaders there for more than a
quarter of a century, until his death in 1890. Charles A.
Dana came under the attention and influence of Brownson
while he was a member of the "Brook Farm Community."
He was assistant secretary of war in 1863 and 1864, and as
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes A. brownson, ll.d. 7
editor of the New York Sun became the most distinguished
journalist in America.
Brownson was regarded as among the first men of the age,
and was acknowledged to be the leading thinker and writer of
our country. His writings were held in high esteem by the
scholars of Europe. Victor Cousin, in his Fragments Philo-
sophiqueSy regarded him as the main philosopher of the country ;
a distinguished Spaniard called him the " Balmes of America,"
and Lord Brougham pronounced him to be our leading genius.
Men like George Bancroft, Charles Sumner, and Horace Greeley
esteemed his writings as of the highest order.
Translations of some of his various works and essays were
published and favorably received in various centres of Europe,
and his Quarterly Review was regularly published in London
simultaneously with its appearance in this country. He lec-
tured with success in the different New England lyceums, and
was in demand for commencement orations at most of the New
England colleges and universities. He received the degree of
LL.D. from Norwich University, Vermont, and later was the first
to receive the same degree from St John's College, Fordham.
In 1838, while still preaching and writing for various periodicals,
he established the Boston Quarterly Review, which he continued
for five years. In 1844 he began the publication ol Brownson' s
Quarterly Review^ which he continued without interruption until
1864. In 1873 he revived the Review and continued it until
October, 1875, when the infirmities of age obliged him to re-
linquish the work. To give an account of the successive changes,
or developments, in his views until he finally announced his
intention of becoming a Catholic, would in itself require a sep-
arate and extended address. He was received into the church
by Bishop Fitzpatrick, of Boston, on Sunday, October 20, 1844,
just as he had entered his forty-second year. After his con-
version he wrote and lectured indefatigably, and besides his
Quarterly Review and articles for other periodicals, he published
The Convert y The Spirit Rapper ^ The American Republic ^ and
several other works.
Dr. Brownson moved to New York City in October, 1855,
and in 1858 or 1859 took up his residence in Elizabeth, N. J.
Leaving there in October, 1875, he went to live with his son in
Detroit, Michigan, where he died on Easter Monday, April 1 7
1876. On June 16, 1886, his remains were transferred to the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8 ORESTES A, BROWNSON, LL.D, [April,
Brownson Memorial Chapel at Notre Dame University, Indiana,
where they now rest.
I have said that the phrase which pleased me most and which
seemed to embrace all other phrases descriptive of this great
and many-sided man was that he was a man of courage. Of all
types of courage the most sublime is that which can calmly and
critically examine the beliefs which have been held to be true,
prove them to be false or defective, reject them with knowledge
of the consequences which will follow, take up other beliefs
looked upon with intolerance, find them to be true, and embrace
them, conscious of the sacrifices and the odium this announce-
ment will bring.
I have the greatest respect for every good man's honest
beliefs in the things which he holds to be true, whether Chris-
tian, Jew, or pagan, and I wonder at and admire those who
calmly take up the beliefs taught by an affectionate mother,
shared in by those most tenderly loved, firmly held by those
recognized as superior in virtue and intelligence, and find them
to be grossly in error. To reject such beliefs may mean the
severance of warmest friendships and serious material losses ; to
divest other doctrines, which had been looked upon with feelings
akin to horror, of all their disagreeable and obnoxious features,
and, finding them true, to accept them, oftentimes gives no other
compensation save the consciousness of holding to the truth.
Many good men there are who, jealous of their claims to courage,
have besitated and turned back before they had traversed half
the way. How transcendent, therefore, must be the courage of
those wlio unhesitatingly work their way through to the end I
Brownson's courage was of that sublime order which dares to
tell the truth at all times without regard to cost, and this is
the most unpopular thing a man can do. Brownson's tones at
times in defence of the truth were like the thunder, with light-
ning flashes. They cleared the air, but they filled the hearts of
the timid with alarm. He gave no quarter to false teaching,
deceit, or humbug, and those he thus exposed opposed him
bitterly. Between the faint-heartedness of those he sought to
inspire with courage, and the relentlessness of those he exposed,
his later life was a struggle in which only such courage as was
his could have battled on unflinchingly to the end. Brownson
firmly believed in the gospel of *' Do ! " while many Catholics
believe in the gospel of " Don't ! "
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes a. Brownson, ll.d. 9
Great as he was physically and intellectually, he had a
heart big enough to dominate both. He loved God and coun-
try with all the intensity of his great soul, and his sympathy
for ail humanity was as tender as that of a woman. Next to
his love of God was his love of country, and when not engaged
in the exposition of the teachings of the church, or the expo-
sure of error, his great talents were devoted to the study of all
questions the solution of which would lift up the state and
make Americans the best people under the sun, for he believed
that Americans were destined to teach the world. His political
writings are worthy of profound study. He welcomed all those
who landed on our shores from the various countries of Europe,
but viewed with concern their disposition to retain their ** For-
eignism," and their reluctance to become Americans. He be-
lieved their incoming meant a higher and better Americanism,
but only by their assimilating with and being fused into the
American body. He declared that the great body of Catholic
immigrants coming to our shores half a century ago should be
one of the best elements of American citizenship, and he tried
to point out that they would be better Americans by becoming
better Catholics. And was not his own career a proof of this
declaration, for who could match him in his intense devotion
to Catholicism, and excel him in his loyal Americanism ? He
believed that more depended on us than on non- Catholics, and
that, looking to the future, we held the destinies of our coun-
try in our hands. But we must win the minds and hearts of
our countrymen, not by empty boasting or idle assertions of
what Catholics have done in other times and places, but by
proving our own superiority in wisdom, intelligence, and virtue
here and now. The demagogues of those days, however, dis-
torted his views and misrepresented his motives, and he was
greatly misunderstood. He frequently gave expression to his
belief in the importance of Catholic influence, and in his preface
to The American Republic he says : " I am ambitious even in
my old age to exert an influence on the future of my country,
for which I have made, or rather my family have made, some
sacrifices, and which I tenderly love. Now, I believe that he
who can exert the most influence on our Catholic population,
especially in giving tone and direction to our Catholic youth,
will exert the most influence in forming the character and shap-
ing the future destiny of the American Republic." Previous
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
lo Orestes A. Brownson, LL,D, [April,
to, and after, the outbreak of the great Civil War, which threat-
ened the destruction of the country, many of our foremost men
hesitated as to the real issues involved. Brownson was one of
the first to see the situation clearly, and thundered out his
views in no uncertain tones ; and few men of that day did more
to inspire loyal devotion to the Union, and to set the nation
right, than he.
I am tempted to cite one instance of his loyal Catholic
Americanism when argument seemed to be out of the question,
and when it was necessary for him to use his great physical
strength rather than his overmastering mental ability. One
day a man named Hoover was abusing Brownson to his pub-
lisher. Rev. B. H. Greene, at his store in Boston. As Brown-
son entered the book-store Greene said : ** There is Brownson
now ; talk to him." Hoover turned to Brownson and began to
abuse him violently for becoming a Catholic. Brownson inter-
rupted him, saying: "Another word and I will throw you
over that stove-pipe." Hoover retorted by calling him a traitor
to his country and a Benedict Arnold for becoming a Catholic.
Dr. Brownson instantly grasped him, and unceremoniously
pitched him headlong over the stove-pipe, which ran from a
stove in the front of the shop to the wall in the rear. The
newspapers and magazines made much of the incident at
the time, and Hoover commenced an action for assault and
battery; but it never came to trial.
Brownson always looked hopefully to the young men, and
placed his dependence mainly on them. This is true of his
whole career to the end of his life. My purpose in taking up
the movement to honor Brownson was not so much to see a
monument erected to his memory, as to attract the attention
of our young men to the type of man and to his writings. I
owe him a debt of gratitude. I question if there is any type
of writing so mischievous and harmful as the apologetic
defences of the church, its history, teachings, and traditions,
which are to be found in many of our histories, stories, addresses,
and sermons.
Their aim seems to be to paralyze rather than to stimulate
and develop thought. Much of this kind of literature was
thrown in my way when a young man, and the effect it had
on me was to excite doubt where I had entertained absolute
and unquestioning faith. Many of these apologies were so
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ORESTES A, BROWNSON, LL.D, II
beggarly in their arguments and so supine in their defence,
that they established the strongest kind of an argument for the
other side — a side which I did not otherwise know of. They
made me acquainted with a universe of doubt that I had not
previously dreamed of, and I was thrown into a state of men-
tal unrest on questions of religion that distressed me for some
years. That the truth was in great peril, and could evoke no
better support than the kind of defence offered, seemed incom-
prehensible to me. My gentle mother had taught me to have
supreme faith in God, that he ruled the world and was all-
powerful, and I could not therefore believe that the future of
God's church depended on these pigmies and their lilliputian
struggles in its defence. Faith was strong within me in spite .
of my doubts. If the doctrines which I was told were errors
of modern thought could command the most accomplished
expositions of many of the recognized intellectual leaders of
the day, surely, if what I believed to be true, were true, I
should be able to find greater minds giving grander demonstra-
tions of intellectual ability in their behalf. The apologetic plea
that error was more fascinating to great minds than truth,
always struck me as childish and filled me with impatience. It
could only be the plea of little souls excusing their own in-
competency. The underlying suggestion made by them, that
the Prince of Evil controlled the human mind and could
triumph over truth, seemed an argument only fit for pagans to
use. It was making out God to be weak, impotent, powerless;
truth negative, and error affirmative. One might as well claim
that darkness dispelled light. In my search I finally discovered
in Brownson the one man I was looking for, and my doubts
were dispelled as quickly as the morning mists before the ris-
ing sun. No one can read Brownson and harbor doubt. He
inspires one with enthusiasm in a belief in God. He impresses
on one the conviction that the greatest act of the human mind
is in giving an expression of absolute faith, and that this act
lifts one above all others devoid of faith. If I am ever guilty
of an act of pride it is that feeling that no man is my equal
who is not my equal in Catholic faith. I fear no man, and I
do not apologize to any one for the faith that is in me ; but,
on the other hand, rather expect an apology from those who
do not agree with me. This spirit and these convictions I owe
to Brownson more than to all other Catholic writers combined.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
12 Orestes a. Brownson, LL.D, [April,
and I make this statement to explain why I have clung so
tenaciously to the movement to erect a monument to him.
American Catholics are the best Catholics in the world,
and this is due in some measure to the antagonisms of
American Protestantism. With the present softening of reli-
gious prejudices there is danger of lapsing into the timid,
helpless, and senile condition of the Catholics of France
and Italy, and the safeguard from this awful fate is the raising
up of many men of the type of Brownson. As the great
Archbishop of St. Paul has so eloquently said : " The Com-
mon ! We are surfeited with it ; it has made our souls torpid
and our limbs rigid. Under the guise of goodness it is a
curse. The want in the world, the want in the church, to-day
as at other times, but to-day as never before, is men among
men, men who see further than others, rise higher than others,
act more boldly than others. . . . Now is the opportunity
for great and singular men among the sons of God's Church.
To-day routine is fatal, to-day the Common is exhausted
senility. The crisis demands the new, the extraordinary, and
with it the Catholic Church will secure the grandest of her
victories, in the grandest of history's ages."
Following the announcement of Dr. Brownson's suspension
of his Review in 1875, and his retirement from the field which
he had occupied so conspicuously for so many years, Dr. W.
G. Ward, the well-known English Catholic scholar, wrote a
critique of Brownson and his philosophy which appeared in the
Dublin Review for January, 1876. In this article he gave ex-
pression to the following appreciative estimate :
*' Brownson's career is one which may well serve to lessen
our despondency as we look out upon the world of the nine-
teenth century. We are sometimes asked whether the Catholic
Church is not powerless over minds that have known intellec-
tual freedom, have ranged abroad, and been enlightened by the
philosophy of Liberalism and Socialism. The answer is here.
So wonderful is the power of truth that it is able to subdue
the charm of license, to take from so-called liberty its fascina-
tions, and from the thirst after knowledge its danger. The
same truth which, more than thirty years ago, won to the
church this cultured and energetic nature, has kept it in humble
submission to authority, which did not appeal to the private
judgment of the individual but to faith. Is Christianity unable
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes A. Brownson, ll.D. 13
to bear investigation? Must it of necessity dissolve under the
test of modem thought and severe logic? Here again is one
more instance of the correct answer. Not, indeed, that Catho-
licity is in need of the approbation of any human being, but
in an age which professes to see a necessary antagonism between
intellect and faith we may lawfully be proud of the men who
are conspicuous in their obedience to the Church of God,
whilst in intellect they are second to none. And this testimony
becomes only the more impressive when, as may happen any-
where, there arise difficulties after conversion, and the mind
has received a bias in some erroneous direction. Then it is
beautiful to see the victory of faith, and to learn how moral
discipline avails much more than philosophy. Dr. Browiison
might have chosen to believe in his own power of reasoning in |
spite of the Church's evident wishes, but with a magnanimity
which is the finest trait in his character, he preferred to divest
himself of many advantages, rather than, in any way whatever,
to endanger fais own or his neighbor's faith. There are many
men who, under slighter temptation than his, have forgotten to
obey. His has been the rare privilege of showing to the world,
by a constant and frank submission, that humility is the guide \
and safeguard of wisdom. We venture to say that there are
very many who will regret the pressure of circumstances to
which he has been obliged to yield, and who will often look
wistfully for the appearance of such loyal and hearty declara-
tions of faith as those to which they had been in the habit of
expecting from him. They will often remember how strong
and enduring was the impression left upon them as they read
his defence of Mother Church against the rampant errors of the
day; how they gained a new light as they pondered his
admirable reasonings on the relations of society to the Church
of Jesus Christ, and of kings and peoples to His Vicar; how
they were taught the hollowness of Protestant beliefs as they
contemplated, by his aid, the downward course of Lutheranism
and Calvinism towards the lowest depths. And if in another
province they have not been able to receive his conclusions,
aor to follow him in the tenets which he long defended, they
have always at least recognized his ardor for the propagation
of truth, even when it needed to be enlightened by a wider
knowledge of what the Church has declared. The qualities of
intellect displayed have won our admiration, but still more
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
14 ORESTES A. BROWNSON, LL.D. [April,
have they been edified by the docility of heart, the unwavering
faith which prompted him now to speak of the Catholic Church
as the tenderest and most affectionate of mothers, with whom
alone he des.ires to find a home and a refuge. These are
beautiful words on the lips of a man whose intellect is so
masculine and powerful. They are most encouraging amid the
din of conflicting opinions and the wild cries for liberty which
rise up into our murky atmosphere. It is sad that we shall
hear them no more."
After Brownson's death Dr. Corcoran, in the American
Catholic Quarterly for July, 1876, had this to say of him:
** After his conversion he devoted his energies, and indeed
his whole life, to the defence of the truth to which his eyes
had been opened. His Review^ and other works, which will
live as his monument, attest with what loyal constancy and
fond affection he consecrated to the service of the church the
varied talents with which God had endowed him. His Review
is a rich mine, which will never lose its value for the student
of controversial theology, of Christian philosophy, and Christian
politics. His style,- based on the best English models, gives an
additional charm to all he wrote. He stands out certainly un-
surpassed, perhaps unequalled, by any of our countrymen in
his masterly handling of the mother tongue. But the beautiful
workmanship is as nothing compared to the glorious material
which it adorns. It is like the mantle of gold which enwrapped
the matchless Olympian Jove of Phidias. His logical power is
simply wonderful; no sophistry, no specious reasoning of error
or unbelief can stand before it. And coupled with this is the
gift, so rare amongst profound thinkers and subtle dialecticians,
of bringing home his triumphant process of reasoning to the minds
even of ordinary readers with clearness and precision. One
need not subscribe to his philosophical system to recognise the
power and skill that characterize his grappling with the most
abstruse and intricate problems of metaphysics. And even
those who do not assent to all his philosophical and political
views must allow that they were as conscientiously held as they
were ably defended. Here, too, his great love of truth was
manifest, for he retracted without shame or hesitation what-
ever he afterwards discovered to be false or unsound. Even
when he laid down certain doctrines or opinions that gave
offence and exposed him to obloquy, and in some degree to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Orestes A, brownson, ll.d, 15
persecution from his brethren in the faith, his faith, if such it
must bg called, arose both from his own brightness of intellect
and his inherent love of truth. What he said he had to utter,
because he saw it in the clearest light of evidence, and because
it was unpopular, he feared that to give it anything short of
the boldest expression might seem like paltering with the
truth. Hence doctrines, maxims, facts, and perhaps at times
individual views, in proportion to what he considered their
evidence and importance, were enunciated by him in a direct,
blunt, stern, and occasionally harsh manner, that pleased some
but offended others. It was merely the wind proclaiming in
clear, loud, defiant blasts what might have been conveyed as
well and with undimmed, undiminished truth in gentle tones.
Some may question his prudence, none can doubt that he was
prompted solely by his strong convictions and zeal for the
truth.
" Had Dr. Brownson confined himself to the role of a
merely political writer in the service of a party, he would have
attained not preferment — for his honesty made that impossible
— but wealth and reputation. But he would not; he had made
up his mind to serve a nobler master than party, and his soul
aspired to higher rewards than worldly fame and riches. It
had cost him much to come into possession of the truth. He
determined to become its champion and defender, to spread it
abroad amongst his countrymen, that they too might have a
share in all that had come to him through its acquisition.
And yet to this man of noble nature and lofty disinterested-
ness, at the very end of his glorious career, within the last
few years, some parties, gauging the hearts of others by the
meanness and corruption of their own, had the face to make
an offer of wealth and popularity, if he would apostatize and
do his best to build up and Americanize a despicable little/
sect that cannot thrive in its own home, though backed by the
gigantic power of the German Empire."
" He is gone ; but his memory lives not only in the work
he has done, but also in the example he has left behind him.
And it is precisely this example that should commend itself to
the educated portion of our Catholc laity. Most of them have
no laborious struggle to acquire the treasure of religious truth.
Grown up from infancy in the house of their Father, they suc-
ceed to its possession as to their birthright. Let them prize
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
i6 Orestes a. Brownson, LL.D. [April,
and love it as Brownson did ; let them seek to extend its
domain so that all within their reach may be conquered, of
their own good will, by its gentle power. The sphere in which
the educated layman can co-operate with the church is daily
widening, and the value of his co-operation is daily growing in
importance. How is it that of the many who graduate at our
colleges and academies, only a few seem conscious of their
duty in this respect]? Fewer still have the courage to dis-
charge it ! "
The Catholic World for June, 1876, contained a very
appreciative and exhaustive review of Brownson from the pen
of Rev. A. F. Hewit, C.S.P. Father Hewit had known Brown-
son intimately for more than twenty years, and although they
disagreed on many philosophical questions and freely criticised
each other time and again, still a warm friendship existed be-
tween them, although not of the affectionate character which
existed between Brownson and Father Hecker. The following
is an extract from this masterly tribute:
'' It was as a Catholic publicist that Brownson became a
truly great man, and achieved a great work for which he
deserves to be held in lasting remembrance. To this work the
last thirty years of his life was devoted with a gigantic energy,
which diminished toward the end under the influence of
advancing age and enfeebled health, but never wholly flagged
until the approach of death gradually quenched the vital flame
of physical existence.
" From the time of his cotiversion he was not only a loyal
but a pious and practical Catholic, constantly receiving the
sacraments and making his own salvation the chief object of his
life.
" In his calibre of mind we think Dr. Brownson may be
classed with those men whose capacity is only exceeded by a
very small number of minds of the highest order of genius.
Intellect, reason, imagination, and memory were alike powerful
faculties of his mind, and his great weight of brain, with a cor-
responding nervous and muscular strength, made him capable of
the most concentrated, vigorous, and sustained intellectual
labor. Within the scope of his genius there was no work,
however colossal, which he was not naturally capable of accom-
plishing. His gift of language, and ability of giving. expression
to his thoughts and sentiments whether original or borrowed.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904] Orestes A. Brownson, LL.D. . 17
was even greater than his power of abstraction and concep-
tion, and his style has a magnificent Doric beauty seldom sur-
passed, rarely even equalled. Although Dr. Brownson was not
an orator and Mr. Webster was not a philosopher, there is
nevertheless a striking similarity in the style of the two men,
who mutually admired each other's productions with the sym-
pathy of cognate minds. In argument, but especially in con-
troversial argument and philippics. Dr. Brownson wielded the
hammer of Thor. In the capacity of grasping a first principle,
and following it out on the synthetic method, lay his great
power. Whenever he had these great first principles and fun-
damental ideas, eicher from reason or faith, he was unrivalled
in the grand and mighty exposition of the truth, irresistible in
the demolition of sophistical, inconsequent, and false theories
and their advocates, many of whom he laid low with the ease
and force of the blow of Richard Coeur de Lion on the cheek
of the unlucky clerk of Campanhurst Humor, wit, and sar-
casm were also at his command as well as serious argument.*
Nor were they always sparingly used, although generally with the
good humor of a giant conscious of his strength. Many Catho-
lics were alarmed at one time lest he should stray beyoiid the
boundaries of the faith. He had even so far lost the confidence
of the hierarchy and the Catholic public in the year 1864 that
he was unable to keep up the Review, Complaints were lodged
against him before one of the Roman tribunals, and the cele-
brated theologian Cardinal Franzelin, then professor in the
Roman College, was deputed to examine his writings.
*•' . . . Some portions of Brownson's writings deserve to
remain as a portion of our standard Catholic literature and to
be studied while the English language endures. We are dis-
posed to consider the various essays on subjects belonging to
the department of political ethics, the articles on the contro-
versy with Protestants and various kinds of free-thinkers, those
on transcendentalism. The Convert , The' American Republic, as
the most consummate productions of the great publicist. Such
competent judges as Lord Brougham, Cardinal Wiseman, Mr.
Webster, Mr. Ripley, and the editors of the principal reviews of
England, France, and Germany have pronounced the "highest
eulogiums upon the masterpieces of Dr. Brownson's pen, either
in respect to the power of thought and beauty of style which
are their characteristics, or the intrinsic value of their argu-
VOL. LXXIX.— 2 • Digitized by GoOglc
1 8 ORESTES A. BROWNSON, LL.D. [April,
ment as an exposition or defence of great truths and principles.
The terse logic of TertulHan, the polemic crash of St. Jerome,
the sublime eloquence of Bossuet, are all to be found there in
combination, on alternation, with many sweet strains of tender-
ness and playful flashes of humor. There are numerous pas-
sages in his writings not to be surpassed by the finest portions
of the works of the great masters of thought and style, whether
in the English or any other language, in the present or in any
past age. They render certain and immortal the just and hard-
earned fame of their author, who labored not, however, for fame'
and honor, but for the love of truth, the welfare of mankind,
and the approbation of Heaven.
'' Dr. Brownson is the most remarkable of all the converts
to the Catholic Church in the United States, and among the
most remarkable in the group of illustrious men who have paid
homage to her authority in the present age. His conversion
was a great event, and made an epoch. Dr. Brownson's demon-
stration of the Divine institution and authority of the church is
unanswered and unanswerable. It is childish trifling, unworthy
of rational men, to ignore his arguments and escape from his
logic by petty criticisms on his person. Reason is objective
and real ; the subjective qualities of the reasoner have nothing
to do with its authority. Several years before Dr. Brownson's
conversion the writer heard several of the professors of Princeton
express their opinion that he was the ablest and most danger-
ous antagonist of Christianity in the country. His conversion,
therefore, is one of the many instances proving that now, as
ever, the Catholic Church has power to win and master the
strongest and most fearless minds, the most generous and dis-
interested hearts. . . .
" Neglect, aversion, martyrdom, are the portion of the
genuine heroes, sages, patriots, lovers, and benefactors of their
race, and whatever homage they receive is extorted, reluctant,
scanty, in proportion * to their worth and merit. Even when
they are admired and praised, their teaching is not heeded or
their example followed by the fickle, frivolous crowd. Morally,
when not literally, exile and the cup of hemlock are their por-.
tion. Those who literally encounter death and receive the
palm of martyrdom are the happiest and most favored among
them. But these are the men who redeem the race, and are
the only lasting glory of the age in which their task of labor
Digitized by VjOOQlt
1904.] 0/^ESTES A. BROWNSON, LL.D. 19
and suffering is fulfilled. Among these crusaders Dr. Brownson
enlisted when he abandoned the camp of infidelity and revolu*
tion to receive the cross. He loved the church first of all, and
next his country. He deserved well of both, for Christian
and civic virtues, sacrifices on the altar of God and the battle-
field of the Republic, wise and eloquent pleadings for Catholic
law in the Christian commonwealth, and constitutional right,
freedom, and order in the American state. We trust that his
instructions and example will always be a light and an encourage-
ment, a glory and model to the Catholic laymen of the United
States, and especially to the young men of education who aspire
to intellectual culture, and feel the impulse to act valiantly and
usefully their part as citizens of this Republic and as Christian
gentlemen."
What higher testimony than these tributes, which I have
just quoted, could be written of any but a few of the greatest
men in the world's history? And yet the fame of Brownson
was almost forgotten by American Catholics a few years ago, '
These were not pronounced as eulogies but as candid estimates
of the man, an(} a most significant note in each is the regretful
confession that there are practically no laymen to follow in his J
footsteps. Does not the name of Brownson deserve to be held
in loving memory by all Americans, but especially by Catholic
Americans ?
A word now about the Brownson memorial.
In April, 1886, the Right Rev. Bishop Gilmour, of Cleve-
land, contributed an editorial to the Catholic Universe of that
city, suggesting that the Catholics of America ought to erect a
suitable monument to the memory of Orestes A, Brownson,
either in New York or Boston, the principal scenes of his
labors. This appeal was immediately responded to by contri-
butions of $100 each from Archbishop Williams of Boston,
Archbishop Corrigan of New York, and smaller contributions
from others.
At the convention of the Catholic Young Men's National
Union held at Philadelphia, May 19 and 20, 1886, attention
was called to this proposed movement, resolutions were adopted
commending it, and a committee of five was appointed to aid
the undertaking in any manner that Bishop Gilmour might
desire. On corresponding with the Bishop, he expressed the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
20 ORESTES A. BROWNSON, LL.D. [April,
wish that the committee take entire charge of the project, as
his object in first proposing the matter was simply to get it
started.
The committee accepted the responsibility thus tendered, and
formulated a plan which they hoped would enlist the liberal
support of the Catholics of the entire country, especially the
laity, and which would result in the erection of a memorial
worthy of Brownson and of themselves. His Eminence Cardinal
Gibbons, Archbishop Corrigan, Archbishop Williams, Bishop
Gilmour, Bishop McQuaid, and Monsignor Doane cordially
approved the plan, and consented to act as a Board of Trustees
of the Memorial Fund. A number of prominent Catholic lay-
nlen in various parts of the country were requested to act as
members of the memorial committee, and early in 1887 an
address was published in all the Catholic papers explaining
the undertaking and requesting contributions. The appeal did
not meet with the liberal response that the committee expected,
1 and the movement has dragged along in a rather unsatisfactory
fashion to the present time. Scores of newspaper articles and
hundreds of letters have been written, and though the financial
response has not been encouraging, these have served to make
the name of Brownson better known to the present generation.
While it was hoped that the main portion of the fund would
be contributed by laymen, the contrary is true, and the greater
J part of the fund as it stands to-day has been subscribed by
' the bishops and clergy. At the convention of the Catholic
Young Men's National Union held at Boston, September i,
1897, an effort was made to have the fund, then approximating
$5,000, appropriated for the founding of a scholarship at the
Catholic University, on the plea that it would be impossible to
have a monument erected to Brownson in New York. The
chairman of the committee held that the main portion of the
fuad was subscribed for the specific purpose of the monument
to Brownson in New York and that it might not be diverted
to any other use without the consent of the contributors. As
nearly $600 had been subscribed indefinitely, it was believed,
hDwever, that no exception would be taken by the subscribers
if $i,00D should be appropriated to the University, and this
sum was presented to the Catholic University in October, 1898,
for the purpose of furnishing books for a Brownson alcove in
the University Library.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.]
Orestes A. Brown son, ll.d.
21
In closing, acknowledgment must be made of the constant
encouragement given by Richard H. Clark, LL.D., Mr. Patrick
Farrelly, and the late John A. Sullivan, without whose support
and assistance the movement would not be so near the success-
ful completion now assured.
A contract for the monument was awarded to the sculptor,
Samuel J. Kitson, of Boston, early in 1899. On November
14 of that year his design was exhibited at the Catholic Club
and won the favorable commendation of the Municipal Art
Commission. The Park Commissioners suggested several sites,
and Sherman Square Park — 72d Street and Amsterdam Avenue
— was selected as possibly the most desirable site in the city
of New York. The bronze bust of Brownson has been on
exhibition at the Catholic Club during the past year, and it is
expected that the completed monument will be tinveiled before
next June.
That the Brownson Memorial movement has been so slow
in its development is, perhaps, a cause for congratulation. The
greatest and most enduring movements have developed slcwly,
and now that the Brownson movement has taken concrete form
under the patronage of his Grace Archbishop Farley, let us
hope that it will flourish vigorously in its stimulating effect on
Catholic public spirit for generations to come.
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22 THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY. [April,
THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY,
604-1904.
BY MA5IE DONEGAN WALSH.
THIRTEEN hundred years have gone since the
great St. Gregory, the glorious representative
of the " Monks of the West," the grand pon-
tifical figure which stands out as the ideal
embodiment of the strength and power and
saintliness of the Papacy, passed to his reward in 604.
Not only in the calendar of the saints and the history of
the popes^ in the annals of the great order to which it
was his proudest boast to belong, but in the world's respect
and admiration, the name of St. Gregory the Great has lived
through all the centuries. His was one of those dominating
personalities which, appearing but at rare epochs in the world,
not only influence contemporary history but sway the minds of
their times to such an extent as to bear on the fate of people
and nations as yet unknown.
Tremendous is the potentiality of such personalities for
good or evil. In their v^xy nature they must inevitably influ-
ence, morally, politically, and socially ; and when such extra-
ordinary strength of character is found combined with entire
sanctity of life, its influence for good is almost unrealizable.
In the person of St. Gregory the Great these attributes of a
rarest character were exemplified in the highest degree.
Studying his life and character in relation to the times in
which the sainted Pontiff lived, it seems to even the most un-
favorably biassed intelligence a supreme object-lesson of the
providence of God and the divine continuity of the church
that such a man should have been raised up, in the midst of
troublous times, to guide the church and lay the foundations
of much that is best and purest and highest in the civilization
of to- day. The life of St. Gregory the Great is too well
known to dwell upon here.
This brief sketch is meant to touch solely on the personal
and local features connected with the centenary celebrations.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. 23
Born of the patrician family of the " Anicii," the son of the
Senator Gordian, he was yet what we are pleased to call
" modern " and broad-minded in his ideas, this learned, ardent
youth of a noble Roman house, with the pure heart of a saint
(inherited from a sainted mother), and the keen intelligence of
a lawgiver (the heredity of a long line of Roman senators).
His qualities of mind and heart made the young '' Praetor " a
man of mark even from eariiest youth, until there came the
higher call, to which heart and soul and clearest intellect gladly
responded — the first whispering of the Dove of the Holy Spirit,
leading the great Doctor of the Church unswervingly to his
goal, from the life of an ideal religious, through the cardinal-
ate to the pontificate. Under his rule the moral supremacy,
influence, and power of the church in regard to nations were
firmly established and strengthened, while every practical and
needed reform in religion, discipline, government, and even
music, was undertaken, with persuasiveness, untiring energy,
and apostolic zeal. Pervading it all ruled the keen, unerring
instinct, the insight (which in St. Gregory's character amounted
almost to inspiration) into the minds of men and the needs
of the times, characteristic of the born ruler.
The active life-work of the Pontiff brought results immedi-
ate and wide -spreading, but after his death the moral force
and influence remained and endured throughout the ages, and
the seeds which St. Gregory sowed brought forth an ample har-
vest. .The voice which spoke in inspired Homilies re-echoes
still in the universal church of to-day, a model for the episco-
pate of all time 1 The hands once outstretched in solemn bene-
diction over St. Augustine and his companions, as at St.
Gregory's bidding they went forth from the roof- tree of the
" Coelian " to evangelize the future land of " Mary's Dowry,"
are upraised still, in the benediction of the faith which the
glorious Pontiff brought to unborn thousands in the uttermost
ends of the earth ! Now, thirteen centuries after his death,
when the great men of far later epochs have passed into for-
getfulness, the Catholic Church keeps the thirteenth Gregorian
Centenary, not alone in the city where St. Gregory lived and
labored but over all the Catholic world. Kings, conquerors,
generals, and politicians have had their reward, in the fame of
a lifetime, in the fierce controversies over their name waged
by contemporaries and descendants. But the force of a spiritual
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
24 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. [April,
dominion exerted over Christendom, the benefits to humanity
and the world-wide fatherdom of the sixth century monk of the
Ccelian, still remain, fresh as in the days when the great Pontiff
cherished that noblest inspired ideal of universal unity— ^of
peoples and races and nations and tongues, gathered under one
spiritual head. It is the ideal yet of every true successor of
St. Peter; but one which St. Gregory did more than any
other to strengthen and consolidate.
The church has always been the great educator of the.
people, the pioneer of civilization, protector of the fine arts
and sciences, and zealous guardian of the learning which she
preserved to posterity through the self- same religious orders
which a • blindly unreasoning materialism would suppress from
its midst. But for the church of the Middle Ages, to whose
development St. Gregory gave the first incentive, all knowledge
would have peilshed, crushed by the ignoble strifes of a tur*
bulent age. Therefore all that is not only Catholic, but Chris^
tian^ in the world at the present day, must join in the debt of
gratitude to St. Gregory the Great.
Our present Pontiff, Pius X., resolved to honor this mem-
orable thirteenth centenary of his immortal predecessor with all
possible solemnity. Even in the early days of his pontificate
His Holiness sent his blessing and encouragement to the pro-
moters in his own handwriting; announcing his intention of
celebrating a pontifical Mass* in St. Peter's on the occasion
of the centenary feast, and appointing a Roman committee to
whom the arrangements for the celebrations were completely
entrusted. His Eminence Cardinal Respighi — the Cardinal-
Vicar of His Holiness — assumed the office of honorary president,
while the post of active president is filled by his Excellency
Prince Mario Chigi. Many well-known names in the ecclesias-
tical and learned Catholic world figure on both' active and
honorary committees; among others the Primate of the Benedic-
* It is not, perhaps, widely known that on the occasion of a solemn papal Mass a missal is
used containing only the Mass proper to the celebration. On this day the celebration being a
precedent and not solemnized on the actual feast, the Benedictine Order has offered to His
Holiness Pius X. the splendid and appropriate gift of a richly illuminated missal with the
Gregorian notes according to the edition of Solesmes — to be used by His Holiness at the
•' Mass of the Angels." This most suitable presentation for the Gregorian centenary has been
received with great gratification by the Pope, who in using this magnificent missal at the
papal Mass will not only honor the memory of St. Gregory but afford a signal honor to the
spiritual sons of the great Benedictine Pontiff, of whose heritage of sacred music they have
ever been the faithful custodians and almoners.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary, 2s
Statue op St. Gregory the Great. In the Garden Chapel
OF St. Gregory on the Ccklian Hill.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
26 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary, [April,
tines, Most Rev. Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne; the aged
Dom Pothier, Abbot of St. Wandrillc, who may be called the
restorer of the pure Gregorian chant; the Most Rev. Abbot
Delotte, of the famous Abbey of Solesmes; the Most Rev.
Dotn Boniface Krug, the Arch-Abbot of Montecassino, and a
prelate of American birth; Most Rev. Maurus Serafini, General
of the *' Casstnensi " of the Primitive Observance ; the Abbot-
General of the Heformed Cistercians; the Abbot-General of the
Camaldolese Order, Abbot of St. Gregory on the Coelian ; Don
Lorenzo Perosi, and many others. This able committee under-
took to render the Gregorian celebrations worthy of the
occasion ; relying on co-operation from every part of the world.
The celebrations* began on the I2th of March (the actual feast
of St. Gregory the Great), but the date of the Jhore important
celebrations, such as the papal Mass in St. Peter's and the
pilgrimages and commemorations in the "various spots connected
with St. Gregory's memory were deferred for a month later,
until after Lent, at a period of the year offering greater facilities
for those outside of Rome and Italy to join in the celebrations.
The English Catholics early signified their intention of
sending a deputation for this occasion. Contemporaneously
with the Roman celebration, the Gregorian centenary was
solemnized in various parts of Italy and also in England — the
greatest debtor among all the nations to the sainted Pontiff's
memory. Nor have these children of St. Gregory's predilection
— the ^ non angli sed angeli," over whom, in the Roman
Forum of long ago, the saint's tenderly- spoken, world- remembered
•epigram was pronounced — failed to take their part in the
centenary. On the date of St. Gregory's feast, England's arch-
bishop, hierarchy, and people, in England's first post-Reforma-
tion cathedral, befittingly honored the memory of the Pontiff
who, from the fulness of his apostolic heart, called them
* On the days immediately preceding the celebration of the Gregorian Centenary in St.
Peter's an historical and liturgical congress will be held in Rome under the auspices of the
Gregorian Committee. This congress, on account of the absorbing interest of the themes dis-
-cussed and the numbers of distinguished personalities of the literary world taking part in it, will
form one of the most important and characteristic features of the celebrations by attracting
widespread attention to the Gregorian centenary, not only from a religious but a literary and
iiistorical point of view. This work of Catholic congresses, to which so much attention has been
paid of late, is producing excellent results, by bringing the Catholic laity together in an intel-
lectual field of interest, and promoting social action and endeavor by means of concentration
and consolidation. The Gregorian Congress, owing to its universal character, has contributed
greatly to Catholic interest at large — a scope which should be the primary and needful one of
-every Catholic movement of the present day, even of a religious character.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. 27
lovingly into their '' Father's house/' thirteen hundred years
ago!
Among the innumerable benefits conferred on posterity by
St Gregory has been the establishment of that splendid school
of ecclesiastical music which has formed for the ages no small
part of the glory of the church's ritual — the solemn yet sonor-
ous chant; to which he has given his name. To commemorate
the glorious inheritance, handed down to us from the earliest
centuries, and to restore in its pristine beauty to the whole
Catholic world the only church music worthy of the universal
church, Pope Pius X. welcomed the occasion of this centenary in
order to inaugurate the revival of Gregorian music, in which
not only the clergy and clerics will take part; but also the
people — who are already being trained in various choral schools,
established by the express desire of the Sovereign Pontiff for
this purpose.
This intense desire for the revival of Gregorian music in
its severe purity has long been a cherished dream of the
Pope ; himself an ardent admirer of all that tends to preserve
intact to the church every detail of her ancient ritual in its
most solemn forms. *'I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of
thy House," might have formed his motto, as priest and bishop
and pontiff; and that the majesty and divinity of this beauty
may penetrate deep into the hearts of his people has been his
most zealous care.
Everything calculated to lessen the solemnity of a purely
religious ceremony, such as music in any degree florid and
operatic, is rigorously condemned by the strong and openly-
expressed convictions of Pius X. on this subject. The words
of His Holiness himself, written several years ago when still
Bishop of Mantua, gives voice to this desire, now on the eve
of realization:
"The argument to recommend is the Gregorian Chant, and
especially the method of singing it and rendering it popular.
Oh ! if it could be realized that all the faithful^ in the same
manner in which they sing the ' Litany of Loreto ' and the
* Tantum Ergo,' could sing the fixed parts of the Mass — the
' Kyriey * Gloria,' * Credo' * Sanctus' and ' Agnus Dei,' it would
be to my mind a most desirable achievement in sacred music;
because the faithful in thus taking an active part in the sacred
liturgy will be enabled to keep up their piety and devotion. I
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
28 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. [Aprils
picture to myself sometimes a thousand voices singing in a
church the ' Mass of the Angels ' ; and I am carried away, as
the singing of the people in the *Tantum Ergo/ ' Veni Creator/
and ' Te Deum ' always moves me on hearing it towards piety
and devotion. . . ."
Nothing, therefore, can be more manifest than the Pope's
wishes on the subject of Gregorian music, which His Holiness
is now able to realize. So now, once more, instead of being
heard in perfection only in the great Benedictine monasteries,
where the sons of St. Benedict conserve and render it with
constant care, the pure Gregorian Chant will re-echo in all
churches, cathedrals, and chapels throughout the Catholic world.
What applies to the training of the mind and eye applies
equally to the training of the ear. Before long, when the
Sovereign Pontiff's wishes have been constantly carried into
effect, the people, trained to appreciate and understand the
highest and best in ecclesiastical music, will grow critical of
the florid and meretricious, until, rejecting it utterly, their lips
will join spontaneously in the pure cadences, simple yet
sonorous — the ideal music in which to clothe the church's
liturgy — the triie ** congregational singing " which formed St.
Gregory's ideal in the sixth century, as it does that of Pius X.
in the twentieth.
To the choir-master of the Sistine choir, Don Lorenzo
Perosi — the young and valued coadjutor of His Holiness in his
endeavors for the re- establishment of Gregorian music — has
been entrusted the duty of organizing the magnificent '' Mass of
the Angels," to be rendered by one thousand voices, during the
pontifical Mass celebrated by Pius X. at the papal altar in St.
Peter's, on April ii. This most grand and solemn of Gre-
gorian Masses, as it rings through the vaults of the *' World's
Cathedral," will veritably form the grandest hymn of praise
ever heard within those mighty walls. Therefore His Holiness
chose it especially for this occasion, in order that the Gregorian
celebration should be worthy of so grand an event. The train-
ing of the choir has been going on for many months, and the
disposition of the thousand voices who will take part in it are
disposed in such a manner thftt the volume of harmony can
be heard in every portion of the mighty edifice, — three sepa-
rate colossal choirs being stationed towards either lateral nave,
and around and before the papal altar.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.1 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. 29
To many of us who have gathered under St. Peter's dome
on occasions of solemn papal celebrations, when Palestrina's
intricate harmonies filled the air with a very sea of subtle
gradations, and the silver trumpets fell like prayerful whispers
from the dome, the change to the very simplicity of this Gre-
gorian melody seems strange at first. But as the notes of the
chant in its purely ecclesiastical severity rise from one thou-
sand voices, and the faultless ''soprani'* of the boy- choirs
soar like the angels whose Mass they are rendering, one will
realize that the Gregorian music is indeed the essential church
music for all time.
In addition to the " Mass of the Angels," the marvellous
young priest-composer, Don Lorenzo Perosi, decided to pro-
duce his new oratorio, "The Universal Judgment," on the occa-
sion of the Gregorian centenary. The music of the new pro-
duction is judged by eminent critics not only to equal but
surpass in merit his former works, in grandeur and breadth of
conception and masterly treatment of a most difficult theme.
The gifted young composer has combined the' offices of author
and composer, in setting his music to verses chosen by him-
self from the Apocalypse to illustrate the theme. The pro-
duction of the oratorio, which has excited widespread interest
and attention, promises to be altogether one of the most re-
markable parts of the Gregorian centenary celebrations as well
as a notable event in the musical world.
Another important feature in the celebrations has been a
series of lectures on the religious and historical, archaeological,
literary, and musical aspects of the life and times of St.
Gregory, in which many prominent archaeologists, litterateurs,
and historians took part ; such as Dom Laurent Jannsens,
O.S.B., rector of the International Benedictine College of St.'
Ansclm; Mgr. Louis Duchesne, the president of the Pontifical
Archaeological Society; Professor Ludwig Pastor, the noted
German historian and archaeologist; Professor Horace Marucchi,
the distinguished Roman archaeologist ; Mgr. Joseph Wilpert,
who has just published a volume on his recent valuable dis-
coveries in the Catacombs ; and many other noted names.
These lectures or ** conferences," studying from various points
of view the titles of St Gregory the Great to the gratitude of
the whole Christian world, as pontiff, reformer, and organizer
of the social order, served, as no other method could have
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
30 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. [April,
done, to present to contemporary history a mental picture of
one of the most wonderful and many-sided characters which
have ever formed the lasting glory of the Catholic Church.
In the Paschal days of the soft Roman springtime the
Gregorian pilgrimages began to the various spots connected
with the saint's life- memories. These are not one but many;
for even to-day the memorials of the great St. Gregory are
interlinked from end to end of eternal Rome. There is his
father's house on the Coelian — the home of saints and the
cradle of missionaries — the Lateran and Liberian Basilicas : the
Catacombs of Domitilla (where one of St. Gregory's most famous
homilies was pronounced), and finally the tomb of St. Gregory
in the Vatican Basilica (near that of the Prince of the Apos-
tles), over which was sung the glorious " Te Deum " of the
Christian peoples, in gratitude for the life-work whose benefits
endure.
Of all the landmarks of St. Gregory in Rome, the first
and most important is the church on the Coelian hill. They
are names and sites to cover a world of memories: on the
road which leads us to St. Gregory's roof-tree; past the
Coliseum and the panorama of the Forum, seen through
the arch of Titus; and under that ever- splendid monument
of the arch of Constantine. Beyond the arch stretch the
green vistas of the ** Parco San Gregorio " and the tree-lined
avenue, where the abundant promise of springtime is shooting
into life. On the hill, above the green banks of grasses, looms
the ruined Palatine, a *' memento homo " of the dread dominion
which spared neither friend nor foe. But the April gladness
proceeds unchecked, in centuries familiarity with that grim
"world's ruin." All around is the busy hum of springtime;
the birds are making concert, and the picturesque wine-carts
wend their slow way in files to the '' Porta San Sebastiano " ;
the " carrettiere " lazily droning a " stornello " as he goes.
The leafy avenue ends in a broad, grass- green piazza, pic-
turesque in its features as the road from which we have just
emerged. Facing us, on its commanding height, is the grand
fa9ade of that noblest of Roman churches, '' San Gregorio on
the Coelian hill," with its lofty flight of steps, where every step
is eloquent with the history of the past. Many another roof*
tree of saints and martyrs keeps company with San Gre-
gorio, out here in the solitudes of the Coelian hill. But
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary, ' 31
Facade of thb Church op St. Gregory on the Ccelian Hill, with the
Flight of Steps whence St. Gregory the Great sent
the Missionaries to England.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
32 ' The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. [April,
to day all other memories seem but dim and shadowy, and
only one mighty personality dominates the scene. Standing on
this threshold of the ancestral home of the Anicii, where the
gateway in the wall opens into St. Sylvia's garden, where the
•child St. Gregory played, in ^hese monastery precincts where
the monk St. Gregory lived, on these steps where Pope St.
Gregory blessed the missionaries to England, the thirteen cen-
turies roll back like a day-dream, till his figure stands out
before us, living still. One turns instinctively at the doorway
to look back upon the prospect — still the same outlook, in
many features, which stretched before St. Gregory's gaze : the
city, with its domes and towers, the sky- swept hill of the
Aventine, and across the roadway, only a few short yards
away, that ruined, silent kingdom of the " Palace of the
Caesars " — a panoramic vista of the history of the world.
Standing where St Gregory stood, on this glorious April
morning, how plainly one can see the scene which took place
here — the group of black-robed monks kneeling for the last
time before father and pontiff as he blessed them and sent them
on their mission ! What a picture for an artist ! — with the
•ever-glorious background of eternal Rome — that worn, ascetic
figure of the sainted Pontiff, shading his eyes from the sunset
as he watches the departing figures; the light of inspiration
transfiguring the strongly-marked features till they glow with
glory as if from the hills of the West ! For St. Gregory's
prophetic vision has travelled across the centuries, and over the
ruins of the Palatine he sees the arising of grand new nations
with their glorious harvest of souls.
The church is dedicated to St. Andrew and St. Gregory,
for when the saint, as a Benedictine monk, founded his mon-
astery htre in A. D. 575, on the site of his father's house, he
dedicated it to St. Andrew, and not until the pontificate of an-
other Gregory — Gregory II. — was it dedicated also in honor of
the sainted Pontiff.
Within the doorways lies a wide, cloistered " atrium," around
whose walls are frescoes of the life of St. Gregory the Great,
together with many monuments, tombs, and memorials of illus-
trious personages who have been connected with the history of
these walls. But before passing into the church, the first step
of the Gregorian pilgrimage lies in the quiet garden opening
from the cloister ; for the monastic buildings founded by St.
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1904.] THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY. 33
Gregory within his ancestral dwelling have been turned into, a
barracks, only a few of the Camaldolese monks — the succes-
sors of the Benedictines since the sixteenth century — having been
allowed to remain, as guardians of St Gregory's patrimony.
The modern uses, however, of the garden are what its founder,
more than any other, would have desired them to be : dedicated
to the good of the people — a playground or gymnasium for
boys and youths, under the auspices of a Catholic club. Only
OQ Sundays and holidays does boyish laughter and merriment
resound in the Gregorian garden. At other times it shares in
the brooding stillness of its surroundings. This violet- scented
Roman garden of the saints, with one of the most matchless
views on earth spread out below its terraces, is like a little
kingdom from the world apart; enclosing in the three chapels
erected within its limits memories which seem to make the
past to-day. In " Santa Sylvia's " tiny oratory, dedicated to
the "great mother of a greater son," a marble statue of Saint
S/lvia surmounts the altar — a life-like representation of an aged
saint, . with a sweet, strong yet spiritual face ; such as one
might picture the saintly mother of a Doctor of the Church.
Above, in . the vaulting, Guido Reni's frescoed " Choir of
Angels" seem to fill the air with music — a perpetual prayer in
painting, worthy of the spot. This oratory has been recently
restored, and put to practical uses as an oratory for the boys
frequenting the " Recreatorio," who hear Mass and assist at
Benediction here every Sunday.
Beyond it is. the Chapel of St. Andrew; but one leaves
the priceless frescoes on its walls to linger in the third chapel,
with the glorious title bestowed on it by St. Gregory, the
"Dining-hall of the Poor," where the grandest statue of St.
Gregory ever sculptured seems like the guardian genius of this
roof-tree, with hand uplifted in benediction over his early
home! This chapel is a depository of Gregorian memories.
Frescoes of the scenes in the saint's life-sliory surround the
walls, and in the midst stands an ancient Roman marble table,
with an exquisitely carved base, where, tradition has it, St.
Gregory fed twelve poor pensioner guests, serving them daily
with loving hands. One day came an uninvited guest — a beg-
gar worn and weary, and ruder than the rest, whom the saint
in his great charity could hot turn empty away. Then the
fags fell from the beggar's shoulders, and an angel in shining^
VOL. LXXIV.— 3 Digitized by GoOgTc
34 THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY. [April,
garments paused for a second at the board, till the vision faded
and only the empty place remained to show that angels had
been entertained that day. Modem scepticism may smile at
the beautiful old lejgend, but who shall say how God chose to
reward the charity of his servant ? — the great saint and philan-
thropist, who in his world-wide schemes of universal benefaction
lost no part of the daily homely charities of life, despoiling
himself of all his great inheritance for the church and the
poor! The bread has come back to him over the water of
centuries ; and those deeds of tender charity, even the small-
est, are laid up to form part of the grand inheritance which
blesses his memory to-day.
From St. Sylvia's garden one comes back by a side-
entrance into the church. Within it is the brooding silence
of perpetual peace — the monastic peace which its great founder
ever loved, still lingering about the atmosphere, and ren-
dering St. Gregory on the Coelian so singularly memora-
ble, even in the midst of Rome's many churches of the past.
It is an interior full of harmony, simple yet severe, from the
subdued glory of the inlaid marble and mosaic pavement to
the long rows of stately columns leading to the tribune, over
which is a sculptured bas-relief of St. Gregory sending the
missioners to England. Beside the altar stands the episcopal
throne — that throne so worthily filled by the successors of St.
Augustine and his companions — the successive English cardi-
nals, Cardinals Manning and Vaughan, who have taken their
title from St. Gregory on the Coelian hill. Beautiful as is
this old-world church, its side chapels contain the supreme
interest of a Gregorian pilgrimage — the one, the narrow cell
where St. Gregory lived and slept and prayed ; the other, his
oratory, with the fresco of the Blessed Virgin, as she appeared
to the saint in this spot. The tiny cell, redecorated and re-
stored, contains nothing now but a marble chair, said to have
been occupied by St. Gregory; and the narrow, almost tomb-
like niche in the wall which served as the saint's hard bed,
where, seen through a grating, is a curious old fresco on the
wall representing the outstretched figure of the Pontiff.
At the entrance to the cell stands the privileged altar on
the site where St. Gregory said Mass, over which hangs a por-
trait of the church's great doctor composing his inspired writ-
ings, prompted by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove —
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1904.] THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY. 3$
Statue of St. Sylvia, Mother of St. Gregory, in the
Oratory of St. Sylvia on the Ccelian Hill.
the sign of the Eternal Wisdom which guided his tongue and
pen.
A beautiful bas-relief, or "predella," of early century mar-
ble work, representing St. Gregory's miracles as Pontiff, is
placed over the altar — a further link in the life-story whose
chapters unfold before us here, in the very spot where so many
of its incidents took place. Another chapel more truly
ancient, because less touched by the hand of restoration, is the
oratory of St. Gregory; the scene of his visions and medita-
tions, where the " Homilies " one day destined to instruct 9sA
enlighten the world were written. In the silence of this hal-
lowed spot the Spirit of Wisdom descended into the heart of
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35 THE THIRTEENTH GREGORIAN CENTENARY. [April,
the listening saint, rapt in an. ecstasy of wordless prayer, while
in his ears sounded the melodies which he has handed down
the ages.
The old, old fresco of Mother and Child, the eyerlasting
memory^ of the gracious vision which made the tiny oratory a
foretaste of Paradise, is painted on a niche in the wall; and
over the three altars are represented three living memories of
the saint who lived here. Over one is the miraculous picture
of the Blessed Virgin; above the other a painting of St.
Gregory kneeling, turned towards the very altar before which
he spent long hours in prayer; while over the third, in a
fourteenth century bas-relief, altar-piece and tabernacle, is the
representation of a well known miraculous episode in the
Pontiff's life — the apparition of St. Michael over the tomb of
Hadrian. This ancient tradition is one well known : how St.
Gregory at a time of devastating pestilence instituted a peni-
tential procession of clergy and people to Rome's basilicas,
walking himself at the head of the procession, bearing a
miraculous picture of the Blessed Virgin.
As the intercessory procession passed the tomb of Hadrian
an aiigel appeared on its summit, sheathing a fiery sword ;
while the strophes of the '* Regina Coeli " fell oji the heavy
air breathed from unseen lips. The anger of God had passed,
the plague had gone from Rome; but henceforth the round
tower tomb of the pagan emperor was known by the name of
the heavenly visitant, who, in response to the Pontiff's prayers,
stayed the hand of God!
But how few of the strangers who pass under the " Castle
of St. Angelo" to-day, pausing to admire the grand bronze
angel ceaselessly sheathing his glittering sword against the
limpid sky, realize that they are standing before one of the
many landmarks which "keep the memory of the great St.
Gregory living in the Eternal City. One turns away reluc-
tantly at last from the home on the Coelian, where the mind
loves best to picture the sainted Pontiff, in the surroundings
amid which that marvellous life ripened and developed to its
full perfection.
But before leaving the *' atrium " of the cradle of England's
•Catholicism, another never-to-be-forgotten record meets the
pilgrim's eye — a tablet near- the doorway, bearing the names
of the Benedictine missioners who went from here : St.
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1904.] The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary, 37
Augustine, first Apostle of England; St. Lawrence, Archbishop
of Canterbury ; St Paulinus, Archbishop of York ; St. Justus,
first Bishop of Rochester; St. Melitus, first Archbishop of
London, and many others.
We have spent this April morning amid memories and
miracles of the great Pontiff Saint ; but surely this glorious
record can be counted as among the grandest of his achieve-
ments; the furtherance of the mighty ideal for which St.
Gregory so ceaselessly labored.
The time is short ; and we cannot linger to-day in yet
another Gregorian shrine, the Basilica of the Catacombs of
St. Domitilla, with the band of centenary pilgrims who are
gathered to listen to the reading and explanation of St.
Gregory's Homily, once pronounced over the tombs of the
martyrs by the silver-tongued pontifical orator in this very
spot.
However, one more important link in the chain of Gregorian
memories still remains before the pilgrimage is done — the visit
to the tomb of St. Gregory the Great in St. Peter's upon
which, on this memorable centenary day, the laurels of posterity
are laid. At present it is decorated with solemn grandeur for
the centenary ; for on his way to celebrate the papal Mass the
Sovereign Pontiff paused in solemn procession to venerate the
relics of the saint. Usually it is an intensely peaceful spot,
this Gregorian chapel near the lateral nave, with its inlaid
marble altar, open in the centre, where, through a wrought- iron
"trafora," or grating, can be seen the stone sarcophagus with
its inscription, "Corpor S. Gregori magni." Formerly the
relics of St. Gregory were laid in a tomb in the vestibule of
the ancient Basilica of St. Peter's— the favorite burial-place of
popes and emperors, who deemed themselves worthy to lie only
^« the threshold of the Prince of the Apostles. On the demoli-
tion of the old basilica the saint's relics were transferred to the
site where they now rest. Above the altar is a mosaic picture
of one of the miracles of St. Gregory, in which a cloth envelop-
ing earth of the Coliseum, given as a relic to some prince or
potentate, bled in the hands of the Pontiff, when pierced by a
dagger, to convince the recipient of the value of any substance
once hallowed by the blood of martyrs !
The picture illustrates a beautiful feature in that many-
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38 The Thirteenth Gregorian Centenary. [April,
sided character, who amid the multifarious cares of the pontifi-
cate, cherished a life- long, ardent devotion to the martyrs,
which led St. Gregory to visit lovingly the sites of their
martyrdom and burial-place, impressing the example of their
faith on the people by constantly dwelling upon it.
Here, at the tomb of the Pontiff whose thirteenth centenary
we are keeping, the Gregorian pilgrimage ends ; while the
echoes of the most magnificent of Gregorian Masses still linger
around the transept where the ashes of the great St. Gregory
lie in the eternal peace of the saints.
The piety of the present head of the universal church has
revived and quickened the devotion of the whole Catholic world
to one whose benefits to that church can never be over-
estimated. Thus the thirteenth centenary of St. Gregory the
Great will remain for ever memorable, as recording a glorious
anniversary in the church's history, as well as the initial step
in the great Gregorian revival, which is to form a characteristic
feature of the present pontificate.
Rowu^ 1904.
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1904.] Mozart and the Church. 39
MOZART AND THE CHURCH.
BY REV. ETHELRED L. TAUNTON.
[Y the new Instruction on Sacred Music the Holy
Father has, I suppose, signed the death-warrant
of Mozart and Haydn, with others of the tuneful
choir. The compositions of these masters have
been so often " executed " that it is no wonder that
they are now done away with. Only modern music is to be
allowed when it fulfils the conditions of excellence, sobriety,
and gravity ; when it contains nothing profane, is free from
reminiscences of motifs adopted in the theatres, and is not
fashioned, even in its external form, after the manner of profane
pieces. For, such music the Pope declares to be diametrically
opposed to the Plain Song and to the Polyphonic School, and
therefore to the most important law of all good music. So, by
its intrinsic structure, rhythm, and conventionalism of style this
kind of music is badly adapted to the requirements of true
liturgical song. I am sorry to part with Mozart and Haydn.
I have known and loved them all my life. To-day I delight
in them and would willingly hear them everywhere, save in
one place, and at all times, save at one. The church is not the
place and the Mass is not the time for such music. For many
years I have felt that Calvary and an orchestra are ideas that
do not sort together. The music of worship is one thing, and
the worship of music is another. Each has its place, the church
or the concert- room. It is for the same reason that I feel that
the Polyphonic or Palestrina School (to use a convenient term)
is open to the same disadvantage. The Plain Song, as the Pope
says, is the song proper to the Roman Church ; and to me it
is the only music which is fitting as an accompaniment to the
Awful Sacrifice of the New Law. I do not see anything, in
itself, particularly ecclesiastical about the Palestrina school.
Counterpoint is a very human invention and very ingenious.
But where is the spirituality of it all ? It is just as hard in
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40 MOZART AND THE CHURCH. [April,
many cases to make out the words, say, in a Benedictus of
Paiestrina as in one of Mozart's Masses. And then it should
be remembered that when Paiestrina wrote the contrapuntal
style was the style of the day. Take one of his motets and
put it side by side with on^ of his madrigals, and what is the
difference? I can undierstand that when the principle of a real
individualistic melody asserted itself and religious or quasi-
religious emotion found a new means of expressing itself
musically, the older school, which clung to the intermingling
in a well-ordered scheme of several subtle melodies each
co-ordinate, should be looked upon as the proper thing be-
cause it was the older, although at one time itself it had been
a novelty. Moreover, the Paiestrina style, by its rigid conformity
with rules, represented one principle; vhiJe the new indepen-
dent melodic music stood for another. I mean the principles of
Authority and Personality. And with just that touch of in-
consistency which redeems so many human things, it happened
that those who were wont to exaggerate in other matters the
principle of authority became among the most strenuous advo-
cates of musical individualism.
Now, before Mozart and his school go down into the outer
darkness, I want to say a word on their behalf; and as Mozart
n^ay be taken as the type, I have thought it worth while to
look into his relations with the church so as to see what it was
he was aiming at and how he tried to serve her. In judging
of his church music, and of that of the Vienna school, it is well
to remember that these composers were essentially children of
their age ; and their age was that just before and just after
the Revolution. We must also take into account the religious
spirit of the time, which was marked — now a wave of Jansenism,
now one of the reaction. From the severity of the one the
world moved to the exuberant spirits of the other. While between
them both there was but little of solid religion anywhere; and
even this among the soberer portion of the community was asso-
ciated rather with ideas of restraint than of liberty, which brings
the sense of responsibility. I must refuse to judge Mozart by
twentieth-century ideals. He was a man of his age and can
only be properly understood when he is taken in his own set-
ting. But, here and now, the main point is to set out a side of
his life which is little known, viz., his relations with the church.
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1904.] Mozart AND the Church. 41
John Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus Mozart, known to the
world as Wolfgang Amadee Mozart, was born January 27, 1756,
at Salzburg, where his father, Leopold Mozart, was Kapellmeister
to Archbishop Sigismund. Originally from Augsburg, Leopold
was a devout Catholic and kept strictly to all his duties. Even
as a boy this had been his character, and the clergy of his na-
tive town wished him to become a monk. In his official con-
nection with Salzburg Cathedral, Leopold Mozart was naturally
mixed up with clerical life ; and so it is easily understood that
his son would come under the same influence. The boy, bright,
clever, and lovable as he was, made fast friends with the clergy
and with the monks of the neighboring monasteries. His ex-
traordinary talent w«s soon recognized, and the child was
much sought after. The Benedictines of St. Uldarich's Abbey
at Augsburg had founded and managed the university at Salz-
burg; and it was probably through them that the elder Mozart
came to the archiepiscopal court. At any rate, the Black Monks
of St. Benedict and Wolfgang were great friends, and many are
the charming stories told about their intercourse.
Shortly after his return from Paris the boy paid a visit to
the Abbey of Seeon ; and here he gave a proof of his wonder-
ful and precocious gift. The abbot happened to say that he
was sorry that his choir had no fitting offertorium for the feast
of St Benedict. Wolfgang left the dinner-table and went into
the cloister, and there, leaning on the edge of the window op-
posite the door, wrote, or perhaps, rather, sketched, the offertorium^
^'Scande Coeli Limina^^ a motet which begins with a very grace-
ful soprano solo and ends with a four- part chorus accompanied
by strings, trumpets, and drums. He was then about eight
years old. At another monastery one of the monks. Father
John, was a special favorite. On the occasion of a visit Wolf-
gang, who had always the most charming and engaging win-
someness, jumped up to him with joy and put his little arms
round the monk's neck, stroking his cheek and singing to a little
caressing melody : " My Johnnie, dear Johnnie, dear Johnnie."
The community were much entertained, and used to tease Father
John about the tune. But when his next feast-day came round
his delight was great when little Wolfgang made him a present
of an offertorium on the words Inter natos mulierum, for chorus
and orchestra; and as the singers came to the words Joanne
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42 Mozart and the Church. [April,
Baptista they all recognized the caressing little melody with
which Wolfgang had greeted the monk. I have lately been
reading the score and am delighted with the beautiful work.
The "Johnnie" melody is constantly recurring in a most en-
gaging and artistic manner.
In many of his journeys the boy stayed at monasteries,
where he was always at home. When at Augsburg, in 1777,
he often visited the monastery of Holy Cross; and in one of
his letters to his father he tells the following incident:
"The dean is a good« jovial man; he is a cousin of Eber-
lin's, and* is named Zeschinger; and remembers you very well.
In the evening at supper I played the Strasburg Concerto. It
went as smooth as oil. They all praised the beautiful, pure
tone. Afterwards a little clavichord was brought in. I pre-
luded and played a sonata and the Fischer variations. Then
some one whispered to the dean that he should hear me play
organ fashion. I said he might give me a theme, but he would
not. So one of the monks did. I handled it quite leisurely,
and all at once (the fugue was in G minor) I brought in a
long movement in the major key, but in the same tempo;
and at the end the original subject, only reversed. At last it
occurred to me that I might use the playful style for the
theme of the fugue. Without much ado I tried it and it went
as accurately as if it had been measured for by tailor Daser.
The dean was in a state of great excitement. * I would n't
have believed it,' said he ; ' you are indeed a wonderful man.
My abbot told me that he had never in his life heard any
one play the organ in a more finished and solid style.' The
abbot had heard me two or three days before when the dean
was not there. Finally some one brought me a fugal sonata
to play, but I said: 'Gentlemen, this is too much; I must
admit that I cannot play this sonata at sight' ' I think so
too,' said the dean eagerly, for he was quite on my side.
'That is too much; it would be impossible for any one.'
* Still,' said I, ' I will try it' And all the time I played I
heard the dean calling out behind me, ' O you rogue ! O you
young scamp 1 ' I played until 1 1 o'clock. They bombarded
me with themes for fugues and laid siege to me on all sides."
It was about this time, when Wolfgang was twenty-one
years old, and away from home with his mother, that his father
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1904.] MOZART AND THE CHURCH. 43
wrote to his wife and questioned her about the youth's soul:
''Let me ask you if Wolfgang has not of late neglected to go
to confession ? God should ever be first in our thoughts. To
him alone must we look for earthly happiness, and we should
ever keep eternity in view; young people, I know, are averse
from hearing of these things. I was young myself once ; but,
God be thanked, I always came to myself after my youthful
follies, fled from all dangers to my soul, and kept steadily in
view God and my honor and the dangerous consequences of
indulgence in sin." His wife reassured him, and said that
both she and Wolfgang went to their duties on the feast of
the Immaculate Conception and heard Mass regularly op Sun-
days, though not always on week-days. Wolfgang touches a
deeper note in his reply: "One part of your letter vexed me
a little, the question whether I had not somewhat neglected
confession. I have nothing to reply to this except to make
you one request, which is not to think so ill of me again. I
am fond of fun ; but be assured that I can be serious on occa-
sion. Since I left Salzburg (and even before) I have met with
people whose speech and actions I should have been ashamed
to imitate, although they were ten, twenty, or thirty years
older than myself; so I beg you earnestly to have a better
opinion of me." " God first, papa next," he used often to
quote as his motto.
Another extract. When he and his mother were talking,
in 1778, of visiting Paris, the father had arranged that they
should travel with friends. Wolfgang changed the plan and
thus wrote to his father:
"Mamma and I have talked it over and agreed that the
life which Wendling leads does not suit us. Wendling is a
thoroughly honest, good man, but he and all his household are
totally without religion ; his daughter's relations with the
elector sufficiently prove this« Ramm is good at heart, but a
libertine. I know myself, and know that I have so much reli-
gion that I should never commit an action that I could not
proclaim to the whole world; but the mere thought of travel-
ling with people whose way of thinking is so opposite to mine
(and to ' that of all honorable men) frightens me. They may
do as they please, but I have no wish to accompany them. I
should not have a happy hour. I should never know what I
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44 MOZART AND THE CHURCH. [April,
Was saying, for in one word I have no confidence in them.
Friendship without religion is not lasting."
This, remember, from a young man in the first flower of
his age, feted, the darling of the musical world, sought after
on all' sides, flattered, and by temperament a Bohemian of
Bohemia. His religious instincts must have been solid and his
goodness staunch to keep him safe amid the fires of an artist's
life. His friends among the Benedictines, and the Jesuits at
Vienna, and his bosom friend, the priest BuUinger, who was
the confidant of all his thoughts and wishes, saw with pleasure
the young musician leading a life that was true and Christian.
The blessing which the saintly Clement XIV. had given him in
Rome hovered over his soul and strengthened him to follow
his father's counsels.
A few more traits to complete the picture. When his
mother died in Paris (1778) Wolfgang wrote to Bullinger:
'' When the danger became imminent I asked God for only two
things, a happy death for my mother and strength and courage
for myself; and the good God heard my prayer, and bestowed
these two gifts fully on me." Writing to his father when the
news came that Voltaire had died without the last sacraments,
he says : *' I must give you a piece of intelligence that you
perhaps already know — namely, that the ungodly arch-villain
Voltaire has died miserably, like a dog — just like a brute.
This is his reward." And when he was engaged to Constance
Weber, whom he married in 1782, he writes to tell his father
how they both had been to confession and Communion. I
have now brought up Mozart to his twenty-seventh year as a
good practical Catholic ; and it is surely needless to say that
he was also a consummate artist, with that intense reverence
for his art which would not allow him to scdmp his work or
give forth anything unworthy of his genius.
And yet this is the man whom controversialists on that
thorny subject of church music have not hesitated to accuse of
contempt for the music he wrote for the church. Some, who
really knew very little about the matter, say that his Masses
are his weakest works. Thibaut says : '^ Mozart thought little of
his Masses, and often when a Mass was ordered he objected
that he was only made for opera. But he was offered one
hundred louis d'or for every Mass, and that he cduld not
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1904.] MOZART AND THE CHURCH, 45
refuse ; only he used to say, laughing, that he . would take
whatever was good in his Masses and use it in his next opera."
There are many Thibauts to-day who make the same assertion
without one word of proof. Had they taken the trouble to
compare Mozart's Masses and his operas they would pot find
a single instance in which passages from one were transferred
into the other. Moreover, as a mere historical fact (these things
are generally forgotten in controversy), almost all Mozart's
church music was written at Salzburg. In Vienna, where most
of his operas were composed, he wrote no Mass to ord^r save
the Requiem ; and only composed one Mass on his own account,
and even that also was not finished. In fact it may be said
that his church music represents one period of his life: and his
operas another, and that the former was produced when he was
a good practical Catholic. Moreover, we have his own state-
ment as to his views on church music. At Leipzig, he declared
that a Protestant could not possibly conceive the asso<?iations
which the services of the church awoke, in the mind of a
devout Catholic, nor the powerful effect which they had on
the genius of an artist. In all his correspondence there is not
the slightest sign of any contemptuous attitude to the subject;
rather the reverse, for when he was applying for a post at the
Imperial chapel he wrote : *' The learned Kapellmeister Salieri
has never devoted himself to church music, while I have made
it my peculiar study from my youth up."
Let us hear no more of this calumny. Mozart was too true
an artist not to give of his best. We now may not consider his
church music as liturgical. I do* not. But in his day there
was no objection to it. The faults we see in it are the faults
of the age, not those of the man. After all, he wrote for his
day, not for ours. If in his operas he gained in depth and
breadth, this is to be accounted for by the increase of experi-
ence; but it is folly to argue because these from an. operatic
point of view are supreme, that the others are not so in their
own way. Moreover, it is well to remember that the Mass by
which Mozart is generally known to the ordinary hearer is not
his at all, I refer to the so-called ** Twelfth Mass." This, if
you like, is indeed weak and altogether unworthy .of. the mas-
ter. No one who knows Mozart's scores will have any hesita-
tion in saying that the composition is a manifest forgery from
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46 Mozart and the Church. [April,
beginning to end. Mozart could not and would not write such
pitiful twaddle as we find upon almost every page, both in the
vocal and in the instrumental parts. Some years ago I made
a critical examination of the Mass ; and I think it is possible
to indicate a few passages and themes which may be by the
master. We know that he left behind him certain sketches and
themes written on scraps of paper. Some were, we know,
used by Sussmayer to complete the Requiem ; and it is more
than likely that some few found their way into the " Twelfth
Mass.'' This is a tempting subject, but one I cannot now
follow.
We have seen that up to his marriage in his twenty- seventh
year Mozart remained a practising Catholic — and now a darker
page has to be written. Somehow or other he fell away almost
as soon as he married. He was extravagant, took to drinking,
keeping bad company, and there are other serious charges
which it is difficult to speak of with certainty. But this seems
clear, his love for his wife remained to the end. She, however,
was a frequent invalid and often had to be away at Baden for
long periods. And this may have exposed him to the dangers
to which a man fond of having friends and some one to rely
upon is liable. But what I think was the cause of his neglect
of his religion was the fact that about 1785 he became a Free-
mason. The craft was introduced into Vienna in 1781 and be-
came the fashion. The lodge to which Mozart belonged con-
tained many rich and noble members, amateurs and patrons of
music, and seems to have been famous for its splendid ban-
quets. This would appeal h> Mozart's love of society and con-
viviality. Religion in the capital was at a very low ebb ; and
in societies as in individuals, where supernatural religion is not
a real living force, men are more easily led away by the specious
claims of the so-called natural religion of benevolence, which
pretend? to satisfy the craving of the soul after good. Be this
as it may, Mozart, shortly after his marriage, seems to have
given up the practice of his religion altogether. I find no trace
of it in his letters. Abandoning all restraint, he became dissi-
pated, debauched, and at the mercy of an unscrupulous black-
guard, Schikander, also a Mason, who became his evil genius.
The end was not now far off. His brain, overtaxed by his
work, found no help in a body exhausted and weakened. On
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Mozart and the Church. 47
the 15th of November he went out for the last time. It was
to the lodge. The Requiem^ which was half finished and was
occupying ail his thoughts, may have touched his heart when he
had "the flavor of death on his tongue." His weeping wife
by the death bed quietly begged her sister for God's sake to
go to the priests at St. Peter's and ask one of them to call as
if by chance. Evidently Mozart had not asked for the last
sacraments of the church, although he was quite conscious of
his state. We know not what was passing in his soul, and
whether human respect was holding him back. The clergy
naturally hesitated to approach the death-bed of an excommu-
nicated man who gave no signs of repentance. While I find no
direct assertion that Mozart died absolved, anointed, and
aneled, yet, as his sister-in-law says that she had great diffi-
culty in persuading one of the priests to do what she wished,
this joined to the fact that the funeral service took place in
St. Stephen's and the burial in the church-yard of St. Mark's,
there can be no reasonable doubt but that Wolfgang Amadce
Mozart returned to the Heavenly Father in sorrow and love,
and died on December 5, 1791, in union with the church to
whom he had dedicated the choice and masterly fruits of his
immortal genius.
London^ Fekruary, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
48 EASTER. [April,
lEaster^
ING out, O Bells of Easter !
Ring out and let your mirth,
Your gladsome chime, your chant sublime,
Resound throughout the earth!
Ring loud to the clouds of Heaven!
Ring out, and shout to the hills!
Sing the Risen Lord, by all adored.
Till the world with the music thrills !
Lift up, O golden organ,
Your deep, majestic voice,
And let your peal make the temple reel
And the heart of the world rejoice !
Send forth your deepest ocean-tones,
Your golden thunders roll !
Triumphant sing the Conquering King,
And the Sunburst of the soul !
And thou, O sweet soprano.
Send forth your soul like a dove
On the trembling wings of song, till it rings
At the golden gates of Love !
Sing high, sing loud, till the silver cloud
Takes up the strain with might.
And the choirs above in the Land of Love
With the choirs below unite!
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.J Easter. 49
And ye, O purest preachers,
Ye lilies on the altar high,
Let your tongues of flame proclaim His Name,
Whose glories fill the sky!
Let your fragrance fine to Heaven ascend
In praise of Him who rent
The bonds of the tomb, and rose on the gloom
Like the sun in the firmament I
Ring out, O Bells of Easter!
Ring, swing in the belfry tall.
And to every heart your joy impart,
Bring love unto hut and hall !
Let your merry din expel all sin
And the Resurrection tell,
Of souls that lay like lifeless clay
In the tomb and the gloom of hell!
Julian E Johnstone.
-.^^?^
VOL. LXXlX.^-4
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
so Authority in Religion. [April,
AUTHORITY IN RELIGION.*
BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY. C.S.P.
[MONG the great multitude of souls slowly and
steadily growing towards Catholicism one, at
least, is known to the present writer to be con-
centrating attention just now on the question of
Church authority. With no little shock, it re-
cently dawned on the mind of this prospective convert that
membership in the Catholic Church presupposes something
more than the surrender of Protestant in favor of Catholic
views as to the meaning of the particular doctrines variously
interpreted by different Christian bodies.
''I have studied the Catholic explanations and I believe
them to be true. Am I not ready now for reception into the
church ? " The appeal came as conclusion to long and prayer-
ful consideration of Catholicism on the part of a soul that pos-
sessed in perfect purity of motive and singular holiness of life
far nobler endowments than profound learning or intellectual
acumen can ever be.
But the answer was returned : *' Hardly yet. For you must
believe not only that the church's teachings are true, but also
that they cannot possibly be false. You have always been
accustomed to look on the Bible as incapable of falsehood or
error. Well, until you believe that the church is endowed
with that very attribute of infallibility you cannot become a
Catholic, because you do not accept the fundamental principle
of Catholicism."
There the case was rested for the moment. Meanwhile
these two minds have been dwelling upon the critical and all-
important issue, which must ever divide Catholic from non-
Catholic, whether their particular views be in agreement or
not; and the narration of the incident has seemed like an apt
preface to a comment on a volume concerned primarily with
the discussion of authority as a principle of religious belief.
^ Religions of Authofity and the Religion of the Spirit. By Auguste Sabatier, late Dean
of the Protestant Faculty of Theology in the University of Paris. Translated by Louise Sey-
mour Houghton. New York: McClure, Phillips & Co. MCMIV.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] AUTHORITY IN Religion. 51
A good deal is written and said nowadays about the recon-
ciling of revelation and reason, of faith and science. At times
it appears that the ultimate and essential dualism of Catholicity
is lost sight of, or at least unduly minimized. Of course all
must recognize the utility of insisting on the correspondence
between the aspirations of humanism and the good things of
religion; of showing how faith solves problems and allays
cravings that must otherwise torment the soul; of arguing from
the very postulates of science and philosophy to various articles
of the Christian creed; but at the same time we must never
forget that this reasoning begets no Catholicity of belief, that
it gives us no final basis for faith, that it can lead only to
particular and more or less isolated conclusions, any or all of
which might be accepted by a mind quite as foreign to the
church's spirit as the mind of Simon Magus was to that of Peter.
It is the merit of Sabatier's book — as in a lesser degree of
all literature representing modern liberal Protestantism — that it
brings into clear relief the real issue by which Catholicity, and
indeed supernatural religion as a whole, must stan^ or falL
That issue is the affirmation or denial of the autonomy of rea-
son. To day there are two, and only two, systems of theology
in the field ; and they are " characterized by methods radically
opposed." One is based upon the principle that the mind is
autonomous, that " it finds the supreme norm of its ideas and
acts not outside of itself, but within itself, in its very consti-
tution. " • This system, in the developing of religious ideals
and in the determining of Christian dogma, depends o)ily on
experience. Holding that religion is on a plane with the natu-
ral sciences, it proposes to use in theology the modern experi-
mental method which "puts us in immediate contact with
reality, and teaches us to judge of a doctrine only according
to its intrinsic value, directly manifested to the mind by the
degree of its evidence" (p. xi.) The other system is based on
the principle of authority, — understanding by that term some-
thing very diflferent from " those natural, historic, human
authorities which are born of the very force of things, and are
modified according to the evolution of the reason and the con-
science, whose right of censure they accept or endure *'
(p. xxix.) This second religious system professes to base its
doctrine on a divine, supernatural authority, conclusive and
• Religions of Authority, p. xvi.
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52 A UTHORITY IN RELIGION. [ A pril,
infallible. "The point of departure is the axiom that it is
reasonable and just that human reason should subordinate itself
to the divine reason, should indeed be silent and humble before
it" (p. xvi.)
As Sabatier puts this issue clearly, so too he makes plain
who the representatives of these two systems actually are. On
the one side stands the army of the various opponents of
supernatural religion ; on the other stands Catholicism alone,
the sole surviving champion of dogmatic Christianity, the logi-
cally and historically necessary defender of revelation which
must survive or perish, accordingly as the Catholic Church
triumphs or is vanquished.
For what was long prophesied of Protestantism has been
now unmistakably realized. The standard of private judgment
has been carried straight forward to the centre of its proper
empire and serves as the rallying point of all who accord to
reason the same supremacy in religion as in the various other
fields of human knowledge and activity. Tradition, expert
opinion, common consent, may be of service, no doubt ; but on
Protestant principles each of them is forced to submit to the
findings of the high court of reason. As no power dares
warn the individual back from what seems to be the most
probable conclusion, so final allegiance will never be pledged
to what has not been demonstrated to be beyond the possibility
of question. In a word, unless one recognizes the existence of
what Protestantism is irrevocably committed' against, the ver-
dicts of private judgment can be reversed by no higher power;
and hence no religious doctrine can be guaranteed as unchange*
able until reason has proven that intelligent beings cannot
deny it. This, of course, implies that finality can attach only
to religious teachings never questioned by any one ; so that
concerning these alone can the consistent Protestant dogmatize.
It will be of some interest and value, perhaps, to indicate
in detail what Sabatier has to say about orthodox Protestant-
ism. He takes it up for discussion as a professed alternative
to the more ancient system of authority, but dismisses it at
last with the verdict that both logic and history repudiate it.
The Protestant and Catholic dogmas of authority " have
the same starting point, and, at least theoretically, are con-
structed upon the same deductive model. Their common start-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. 53
ing point is the notion of an external divine revelation, con-
sisting in a doctrine or an institution decreed by God and
supernaturally communicated to men as an external law to com-
mand the intelligence and the will " (p. 183). "The Protestants
were led to establish the infallibility of the Scriptures along the
same path by which the Catholics established that of the church '*
(p; 185). "The Catholic agrees in advance to accept all that
the church teaches, or may teach, whether or not it is in con-
formity with his moral or religious convictions. There have
been, perhaps there still are, Protestants who take this attitude
with regard to the Bible, and, so far in method at least, they
are still Catholics" (p. 161). The successors of the Reforma-
tion Fathers " considered the Bible from without in the extrin-
sic qualities which demonstrate its divine origin, and permitted
them to claim an explicit faith in all that it may contain, pre-
vious to its examination and experience. Thus they fell into
the old rut of Catholicism and sought, like it, to build up a
religion of authority " (p. 1 74).
"The Protestant dogma of authority never had, nor could
have, the simplicity, the plenitude, the efficacy of the Catholic
dogma. For Protestantism to undertake to constitute such a
dogma is a pure inconsistency" (p. 154). "Roman intolerance
had been odious, but the claims of Protestant scholasticism
became ridiculous" (p. 179). "It was Catholicism transposed"
(p. 154). "The Bible, literally defined as the Word of God,
was as much opposed to the claims of reason as to the
Catholic Church" (p. 176). "In Protestantism the attempt to
build up a system of authority could not succeed because it
was vitiated by a radical inconsistency. Therefore the work
of those who conducted it resembles the sand heaps which
children make when they think to carry the top higher by
piling on it the sand which they pull out from below " (p. 252).
"The Protestant dogma of the infallibility of the Bible is not
only inconceivable in thought — it is also useless in fact "
(p. 187). " The idea of setting up in Protestantism an external
infallible authority is only a survival of the principle which was
defeated in the sixteenth century" (p. 253).
"Yet between Catholicism and Protestantism there is this
difference, that one has succeeded where the other has failed.
The Catholic system of. authority has at last established and
completed itself by the Vatican decree. The Protestant system
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54 AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [April,
of authority has for ever broken down" (p. 25 1).* "And from
whatever point of view we examine the two systems, the
advantage is incontestably on the Catholic side" (p. 186).
What follows will indicate Sabatier's estimate of the influ-
ence of Protestantism on Christian doctrine : " The Protestant
system was barely completed when its fragility became evi-
dent" (p. 188). "With him (Schleiermacher) the Protestant
conscience finally passed the strait which separates the theo-
logy of authority from the theology of experience. Religious
truth could no longer be given by an oracle; henceforth it
must spring out of Christian experience itself, and never cease
to reproduce itself in pious souls, under the permanent influ-
ence of the Spirit of Christ. Holy Scripture could no longer
be the foundation of faith, it became an auxiliary, a means of
grace" (p. 210). "The dogma of plenary inspiration drags
with it into its final ruin the notion of revelation itself" (p.
202). "The burning point of the controversy was always the
same ; the authority of the Scriptures, the basis of all English
piety, was falling to pieces under the actual discoveries of his-
tory. . . . Since that time (forty years ago) the revolution
has made its way in England as elsewhere. It has crossed the
ocean. It is going on in »all the churches of America, what-
ever their constitution and symbol, forcing itself everywhere,
even upon those who repel it, for the only weapons with which
it can be fought are those by which it has hitherto won the
day " (p. 224).
" With Luther and Calvin the Christian conscience was de-
finitively recognized as autonomous. It can never again retrace
its steps nor again take on the yoke. The idea of setting up
in Protestantism an external infallible authority is only a sur-
vival of the principle which was defeated in the sixteenth cen-
tury. We should not be surprised at these relapses nor antici-
pate their long duration. In the time and countries where
reaction has seemed to triumph it has given only a wretched
copy of a stunted and decapitated Catholicism. In other
places the discord between the Catholic and Protestant princi-
ples has become manifest. To it is due the ills and agitations
of modern Protestant churches. By the logic of ideas and the
• The passage goes on to predict that Protestantism will be renewed by this defeat and
Catholicism will die of its victory.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Authority IN Religion. 55
force of things they are 'taking part in the final struggle, in
which no choice remains but either to turn back again to the
Roman Catholicism whence they once came out, or ta rise
joyfully and vigorously from the religion of the letter to the
religion of the Spirit. A near future will show which sentence
they pronounce upon themselves" (p. 253).
It all comes to this then, that there are now only two com-
batants in the field, but the quarrel between them must be to
the death. If this development simplifies the situation, it also
renders that issue more momentous and more awful. Most of
us know well enough that what our author describes as a
necessity of logic and an inevitable outcome of history, is being
nowadays reproduced in the mind of many and many an indi*>
vidual Christian about us. The fatal consequences of the Prot-
estant premisses are working themselves out. Gradually men
are being drafted into either of the two armies ; and minor
differences are made less of as the critical moment of the bat-
tle for and against supernatural religion draws near. May we
not venture the hope that as the opposition of principles
reveals itself more and more clearly, an ever- increasing num-
ber will recognize what Sabatier affirms so explicitly, namely,
that the Catholic Church is the one possible and living repre-
sentative of supernatural revelation and dogmatic Christianity ?
Such recognition would involve the closer union and sympathy
of all to whom the old cause is dear — no small improvement
on a situation like the present, where brother is crossing swords
with bfother, though the arms of both might find more than
enough to do if together they were turned against the common foe.
So, with Sabatier, we may consider that it is Catholicism
which stands before us for examination when we seek an
answer to the question : '' Is there in the course of historic
evolution any trace of the supernatural institution of an exter-
nal, infallible authority, with mission to rule over all religious
spirits?" (p. XXX.) To this profound problem our author
addresses himself in the most important part of his book ; and
at the very outset of his attempt to solve it, he indicates the
method he intends to employ. "Only one is of value to-day
— that dictated by the scientific spirit. In the order of the
moral sciences, it is the historical and critical method, including
at once the testimony of psychology and of history " (p. xxx.)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
$6 Authority in Religion. [April,
Whatever be Sabatier's appreciation of Catholicism, certainly
his very first jpages remove all doubt as to his opinion of its
logical coherency. From beginning to end he finds evidence
of orderly and consistent growth in the life of the Catholic
Church. The teaching of the Pope's supernatural privilege of
infallibility, the right and power to define the faith and to
decide all controversies, " was destined to triumph in the end,
because it was embedded in the logic of the generative principle
of Roman Catholicism" (p. 5). "Doubtless it was entirely
unknown in the early centuries of the Church, although Cyprian
and Augustine did indeed unwittingly posit its premisses in
their theory of the Chair of St. Peter" (p. 5). "The Pope had
only to make effective that right of sovereign arbiter and
supreme interpreter of the thought of the church which the
Council of Trent had recognized as his " (p. 5). " The new
dogma has its roots in the Catholic conception of the church
itself. It grows therefrom, as the plant grows from the seed
sown in the ground. The infallibility of the Pope is simply
the last expression and perfected form of the infallibility of
the church" (p. 13). "Thus the dogma of the personal infalli-
bility of the Pope is implanted by all its rootlets in the more
general dogma of the infallibility of the church. It is its
necessary and final form" (p. 15).
The constituent elements of this wonderfully consistent
dogma of authority are found to be " Church, tradition, super-
natural priesthood, episcopate, and papacy" (p. 15). These
consequently are taken up and studied in orderly succession^
and everywhere the same recurrent phenomenon of logical and
necessary development is discovered. The following quotations
will serve to make plain our historian's impressions on this point :
"The property of the Catholic conception is to present
religion itself as a supernatural institution; a sacerdotal and
hierarchical institution ; that is, a visible and permanent corpora-
tion charged by God himself to teach men what they ought to
believe and do, and to save them" (p. 16). "From this point
of view nothing is more logical or becomes more natural than
the dogma of the infallibility of the church, or the current
axiom that outside the church there is no salvation" (p. 17).
"The original germ of the Catholic Church is the Messianic
idea of the 'Kingdom of God' or * of Heaven'" (p. 21).
" Yet the evolution of every organism is governed by a direct-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1 904. J A UTHORITY IN RELIGION. 5 7
ing idea, which is as its perfect latent soul. This idea is no
more wanting here than elsewhere. It appears in the very
earliest beginning" (p. 25). ''None the less we must recognize
here (1. ^., in the Paulinian notion of the Church of Christ)
the great idea which was to preside over the evolution of the
Christian communities and lead through them to the constitu-
tion of the Catholic Church " (p. 26).
" Apostolicity must, therefore, be the inevitable and essentia)
mark of Catholic tradition. Here we touch the very corner-
stone of the infallibility of the church" (p. 56). "If the
tradition of the church was to be the final arbiter of contro-
versy, it must needs take on a definite form and find a popular
mode of expression. We have already seen that about the
same period it attained to both in the baptismal profession of
faith" (p. 57). "Upon no other point (speaking of tradition)
kas Roman Catholic theology an appearance of greater liberality,,
of closer reconciliation with idealistic philosophy ; as a matter
of fact, on no other does she more faithfully obey the inner
logic of the Catholic principle, nor better serve the hopes and
plans now raised by the Roman curia " (p. 67). " It is there-
fore natural that tradition and episcopacy, forming an organic
whole, and each powerless without the other, coming into being
at the same time and from the same historic causes, should
have developed along parallel lines, gaining strength each by the
other, until their common ascendency became complete " (p. 69).
"It was inevitable that when the Eucharist was invested
with the appearance and significance of a sacrifice, the presbyter
should take on the form and function of a sacerdos^* (p. 84).
So with regard to the right to bind and loose : " In vain, did
Tertullian, Hippolytus, Novatian, raise indignant protests against
the too complaisant practices of a Zephyrinus, a Callixtus, or
a Cornelius ; they must, therefore, yield to the inevitable con-
sequences of the principle which they had themselves laid down
in the heat of the battle against the Gnostics " (p. 97). ** Never-
theless, such is the interior logic of the system that at the very
moment when Cyprian was laboring to define and hedge it up,,
he himself dropped into it the germ of a new evolution which
should cause to issue from the body of bishops the head of the
episcopate, that bishop of bishops, from whom he was endeavor-
ing to protect it" (p. 99). "That befell Tertullian, Cyprian,,
and the entire African Church in that early age, which in our
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
58 A UTHORITY IN RELIGION. [ A pril,
own time befell the liberal ultramontane school of Montalembert
and Lacordaire in face of the dogma of the personal infallibility
of the Pope. All were carried away, in spite of themselves, by
the irresistible logic of the movem^ent which they themselves
had created, but which they were impotent either to direct or
to restrain " (p. lOo). " It was the entirely natural result of
the movement toward concentration which had been going on
in the church for a century, when from the oligarchical body
of bishops in Cyprian's time a single bishop attempted to raise
himself above the others and become the centre and head of.
Christendom. That the bishop who thus suddenly became pre-
dominant should be he of Rome was the still more natural
result of the part played in history by the city which had con-
quered the world and become the metropolis of the empire "
(p. 103). ** Rome apprehended this mission (of elder sister)
from the beginning, accepted it, and accomplished it in a man-
ner as admirable as it was touching" (p. 107). "At the same
time it was Rome who, in the name of all Christendom, was
carrying on the battle against Gnosticism and upholding the
true doctrine '* (p. 107). " It is impossible too greatly to ad-
mire the order and energy which the Roman Church brought
to this common work of defence, organization, and propaganda "
(p. 107). "The Papacy triumphed over its humiliations and
trials, because its roots were sunk deep in the religious faith of
the peoples, and after every crisis it drew fresh vigor therefrom "
(p. 126). "In these crises (1870) the Papacy assuredly did not
die, but it was transformed. Having ceased to be a power in
the political order, it became a dogma in the religious order "
<p. 128). " Infallibility, which had been the attribute of the
one universal church, became with the lapse of time concentrated
in the Church of Rome, and thence passed finally to its bishop.
When the Pope was held as the head and mouthpiece of the
church, how could infallibility be expressed by any other head
or any other lips" (p. 130). "This perfectly logical system was
the work of centuries " (p. 130). "That the Papacy should thus
reach a sort of apotheosis is marvellous, but not miraculous.
Every stage in it from the beginning is logical and linked together,
as in the history of great empires. The same tendency which
forced the bishop up from the ranks of the presbyters of the
apostolic age brought the Papacy forth from the episcopate "
<P. 135).
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904] Authority IN Religion. 59
Thus far as to Sabatier's testimony concerning the strict
logical coherence and historical necessity of the Catholic system.
What has been quoted, though but a part of the evidence
presented, warrants the presumption that he thinks the very
existence of supernatural religion to have been bound up with
the life and growth of Catholicism. An additional fact, strik-
ingly impressive from other points of view beside his own, is
this : " From one end of the history of the Catholic Church to
the other we can note this circumstance. Dogma never con-
secrates anything that has not already passed into practice for
a century or two" (p. 20). ''The history of Catholicism pre-
sents this singular law, that dogmatic theory always lags tw«
or three centuries behind the practical reality." " Here, as in
nature, it is correct to say that the need normally created the
organ " (p. 72). " But the theory followed, not preceded, the
establishment of the episcopate" (p. 90). ** This legal transmission
of a power of divine origin is in both cases (/. ^., politically and
ecclesiastically) a monstrous historic fiction, but in both cases
also it is not the fiction that establishes the power, it is the
power already established that gives rise to and accounts for
the fiction " (p. 91). If a legendary title were invented, it gained
ground and triumphed ''because the interests which it served
became dominant in the church and eventually became dominant
in history" (p. 113). "The degree of infallibility accorded to
the Pope has always been proportioned to the measure of the
authority which he had acquired and exercised" (p. 129). .
It is by no means pretended that the foregoing excerpts
give an adequate representation of our author's mind with
regard to Catholicism. They have been selected very carefully
from the midst of other passages expressive of anything rather
than faith in the church's claims ; and they have been pre-
sented, not with a view to giving Sabatier's judgment on the
truth of Catholicism, but for the purpose of showing what a
scientific historian, after a critical study of the church's story;
feels he must proclaim ; namely, that during two thousand years
supernatural religion has lived in and by and on account of
Catholicism, that the essential continuity, symmetry, and coher-
ence of Catholic dogma are perfect, and that if the church had
been truly a divine institution committed to the current of his-
tory with no other safeguard than the controlling and directing
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
6o AUTHORITY IN RELIGION. [Aprils
hand of God, then during these past twenty centuries things
would have run on very much as the student finds them
actually to have gone.
The significance of such a series of facts lies in this: that
the one consistent motive for deciding against the supernatural
character of Catholicism seems to be only the conviction that
supernatural religion does not exist at all. Such a conviction
calls for careful consideration, of course, and to this considera-
tion we shall presently proceed. Meanwhile let attention rest
for the moment on the result of the assault made by scientific
criticism upon historical Christianity:
1st. Belief in revelation required to be embodied in an ex-
ternal institution, and Catholicism undertook this office.
2d* The needs of succeeding epochs rendered imperative the
dogmatic crystallization of traditions, the organizatjon of an
episcopate, the . centralization of ecclesiastical power in the per-
son of a primate; and as each of these demands arose the
church . showed herself to be provided with the means of sup-
plying it satisfactorily.
3d. Perils on the right hand and on the left, problems theo-
retic and problems practical, hostile attack and internal dispute, in
one way or another each of these succeeds in developing some
new potency of the age old system.
Not one of all the curious twists and turns of history's cur-
rent has ever swung that bark upon the sands. Not summer
drought nor winter storm has ever cast a final blight upon
that giant growth. Not the metabolism of twice a thousand
years has altered the identity of that organism. Hence to the
Christian who recognizes a Providence where science perceives
nothing more than adaptation to environment, the career of Catho-
licism, as described by Sabatier, should suggest the action of an
omniscient mind and omnipotent will controlling its course. And
when we realize that the church alone did, and the church alone
could, survive the perils besetting the path of supernatural reli-
gion, we are tempted to ask if time must not at last surely bring
into the Catholic fold all who believe in a miraculous revelation
and an indefectible Christianity. As for the others, among
whom our author is included, we have still to consider whether
or not their point of view will permit of the church's being
seen to good advantage.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Work of the department of the Interior. 6i
THE WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR.
BY WILLIAM H. DE.LACY. p.C.L.
I'OVERNMENT, like the poor, we h^ve always
with us. Its study is ever interesting, especially
to the American mind ; for it has been America's
work to recall the world from devious ways to
the fundamental truth that government is pri-
marily for the benefit of the people, and that it is not an estate
of the few, or the governing class, by which the many are
theirs to pluck, but that this institution, necessary to tb.e
existence of society, is ta'be administered with an eye single
to the good of society, and for the welfare of the least as well
as the greatest in the state.
In carrying out this idea the framers of our Constitution
separated into co-ordinate branches the legislative, the execu-
tive, and the judicial powers of the government, eaph, like the
different parts of the human body, having its particular funcn
tions, yet by that very fact contributing in their combined
operation to the welfare of the whole.
From what Madison tells us of the Debates in the Conven-
tion of 1787, it was sought to provide a council for the Presi-
dent, to consist of the chief-justice of the Supreme Court w^nd
the heads of the executive departments. Dr. Franklin thought
a council would not only be a check on a bad President, but
be a relief to a good one. Charles Pinckncy, of South Caro-
lina, said : " Give the President an able council, and it will
thwart him ; a weak one, and he will shelter himself under
their sanction." His idea was that the President should be
authorized to call for advice or not, as he might choose.
As adopted, the Constitution makes the Senate the adviser
of the President; for, with the advice and consent of the
Senate, the President is to make treaties and appoint the chief
officers of the United States ; while Section 2 of Article II.
authorizes the President to require the opinion, in writing.
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62 Work OF THE Department OF THE INTERIOR. [April,
of the principal officer in each of the executive departments,
upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective
offices.
From this authority to obtain the opinion of the heads of
departments evolution was easy into regular, periodic consulta-
tions, these consultations, or " cabinet '' meetings, being wholly
advisory, in no sense obliging the President to compliance with
its recommendations or involving responsibility to the people
on the part of the members of the cabinet ; in the manner,
for example, the ministry in England is responsible for meas-
ures of government.
So that these departments are really the vast business
houses of the executive branch of the government, along the
lines of executive matters committed by law to each. The
necessity of the arrangement impelled the President to keep in
touch with the heads thereof, and gave rise to the cabinet,
though not to a council to the President, in the sense debated
in the Constitutional Convention.
Of the nine executive departments, the business of none is
more directly related to the daily life of the people than the
work of the Department of the Interior, embracing as it does
the work of the United States Patent Office, the administration
of the public lands, Indian affairs, pensions, the gathering of
educational statistics, the reclamation of vast areas of arid lands
in the West, the settlement of the accounts of those companies
who received land grants and other government aid to build
the railroads from the Mississippi to the Pacific, and thus
opened to settlement the Empire of the West, and the impor-
tant scientific bureau, the United States Geological Survey.
The Department at Washington occupies a number of
buildings, some of which are leased, the rents aggregating
$51,900 per annum — a strong argument, truly, for the erection
of additional public buildings at the Capital City. The Secre-
tary of the Interior has his office in what is popularly called
the " Patent Office," which stands upon the square known at
the dawn of the city as the " National Church Square." This
square is spoken of as follows, on the plan of the city made
by Peter Charles L'Enfant :
"This church is intended for National purposes, such as
public prayer, thanksgivings, funeral orations, etc. ; assigned to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Work OF THE Department OF THE Interior. 63
the special use of no particular sect or denominationi but
equally open to all. It will be likewise a proper shelter for
such monuments as were voted by the Continental Congress
for those heroes who fell in the Cause of Liberty, and for such
others as may hereafter be decreed by the voice of a grateful
nation."
Congress, however, on the 4th of July, 1836, made an
appropriation of $108,000 out of the fees which had been
received for patents granted, for the erection of a building for
the Patent Office. This building was erected upon the " Church
Square."
When, in the administration of President Taylor, in 1849,
the Department of the Interior was created, Thomas Ewing, of
Ohio, was made the first Secretary of the Interior. In his
office proper. Secretary Ewing had eight employees; at the
present time, the Secretary of the Interior has the aid of a
First Assistant Secretary, an Assistant Secretary, a chief clerk,
and 291 clerks and other employees. His huge Department
comprises eight bureaus or offices, the whole having at Wash-
ington and elsewhere throughout the country nearly sixteen
thousand employees.
Apace with the marvellous growth of our country the busi-
ness of the Department since its organization has developed,
and to-day no head of an executive department at Washington
retires at night with more official cares, or awakens to face
more perplexing or important questions, than the Secretary of
the Interior. His functions are at once judicial and administra-
tive, for he and his assistants hear appeals in land and pension
cases, as well as direct the policy of the Department in regard
to the Indians, the distribution of the public lands to the actual
settler, the care of the national parks, and many other matters
committed to the Department. From the action of the Com-
missioner of Patents the appeal is, however, to the Court of
Appeals of the District of Columbia. You will notice here
involved judicial and, in the various departmental regulations,
quasi-legislative functions. In other words, the cleavage of
sovereignty into legislative, executive, and judicial was not
clean, or exclusive, for we see all three functions exercised
within this Department; and the courts themselves uniformly
refuse to interfere where matters have been legally committed
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64 IVOJ^/ir OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. [April,
to the discretion — /. ^., to the judgment — of the head of a
department.
Our statesmen have followed the views of Edmund Burke,
that the principal and best revenue .to draw from the vast
public domain is to spring from the actual settlement of the
lands, and that, when thrown into the mass of private property,
these lands will come, through the course of circulation and
through the political secretions of the state, into well-regulated
revenue. Accordingly the homestead law authorizes every per-
son, either the head of a family or one arrived at the age of
twenty-one years, who is a citizen or prospective citizen of
the United States, to enter one hundred and sixty acres, or
less, of unappropriated public land, providing, however, that no
patent shall be given therefor until the expiration of five
years from the date of entry.
Thanks, chiefly, to Thomas Jefferson, who likewise made the
Louisiana Purchase, the centennial of which is. this year to be
celebrated at St. Louis, over this vast public domain has been
extended an admirable system of surveys by which it is divided
into bodies of land six miles square, called townships. In
every township the government has given a mile of land in aid
of popular education. Townships have generally been created
bodies corporate to manage this princely endowment, the
inhabitants electing the trustees. Now, the town is the germ
of New England's political institutions^ and it has been well
pointed out that Western localism has found its nucleus in the
school system, for the county election district has been made
to coincide with the school township, often with the school-
house for a voting place. The report for the year 1893 shows
that over eight hundred millions of acres of public land remain
undisposed of. The Philippines, Porto Rico, and other island
possessions do not enter into this calculation. These islands
are under the control of the Bureau of Insular Affairs in the
War Department. Neither was the strip of territory along the
Isthmus of Panama taken into account.
The late Major J. W. Powell, many years the director of
the U. S. Geological Survey, is regarded as the father of the
idea to reclaim by irrigation the vast tracts of arid lands in
the West. The act of June 17, 1903, makes abundant pro-
vision therefor, appropriating for the purpose certain receipts
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Work of the Department of the Interior. 65
from the sales of public lands, and under it irrigation will be
inaugurated rivalling, if not exceeding, that done in Egypt and
in India.
We go back to the act of Congress of February 8, 1887,
for the beginning of the nation's present policy towards its
wards — i. ^., to seek to develop the individual Indian and to
endeavor to make him self-reliant, to endow him with citizen-
ship, and to destroy tribal relationship, which is now justly
regarded as the greatest hindrance to the civilization and
advancement of the Indian. It costs Uncle Sam about eight
and a half million dollars annually to care for Poor Lo. Indi-
ans are yet located on reservations in New York ; in Pennsyl-
vania, at the Carlisle school ; on the Qualla reservation in
North Carolina ; in Michigan and in Wisconsin ; and there are
a few hundred Seminoles in the Everglades of Florida. All
other bodies of Indians are to be found west of the Mississippi.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth century the removal
of the Indians from the Southern States was an important
political question. Out of its settlement Georgia got some of
the finest land in the southwest part of that State, in return
for a cession to the Union of its claims to the territory west
of the Chattahoochee River, which has since been erected into
the States of Alabama and Mississippi ; while the Indians were
removed to the Indian Territory, and received large money
payments. The Creek Indians stated that they were induced
to make the treaty by a desire to get rid of the difficulties
experienced by a residence within the settled parts of the
United States; to reunite their people by joining those who
had already crossed the Mississippi ; and to live in a country
beyond the limits of states' sovereignties, where they could
enjoy a government of their choice, and ** perpetuate " a state
of society which might be most consonant with their views,
habits, condition, etc. But alas! it was not to be perpetual.
Under the operation of the Curtis act and the Dawes commis-
sion, the sovereignties of the Five Civilized Tribes are being
abolished, and the Indian Territory is clamoring for statehood.
To the Bureau of Education is committed the task of
gathering and publishing statistics and such other information
as shall aid the people in the establishment and maintenance
of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of
VOL. LXXIX.— 5
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66 WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. [April,
education throughout the country. Education was one of the
matters reserved to the States, and not delegated to the
Union.
In his Political Science, Proiessor Woolsey, long the presi-
dent of Yale College, says that the liberty of teaching is one
form of freedom of speech and thought. By endowments and
otherwise the general government has shown its liberality in
the cause of popular education, in consonance with the declara-
tion in the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the
territory northwest of the Ohio River, that " religion, morality,
and knowledge being necessary to good government and the
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall
for ever be encouraged."
The Pension Office distributes some $i38,ooo,cx)0 annually,
the grateful tribute of the nation to its surviving defenders.
The United States Geological Survey is, as its name implies,
a highly scientific bureau. A number of such offices in Wash-
ington require trained scientists, and attract to their work some
of the most skilled specialists in the country, all of which is, to
my mind, a concrete realization of the wish of Washington for
the establishment here of a national university.
The framers of the Constitution builded more wisely than
they knew when they provided that Congress might encourage
the arts and sciences by securing for limited times to authors
and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings
and discoveries. No other source has added more to the
material prosperity of the country than the Patent System.
Under its benign influence, American genius has been stimulated
to meet the wants of a rapidly increasing population and an
advancing civilization. In the recording and transmission of
speech, the development of speedy locomotion by land and
sea, in the providing of raiment and medicine and food, and
the devising of machinery and other means to increase the
capacity for production generally, the American Patent System
has nobly served the Republic and benefited mankind.
The daily fees of the Patent Office now amount to more
than five thousand dollars.
Patents are granted for inventions in the useful arts, and
the work of the office requires the services of those who are
trained in the sciences upon which the useful arts are foumled.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Work of the Department of the Interior. 67
Experience in the office gives them familiarity with the state
of the arts to which the classes of invention committed to
them relate.
It is the task of the United States Civil Service Commission
to submit the names of those eligible for appointment as
vacancies occur throughout the department; and, in regard to
Civil Service Reform, two things must be admitted: first, the
elimination of ** influence " from the matter of appointment to
public office is in harmony with right American ideas; for, as
is said by the Supreme Court of the United States in Yick
Wo's case (118 U. S. Reports): "It would be the essence of
slavery itself, intolerable to the American ideal, that a man
should hold his life, or the means of living, or any other right
material to him as a man, at the will of another " ; and, secondly,
by largely eliminating favoritism, it has, by thus removing an
incentive to create offices, kept within more reasonable bounds
the multiplication of offices, which is a positive benefit to the
whole people, for it means less taxation. The most important
source of the government's income, a source so important that
it may be regarded as the sole means of income, is taxation,
either direct or indirect, and in that every man and woman
and child are interested.
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68 Mission Work in Japan. [April,
MISSION WORK IN JAPAN.
BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN.
fMIDST the voluminous outpourings of picturesque
information as to the ways of the Japanese
which have flowed in a broad and even stream
through the papers of the last few weeks, com-
paratively little has been said about the history
and present condition of the Island Kingdom from the stand-
point of the progress of Christianity. Yet there are points
about this history, and details of the more recent missionary
labors, which are full enough of color and dramatic interest to
be worth the consideration even of those who, in these com-
mercial days, are more occupied with material progress. There
was, a little while ago, an admirable opportunity of realizing
this aspect of things ; but few people outside of those to whom
an appeal was directly made can have known of it. We are
so accustomed to the presence of distinguished foreigners in
New York, glittering with visible tokens of celebrity, that we
scarcely take the time to look for those who do not herald
their advent with many trumpets. Yet the Right Reverend
Jules-Auguste Chatron, Bishop of Osaka, who was lately the
guest of the Fathers of Mercy in West Twenty-fourth Street,
is a man whose personality and whose work are distinctly more
interesting than one commonly finds.
The man and the story he had to tell were of one piece —
absolutely simple ; impressive, pathetic by their very simplicity.
Monseigneur Chatron wore his episcopal purple with dignity, but
you felt instinctively that in his mind the dignity was referred
to his office and did not cling about himself. He is a French-
man, like most of the Catholic missionaries in Japan; but
curiously enough, whether it is imagination or an actual assimila-
tion due to his thirty years* residence among them, his features
at first sight suggest the characteristics of the Japanese. Even
the slight accent with which he speaks English is more Japan-
ese than French. One felt, as one listened to him, that noth-
ing less than the pressure of a great necessity would have
brought him so far from his flock. There was a wistful look
in his face as he spoke of his four hundred orphans, then on
1904.] Mission Work in Japan. 69
very limited rations, and pictured them going to the sisters
with " Mother, won't the Bishop soon come to bring us clothes
and cakes as he used to ? "
But the bishop was far away, telling the Americans how the
storms and floods and earthquakes of the year before had
almost ruined the " plant " of his diocese and used up in
repairs and rebuilding all the scanty subsidy which came to
him from the French "Association for the Propagation of the
Faith." Ten dollars a month, by the way, is the average sti-
pend of the priests in the jurisdiction of Osaka ; so that quite
obviously there is no special reason why there should be a
rush there on the grounds of temporal advantage. A good
many middle-aged men, who were boys at the 'famous Blue-
coat School a couple of generations after Charles Lamb, will
remember how the head-master of those days, when the time
came each week to hand a boy his pocket-money (a shilling a
week), would stop ninepence or tenpence out of it as fines for /
various offences, drop the odd coppers in his hand with a sar-
donic grin, and growl out " There — that does n't leave you
very much margin to make a beast of yourself on 1 " In like
manner, even supposing the patient little French missionaries
felt inclined to make beasts of themselves, their salaries would
not carry them very far.
Mgr. Chatron, who has been Bishop of Osaka since 1896,
tells stories of fascinating dramatic interest about the early days
of the present work there. When the first priests were allowed
to enter the country, after Commodore Perry, with American
directness, had forced the passage, they were supposed to limit
themselves strictly to ministering to the foreign population.
But they knew of the tremendous work that had been done
there three centuries before by St. Francis Xavier and the
early Jesuits, and it was not long before they made inquiries
whether any remnants of this once flourishing church were to
be found. Persecution of the most bloody and determined sort
had done its work ; the last priests had followed many of their
predecessors to a martyr's death in 1643. I^ seemed at first
that not a trace of Christian tradition was to reward their
search. But presently an old woman stole int« their chapel,
and by mysterious hints and gestures contrived to convey to
them that she too was of their religion. Then came a deputa-
tion, at night, with many precautions, like Nicodemus, and
begged leave to ask some questions of the French priest^OOQlc
70 MISSION Work in Japan. [April,
" Who is the head of your religion ? " was the first. And the
native heads nodded with solemn approval when they heard of the
Pope. The personality of Pius IX. could have meant nothing to
them ; but they knew (and, as we shall see presently, not only
from the preaching of missionaries) that far away across the sea
there was a consecrated chief who claimed the obedience of souls.
Then came a second question, put as simply and directly:
" Do you know Mary ?" This also was easy enough to answer;
again the heads nodded with increasing reverence when the
missionaries pointed to the statue of a woman robed in blue
and white, and carrying a Child in her arms.
But the phraseology of the third question brought a
momentary confusion. " Have you children ? " blandly inquired
the natives; and when the priests seemed to answer in the
affirmative, an expression of perplexity and disappointment
gradually overspread . their faces. The Frenchmen began to
explain how they were called " Father," and that they regarded
all those who followed their teachings as their children, to be
loved and cared for as such. Presently it appeared that the
Japanese were trying to find out if these missionaries belonged
to the class of comfortable family men, some of whom they
had seen in the European quarters. But when the misunder-
standing was cleared away, and they realized that these fathers
were celibates like those of whom their traditions had told
them, they knelt down with a sigh of relief and beaming
faces, and kissed the priests' hands.
Imagine the joy of the missionaries at the discovery that the
work was not all to be done over — that, among these people who
had not seen a priest for two hundred years, the faith had lingered,
handed down from father to son. They had been proud of it and
loyal to it as a sacred mystery. Even baptism had been c6n-
tinuously observed ; care was taken that in each community one
man, at least, should know the necessary formula and administer
the sacrament to the children as they came into the world.
This does not mean, however, that Mgr. Chatron and his
fellow -workers have converted the entire population since those
days. Buddhism and Shintoism still hold the field; their
adherents in the prefecture of Osaka (which is the second city
of the empire) number over a million and a quarter, while the
Catholic population is returned at little more than five thousand.
But Mgr. Chatron is different from many other missionary
bishops. His talk was not of statistics and " success "01^^ the
1904.J Mission Work in Japan. 71
modern sense of the word. With an intense conviction of the
sacredness of his cause went a compelling sense of duty; when
he talked of his work, you felt that he was homesick for it,
that he would not be happy till he could get back to his
catechists and his sisters and his family of orphans — a family
constantly increasing, as the sisters open their doors morning
after morning to find a queer little Japanese baby in a basket,
left there on the chance of its being taken in.
Fortunately, he did not have to face as many hardships and
perils, when he went home, as did his Jesuit and Dominican
and Franciscan predecessors in the sixteenth century. There
are few episodes in the richly colored history of that age more
full of picturesque suggestion to any one with a proper sort of
imagination than the narrative (which may be found in Charle-
voix by those who know where to look for it) of the embassy
seat by some of the lesser Japanese kings to convey their
homage as Christians to the Holy See in 1582. It may easily
be conceived that the journey to Rome was no light undertaking
in those days ; indeed, they would probably never have ventured
on it if Father Alessandro Valignani, the " visitor of all the Ori-
ental missions," had not been ready to see them on their way.
The King of Bungo named his grand nephew, Mancius Ito,
who, though he was only sixteen, is described as wise beyond
his years; Michael Cingina, an accomplished cavalier also of
royal connections, represented the King of Arima and the
Prince of Omura; and two other native Christians of high
rank, Martin Farami and Julian Nacaura, accompanied them.
They embarked at Nagasaki on the 22d of February, 1582.
It was to be eight years before they returned; but on the
voyage to Goa they probably abandoned all hope of ever
coming back. Their sentiments as seasickness laid hold of
them are described with a realism which almost introduces a
modern note into the narrative. At Goa they stayed several
montfis, magnificently feted by the viceroy ; and when they set
sail again, early in 1584, they had a more peaceful voyage,
reaching Lisbon in August. The most flattering attentions
were lavished upon them here, and when they visited Madrid,
by Philip II. So slow was their progress amid these civilities
that by the following spring they were only as far as Tuscany,
where, as guests of the Grand Duke Piero de* Medici, they
witnessed the festivities of the carnival, and no doubt mar-
veiled intensely at them. Digitized by GoOglc
^2 Mission work in Japan. [April,
On the boundaries of the States of the Church they were
met by a guard of honor of five hundred arquebusiers. Gregory
XIIL, feeling his end approaching, sent to hasten them, and
they soon reached Rome, where they went at once to the
house of the Jesuits — still incognito, however, as their official
entry was not till three days later. This was a most gor-
geous affair, if we may judge from the minute details pre-
served of the order of the procession which conducted them
to the papal presence. The Sala Regia of the Vatican was so
thronged that the Swiss had to use their weapons to clear a
passage to the throne for the Pope himself.
Two weeks later Gregory was dead ; but his successor, Six-
tus v., continued the same lavish kindness to the strangers.
Space forbids lingering over the many functions recorded by
the leisurely historian ; but we must at least go with them to
the Capitol to see them made patricians " by the Senate and
the People." There, if you like, is the fulness of the dramatic
contrast. Think what the letters S. P. Q. R. have always meant
to our western world, and bring these wondering children of the
Orient under them for one brief moment ; what more would
you have for a picture?
The return voyage was through the same enthusiasm, lit up
here and there with vivid details, as when at Mantua the duke
was to have stood sponsor, on the day of their arrival, at the
baptism of a Jewish rabbi, and politely begged the Japanese
princes to take his place at the font. So, in the end, in the sum-
mer of 1590, they came home again to Nagasaki — only to find a
chill wind of persecution already blowing up, to enter the Jesuit
novitiate, and in all probability to give their lives for their faith.
This remarkable episode acquires an additional interest from
the fact that one account of it, bearing the title De Missione
Legatorum Japonensiutn and the date Macao, 1590, was long sup-
posed to have been the first book printed by Europeans in
China. Few books have been the cause of more bibliographi-
cal myth and error. It is now known to have been composed
by a Portuguese Jesuit, Duarte de Sande, professedly from the
journals of the ambassadors, and to have no right to the primacy
long claimed for it. But no earlier rival seems to exist, and
this is at least very rare, only four copies being known, of which
one is in the British Museum. The whole story, with its wealth
of picturesque detail, is a delightful change from the prosaic same-
ness of modern life. Digitized by Googk
1904.] The Eternal Canticle. 73
She eiPBI^NAL ^ANIPIGLB.
SUNG IN EXILE,
Translated from the French of the Carmelite nun, Sasur ThMze de V Enfant Jisus,
by S, L, Emery,
XII/ED afar from heaven, I still, dear Lord, can sing, —
I, Thy betrothed, can sing the eternal hymn of love ;
For, spite of exile, comes, to me, on dove-like wing.
Thy Holy Spirit's fires of rapture from above.
Beauty supreme ! my Love Thou art ;
Thyself Thou givest all to me.
Oh, take my heart, my yearning heart, —
Make of my life one act of love to Thee!
Canst Thou my worthlessness efface ?
In heart like mine canst* make Thy home?
Yes, love wins love, — O wondrous grace !
I love Thee, love Thee ! Jesu, come !
Love that enkindleth me,
Pierce and inflame me';
Come, for I cry to Thee!
Come and be mine !
Thy love urges me;
Fain would I ever be
Sunken and lost in Thee,
Furnace divine !
All pain borne for Thee
Changes to joy for me,
When my love flies to Thee,
Winged like the dove.
Heavenly Completeness,
Infinite Sweetness,
My soul possesses Thee
Here, as above.
Heavenly Completeness,
Infinite Sweetness,
Naught else art Thou but LovK !
NoTB.— The swiftly varying metres of this rapturous " Canticle " evidently are meant to
indicate the ever increasing ecstasy of the singer ; unless, indeed, Soeur Thdrfese had no
explicit intention, but was simply carried on by the force of a quasi-inspiration. — S, L. E.
digitized by VjOOQ IC
74 LYRIC ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. [April,
LYRIC ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY.
BY ESTELLE McCLOSKEY DASCHBACH.
\0 little has Anglo-Saxon, or rather Old English,
literature been studied by English-speaking
people that the literary value of the fragments
of our earliest literature has not as yet been
fully appreciated. The difficulties of the phonetic
system of the language and its dialectic peculiarities are so
great and so many that a mastery of them has been judged
more laborious than the resulting acquaintance with the litera-
ture would justify. To German philologists, who study language
by the laboratory method, is left most of the original research
in this subject. Nevertheless a study of Old English reveals
poetic beauty and growth in literary expression which really
well repay a student for the difficulties overcome in mastering
the language. An investigation of the minor poems which ante-
date and follow our greatest Old English poem, Beowulf, must
lead to the conclusion that the lyric and not the epic was the
native spontaneous poetry of the English people.
To study with any degree of thoroughness the earliest
records of Anglo-Saxon literature we must go back to a period
when the English were still on the Continent. Perhaps the
oldest and most authentic recorder of literary impulses among
our Teutonic ancestors is Tacitus.* He tells us that our fore-
fathers loved song, and that they celebrated in **carminibus
antiquis " Tuisco, the god born of the earth, and Manus, his
son, the founders of the race. The early Teutons sang their
songs as they went to war, for the same historian writes that
by songs they roused their courage for battle and prophesied
the issue of the struggle. In a letter of Pope Gregory's to the
Abbot Mellitus f and in the Statua Bonifacii, Council of Autun,
is found indirect proof of the existence and nature of early
hymnic choral rites. From these records we are not likely to
err in drawing the inference that hymns in honor of the gods
and heroes were prevalent as late as the seventh century. The
• Tacitus, Germania, ii. iii. f Bede, Hisioria EccUsiasiica de gentis Anglorum^ i. 30.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Lyric Elements in Old English poetry. 75
Jiymns were strophic in form, since they were accompanied by
a dance. They were lyric, not epic in character. Songs
intended to urge men to battle, they had little in common with
the " Ruhe und Breite " of the epic. Rather were they wild
bursts of emotion, impulsive, spontaneous paeans. At the same
time they were not highly developed, dramatic lyrics, as are
the Old Norse and Icelandic sagas in which the passions of love
and hate, scorn and envy, greed and revenge find full and
complete expression.
From the choral lyrics of the early Germanic to the weld-
ing of these songs into one lay or saga is a step of which
there is no record. The fact remains, however, that the poetry
of our forefathers now exists in epic form, and this epic poetry
is a natuial product of the Volkerwanderung. Between the
fourth and sixth centuries Europe was invaded by the Huns,
and England was colonized by the Angles and Saxons. The
migration of the tribes would be favorable to the accomplish-
ment of stirring deeds. Naturally these deeds of heroes were
praised and magnified in song, and as time passed, the triumphs
of less popular heroes were forgotten or were merged with
those of more popular ones. The epics of this period were
accompanied by the harp and their lyric character was retained.
To this early transitional poetry we must trace the origin of
the later unified poems, Walter of Aquitaine^ the Niebelungenlied^
and The Lay of Gudtun. As the Scandinavians took little or
no part in the great migrations their poetry never received the
impulse toward epic development by which the Germanic songs
were influenced.
The Germanic tribes who colonized Britain during the fifth
and sixth centuries brought with them from the Continent a
heathen religion and a heathen literature. Traces of both are
found in their records for the next two hundred years. The
pagan idea of Wyrd, or Fate, as the arbiter of man's life is
present long after Christian influence has modified the themes
and expression of this literature. The oldest remains of a
purely heathen literature still extant are the Charms and Hexen-
spruche. They seem to have been very widely known. Christian
elements found in them would lead to the supposition that the
church tried to give them a Christian coloring. From their
similarity to the old Sanskrit, ' from their heathen character, and
from the plausible assumption that they were incantations
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usually chanted either by an individual or a communal chorus,
these charms must be regarded as the earliest existing records
of the old lyric or hymnal poetry. Their poetic value lies in
their personification and folk fancies. The charm against the
Stitch has some poetic interest:
" In this rod I guard myself, and to God's grace trust myself,
'Gainst the stitch that sore is, and against the sore blow.
And against the grim, 'gainst the grisly terror.
And against the mickle horror that to every one is loathly ;
And 'gainst all the loathly things that into the land may come
A victorious spell I sing, a victorious staflF I bear,
Word oi victory, work of victory, so may this avail me.
May no spirit mar me nor the mighty man afflict me.
Matthew be my helm,' Mark my byrnie be;
Of my life the shining strength ; let my sword be Luke,
Sharp and edged sheer ; and my shield be John." *
Widsithf the oldest poem in the language in existence, is a
didactic chronicle of princes and warriors. As a catalogue of
tribes, kings, and heroes it has both geographical and historical
interest. As a picture of a wandering minstrel, or "scop,"
of the sixth century it has some literary value. Its poetic
merit lies in its unity, in the personal story of the bard's visit
to Eormanric, his return and welcome home, and the songs of
praise he made to his lord. In these songs there is a vivid
reminiscence of the older lyric. The poem opens, however,
with a purely epic phrase:
"Widsith spake, unlocked his word hold."
It is not strophic in form. In the very beginning it strikes
the elegiac note which is the dominating characteristic of all
Old English poetry. On the whole the poem is a remarkable
mingling of the elements of the older lyric and the developing
epic. The personal interest is paramount in such lines as
these :
" Scilling then and with him I, in a voicing clear.
Lifted up the lay to our lord the conqueror;
Loudly at the harping lilted high our voice.
* Translated by Stopford Brooke : The History of Early English LitenUurt, notes E, ch. ix.
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Then our hearors many, haughty of their heart,
They that couth it well, clearly said in words
That a better lay listed had they never." •
Next to Widsith in point of chronology stands the Old
English epic, Beowulf. As the proof that much of it was com-
posed on the Continent is indisputable, we may regard Beowulf
as one of the earliest productions of the transitional period
between choral songs and heroic sagas. A discussion of its
growth, of the three mythical exploits in the poem, the vari-
ous historical references and Christian interpolations embodied
in it, must be left to an essay whose primary purpose is not to
emphasize the lyric elements in Anglo-Saxon literature. Nor
is this the place to show the inferiority of our oldest English
epic in unity of composition, psychological interest, and indi-
vidual character presentation to the* classic Greek epics. But
the themes of the best modern lyrics, the love of the sea, the
glory of a brave spirit and a strong arm, the keen delight in
danger and strife, are primitive passions as vividly realized in
Beowulf as in any poem of later years. It is only in the
higher art of a cultivated expression that Beowulf shows in-
feriority. Decided breaks in the style of the different lays
which make up the poem are faults of an art not yet fully
developed.
These same dissimilarities in style, together with many
repetitions and recurring expressions, must imply that the
poem was originally sung and not written. Besides this ex-
ternal mark of a style characteristic of lyric poetry, Beowulf
has many passages which are purely lyric in both sentiment
and expression. The lament of Hrothgar for his thane is one
of the noblest:
"Ask not thou after happiness; sorrow is renewed again
to the people of the Danes. Dead is Aeschere, Yrmenlafs
elder brother; my adviser, my counsellor, my shoulder-to-
shoulder companion when we in war guarded our heads."
Then there is the beautiful passage in Beowulfs story of
his own life where he tells the " sarigne sang " of Hrethel's
mourning for his dead sons, and likens his grief to that of an
old man who lives to see his young son hung upon a gallows-
tree, a joy to the ravens :
- 'Translated by Stopford Brooke, lUd,, page 3.
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78 LYRIC ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY. [April,
'' Sorrow laden does he look in the Bower of his son,
On the wasted wine-hall, on the wind-swept resting-places,
Now bereft oi joyous noise. . Far the Riders sleep ;
In their howe the heroes lie. Clang of harp is there no more,
In the dwellings no delight as in days of old." *
And not less poetic or lyric in tone is the sad, dirge-like song
chanted by the old earl over his buried treasure:
" Hold thou here, O Earth Now the heroes could not.
Hold the wealth of earls. . . .
None is left the sword to bear.
Or the cup to carry, chased with flakes of gold. . . .
Silent is the joy of harp,
Gone the glee-wood's mirth ; nevermore the goodly hawk
Hovers through the hall; the swift horse no more
Beats with' hoof the Burh-stead. Bale of battle ruinous
Many souls of men sent away, afar." f
Other passages, lyric in being the expression of a single
personal emotion and in the same strain of grief and resigna-
tion are numerous in Beowulf. They have a singing quality
far removed from the purely epic style.
Of about the same date chronologically as Beowulf exists a
mere fragment of another Old English epic. The Fight at
Finnsburg. Swift, terse, and direct, it has wonderful poetic
vigor. The cry of the king "young in battle" is just such a
passionate call as our Teuton ancestors might have uttered in
urging on the warriors to the contest.
When the power of this speech and of similar impassioned
speeches in Beowulf is compared with the unskilful handling of
the narrative and the lack of epic breadth and sustained con-
tinuity in the same poems, we cannot believe but that the
inherent genius of the Teutonic people for choral song had not
yet yielded its spontaneity to the constructive art of the epic.
The personal note of the lyric is struck again in a few short
poems, the date of which is not later than the seventh century.
The first of these, Deor's Complaint, is the only Old English
poem extant which- preserves the str.ophic form. It is in six
sections, each of which concludes with the refrain,
•Translated by Stopford Brooke, Ibid,, page 22. Mbid,, page 49,
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"That he overcame, this also may I."
It is the mournful lament of a poet who compares his suffer-
ings with those of others and fortifies himself with the philoso-
phy of his refrain. Short, unified, and personal, the poem is a
lyric of a purer type though of less imaginative power than
the other poem usually classed with it, The Wanderer. The
same tone of regret and love for nature in her most melan-
choly aspects, which are characteristics of English poetry of
every age, are impressed in every line of The Wanderer.
The singer is a wanderer without home or friends. Over-
come by sorrow and sleep, he dreams that he is again, as in
days of old, at the gift-stool of his lord. He wakes to reality's
loneliness and his " sorrow is renewed " :
" Where is gone the horse ? where is gone the hero ? where is
gone the giver of treasure?
Where are gone the seats of the feasts ? Where are the joys
of the hall ?
Ah, thou bright cup 1 Ah, thou mailed warrior !
Ah, the prince's pride I how has the time passed away !
Has darkened 'neath the veil of night, as if it had not been I
All the realm of earth is full of hardships;
Fate's decree changes the world beneath the heavens.
Here wealth passes away, here friend passes away.
Here man passes away, here woman passes away ;
All this earth's structure becomes empty."*
Lyric and epic elements similar to those in The Wanderer
occur in another poem of like nature. The Sea-farer. By some
critics this poem is considered a monologue in which the sea-
farer recounts first the dangers, then the joys of the sea. By
other scholars it has been arranged in a dramatic dialogue.
Whichever theory be held, the poem is far removed from the
old heroic saga. In its melancholy sentiment, slow move-
ment, and detailed description, it shows the characteristics of
every other Old English record. Literary influences are now
felt to be at work. The artistic value of the poem is impaired
by Christian moralizing and editing. Nevertheless there are
'Translated by Israel GoUancz. The Exeter Book^ lines 92-96, 106-110.
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single passages in The Sea-farer which in imaginative force and
passionate humanity are little less than inspiring.
The love for pictures of desolation and ruin, which finds
reiterated expression in Beowulf^ The Wanderer^ Dear's Com^
plaint, and other early poems, is the subject of a short descrip-
tive lyric. The Ruin. This poem is of a very early date and
appears to be a picture of some definite city in ruins. It has
many lines of genuine beauty, as its opening:
" Wondrous is this wall of stone. Fates have shattered it !
Broken are the castle seats 1 Crumbled is the giant's work ! "
Two poems remain in this group of elegiac lyrics. Their
possible date, the question as to whether or not they were
originally lays of the OfFa or Genovefa saga, their real meaning
or theme, are still matters of' conjecture and dispute. Their
poetic value is their chief interest to us. Both The HusbancTs
Message and The Wife's Complaint treat of a subject hitherto
not discussed in Old English poetry — the love between man
and woman. The theme readily lends itself to lyric expression.
Both poems are full of personal feeling and poetic insight.
As dramatic lyrics of individual revelation, they are not un-
worthy predecessors of the dramatic lyrics of Browning, which
they ante-date by at least iioo years.
This group of elegiac poems is additional proof that the
epic had not yet absorbed the genius of English poetry. To
be sure these early lyrics lack the intensity and vigor of the
Scandinavian lyrics; but these same Scandinavian lyrics with
which the comparison is made are part of a highly developed
literature of the eleventh or twelfth century, fully 400 years
later than the earliest Old English poem. The Scandinavians
took no part in the Volkerwanderung. It was this migration,
as we have already said, which gave to the Germanic tribes
the impulse toward the popular and the historic epic. Just as
the general restlessness and migratory movement on the Con-
tinent retarded the perpetuation and development of the old
choral hymns and gave rise to a new form of popular poetry,
the saga, so the latter received an unmistakable check when
Christianity conquered Britain.
Christian learning and Christian teaching produced the
literary epic. The English people at the time of their conver-
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sion had a strongly developed and flourishing national litera-
ture. The influence of Christianity on this was only superficial,
readily detected in a Christian prologue or epilogue, or an
occasional interpolation of moral truths. But the English peo-
ple responded whole-heartedly to the new religion, and soon
found in the stories of saints and martyrs subjects as full of
interest as the heathen sagas of mythical heroes. " The tran-
sition to the new materials was doubtless easy for the glee-
man," as Ten Brink has well said. " Epithets of gods and
heroes could often without a change, or with only a slight
modification, serve for the God of the Christians or for the
patriarchs and saints. God himself was . conceived as the
Almighty Prince ; . . . the devil as the faithless vassal who
antagonizes his gold-friend ; the heavenly throne was the gift-
stool of the spirits."*
The Andreas of the eighth century shows in the description
of the twelve Apostles a confusion of Christian with popular
elements which can be paralleled in all the other Christian
epics :
" Twelve heroes famous far beneath the stars.
Servants of God ; their strength did yield not
When they hewed in battle on helmet crest,
Since they had placed themselves as God,
Even the High King of Heaven, had set the lot." |
The earliest poem of purely Christian origin is probably the
well-known hymn of Caedmon. It is a short lyric which has
come down to us in both Latin and Northumbrian texts. Its
figurative style, its alliterative form, and its heaping-up of epi-
thets give it some claim to be called poetry, but it is too
deliberative for a pure lyric, and too impersonal to bear any
but a forced resemblance to the old choral hymns.
Of the other poems ascribed to Caedmon but one, the
Genesis, has stood the test of criticism. The poem shows two
distinct styles and has consequently been divided into two parts,
Genesis A and Genesis B, Both poems are epic in their sub-
ject, treatment of nature, and metre. Parallels to passages in
the old national epic, Beowulf^ illustrating similarity of concep-
tion, national temperament, and identity of epithet, are very
numerous. Equally interesting is a comparison between the
•Ten Brink, History of English Liierature. \ Ibid., page 38. .
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82 Lyric Elements in Old English Poetry. [April,
Genesis and its Latin original. No little imagination is dis-
played on the part of the poet, who has undoubtedly allowed
himself considerable poetic freedom. Frequently he introduces
dialogue into his work, thereby adding to it a certain amount
of dramatic interest. But the dramatic force is palpably weak-
ened by the verbosity of expression. The use of dialogue from
this time on becomes more and more marked. The love for
animated speech which was evident in the noble speeches of
Beowulf or in the stirring cry of the king in the Finnsburg
fragment, and which probably would be found in the earliest
choral hymns, did they exist, suffers no diminution in the Chris-
tian epics. In Andreas^ Guthlac^ Crista and Saint Juliana dia-
logue is used with considerable effect, the Juliana in particular
being wonderfully vivid and dramatic. If the Genesis^ as the
earliest Christian epic, has lost the lyric note of folk-poetry, it
has acquired dramatic .force and skill in handling the language.
The Exodus ^xiA ^Daniel are Christian literary poems of un-
even intrinsic merit. The former is dominated by detailed
description, but the graphic writing of the poet in portraying
the marshalling of the tribes, the speech of Moses as he rouses
the men and turns to roll back the sea, the vivid suggestion of
battle, are evidence of an art already more plastic. The Daniel
lacks epic simplicity and dramatic force. It shows decided
imaginative freedom when compared as a paraphrase with the
Book of Daniel. The song of the three children saved from the
fiery furnace is a passage full of the highest lyric apostrophe.
The lofty strain of this song has a chanting quality, recalling
the litanies still recited in the Catholic Church. Mr. Gollancz's
translation, which follows the original very closely, has con-
sciously or unconsciously brought out this chanting quality :
** May the glory of the world's creation bless thee.
Benignant Father! and thy every work,
The heavens, the angels and clear water.
And all the host of creatures of the earth.
May the sun and the moon's bright beams.
Serene and pure, bless thee, thou righteous King,
Thou living God ! . . .
O thou benignant Father ! may fishes and birds
Bless thee as their Almighty Lord ;
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Let all things that stir the stormy waves
In the spacious sea glorify their Lord
And praise the Holy One ; yea, the birds of heaven, too,
That journey, hovering lightly through the air.
And beasts and cattle, let them bless the Lord ! " •
Of higher artistic merit and of more original conception
than the Exodus and Daniel is the Crist of Cynewulf. Its date
is probably the second half of the eighth century. The poem
gives the life of Christ in three parts — the Nativity, the
Ascension, and the Day of Judgment. To speak of a poem
like the Crist in moderate praise is difficult. Here Old English
poetry has reached its highest expression. The influence of
Christianity is apparent in the theme and in its treatment.
Latin literature has furnished the poet with rhetoric and ability
to construct and develop his theme, but the lyric genius of the
poem is native. In the lyric apostrophes to Christ, which are
especially frequent in the first part, ** we seem to hear an
echo of those tones in which perhaps ancient lyrics sang the
reception of Woden's elect in Walhalla or the world's doom by
fire." The lyric elements from Beowulf down have established
for Anglo-Saxon poetry its strongest claim to beauty. The
lyrics in the Crist can but augment this claim. The unity of
the narrative of this poem is well sustained, notwithstanding
the redundancy of expression, which is a trait of national style
as strongly marked here as in the pre-Christian epic. The
dramatic dialogue between Joseph and Mary is more effective
and characterizing than we would expect from the language in
its present stage. That the poet had now a conscious artistic
attitude toward his work is apparent in the unity of develop-
ment of his theme, which is a real unity of construction, not
merely that which results from an individual subject, as in
Beowulf,
The conscious use of rhyme, the recurfence of many
rhetorical figures, as antithesis, apostrophe, metaphor, anaphora,
the use of expanded lines, are all indications of an art no longer
rudimentary.
A review of the other poems ascribed to Cynewulf, Juliana^
GutAlac, and Elene, reveals passages of wonderful poetic power
and of unmistakable literary style. But English prose now
• Translated by Israel Gollancz, TAe Exeter Book, Part I., pages 193-196.
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84 Lyric Elements in Old English Poetry. [April,
received, under Alfred, a great impetus, and poetry in con-
sequence declined. After Alfred's death prose literature con-
tinued to flourish until the Conquest revived the old love for
song.
To summarize briefly from this necessarily cursory discussion
of Old English poetry, we find that the earliest poetic expres-
sion of the English people was that of all Germanic races,
hymns or choral songs. Traces of these were brought with
them in their migrations and found place- in the Volks-epos, which
grew up, favored by war, conquest, and heroic achievements.
Side by side with this popular and historical epic developed a
Christian epic, embodying in a high degree of literary excellence
unity of theme and imaginative treatment. Elegiac sentiment,
idealization of the feelings and refinement of their intensity, and
a love of the singer or scribe to linger over incidents and
emotions, are characteristics of this early poetry. A frequent
recourse to dialogue and direct speech sustains interest and
gives scope for lyric expression. The most memorable passages
in Beowulf ^xt, lyric; the Crista Guthlac^ Battle of Brunanbrugh^
and other contemporary poems have lyric lines of rare beauty;
while The Wanderer^ The Sea-farer^ The Husband's Message, The
Wife's Complaint y and The Ruin are not inferior in spirit, inter-
pretation of nature, and poetic insight to the noble odes of
Keats or the exquisite lyrics of Shelley.
Note. — In addition to the references given the following texts have been used : K^
MUllenhoff, De Antiquissima Germanorum Poesi Chorica, Kiel, 1847 ; Btoumlf, edited from the
original MS. by Moritz Heync ; Grein-Wiilcker, Biblioihek der an^elsackischtn Potsie ; The
Exeter Book, Part I., edited by Israel GoUancz, M.A., published by the Early English Text
Society; Moore MS., Cambridge University Library, England; Crist, edited by Professor
Albert S. Cook, 1891.
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pN €astbi^ (©I^Y.
BY CHARLES HANSON TOWNE.
1,0 ! Thou, dear Christ, hast risen
From Thy dark, sealfed tomb,
And Thou hast broken thro' the night
As some white rose might bloom ;
But I, faint-hearted, cannot rise
Prom Doubt's incessant gloom.
Dear Lord, Thou hast arisen
From the grave's deepest night,
And Thou hast flooded all the world
With resurrection light,
While on the frail, frail heart of me
Is Sorrow's piteous blight.
Lo ! Thou hast conquered death,
Whilst I, weak and afraid,
Lie trembling in the little tomb
• Where my small grief isf laid.
Fearing to lift my head, dear Lord,
And utterly dismayed !
Oh, Thou who hast the power,
Immeasurably deep.
To triumph over everything,
Bid me no longer weep,
And let me rise, dear Christ, with Thee,
From Sorrow's long, long sleep !
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86 CATARINA. [April,
CATARINA.
BY GEORGINA PELL CURTIS.
EHE glistening white walls and broad galleries of
the Sanitarium stood out clearly in the late
afternoon sun. A sense of coolness and peace
was lent to it by the dark green Venetian blinds
on the windows, and the broad green- and- white
striped awnings that overarched the galleries.
. Tall, leafy pecan-trees lifted their topmost branches above
the cross that surmounted the cupola, and in the garden old-
fashioned flowers bloomed in profusion. The wide grounds sur-
rounding the Sanitarium were portioned off by the inevitable
barbed-wire fence of the South. Beyond the flower gardens a
gate through the fence led to an enclosure where on one
side stood the kitchens and laundry, and on the other the
little white chapel where the sisters and their nurses heard
Mass every day.
Beyond this, through a second gate, the stony path led to
the farm-yard stables and water-tower, whose windmill moved
lazily in the light afternoon wind.
Westward a long range of hills appeared dark against the
horizon, in contrast with the magnificent southern sunset that
stretched from north to south, making a golden splendor that lit
up the opposite valley and hills. Nature in that charmed region
was fair and beautiful ; as if to bring hope to the hearts that ceme
there with bodies sick unto death. It was nearly time for the
Angelus bell, as back and forth in the garden walked a young
girl with a basket and pair of scissori, cutting long stems of
the roses that grew in such profusion. Her hands, strong and
shapely, grasped the thorny stems deftly %% the clip, clip of her
scissors passed from stem to stem.
The German doctor who attended the Si^nitarium, and who
often watched her, said it was the way Catarina Olgin handled
her patients ; gentleness flrst, he thought, ^nd then skill and
strength.
A door at the side of the house opened, and the Mother
Superior came out in the warm sunshine and advanced toward
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1904.] Catarina. 87
the rose garden. The young nurse heard her coming and
straightened up.
" You want me, Reverend Mother ?" she said.
" Not to call you away, Catarina, but only to speak to you.
The train from the city gets in about 6 : 30, and Doctor Amend
is bringing a very sick patient, a young man in nearly the last
stages of consumption. I have had the south-west corner room
prepared for him, and have detailed you to be his day nurse.
Miss Fitzgerald will take the night nursing. It is a peculiar
case," she continued ; " the young man has no near relations
living. Dr. Amend says he has been a lawyer in a Northern city
and very high in his profession ; then he had an attack of pneu-
monia one winter two years ago, and has been going from bad to
worse ever since."
. " Poor soul !" said Catarina. " Is he a Catholic, mother?"
" No," answered the superior, " and that is the saddest part.
Dr. Amend says he has absolutely no belief."
** The good God can find ways, mother, and it is not yet too
late; the faith may come."
" Do all you can for his comfort, Catarina ; and for the rest
we must pray."
The mother returned to the house, while presently the young
girl went toward the chapel, and disappearing within the door,
gave her flowers to the sacristan, who was getting the chapel
ready for the early Mass on the morrow, for it was April and the
day before the glorious feast of Easter.
"Poor young man ! " she thought, as she hurried back to the
Sanitarium, *' it is nearly time for him to get here. Ah ! "
and she paused, "there is the whistle of his train."
Passing upstairs, she glanced into the cool interior of the
large bed- room prepared for the expectant guest. The white
enamelled bed stood crossways between two of the windows,
looking out on one side toward the distant range of hills, on
the other taking in the spire and cross of the little chapel.
The sound of carriage wheels on the hard clay drive reached
Catarina's ear, and she descended the wide oak staircase to
the hall below. The mother was there before her, standing
near the open door.
"You had best get the wheeled chair," she said. "I doubt
if the young man can walk."
The nurse opened a closet in the hall, and wheeled out the
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88 Catarina. [April,
chair; together the two women passed out on the wide gal-
lery just as the stage drove up.
The doctor was the first to alight. A man between forty
and fifty, Dr. Amend had been visiting physician at the Sani-
tarium for many years. His patients knew him as a man of
superior scientific and intellectual gifts. The broad, open fore-
head, firm mouth and chin, showed the man's power and
strength of mind, while the blue eyes looking at you from be-
hind gold rimmed spectacles spoke at once of the noble and
spiritual nature that was indeed the foundation and bulwark of
all the doctor's gifts. In figure he was not above medium
height, of strong and sturdy build, and this strength was now
being used to half lift, half carry a tall, emaciated figure,
closely muffled in wraps, which he placed tenderly in the
wheeled chair which had been brought close to the steps that
led up to the gallery.
" There you are," said the doctor cheerily. ** I know you
will take good care of him. Reverend Mother."
"You are welcome," said the mother in her sweet, low voice.
" Perhaps you would like to go right to your room," she added.
"Yes," was the answer, in a weary tone of peculiar re-
finement. " I am very tired and would like to go to bed at once."
No one saw the start that Catarina Olgin gave as she
heard the sound of his voice. For one moment she shrank
back, then resolutely placed her hand on the bar of the chair,
and commenced wheeling it into the house. Later, when her
patient was in bed, and the night nurse had taken her place,
Catarina sought the chapel, and knelt motionless before the red
sanctuary light for nearly an hour. The radiance of the paschal
moon made the Sanitarium nearly as bright as day, as she
walked home about nine o'clock, and sought her room for
much -needed repose and rest.
" Wheel me down near the grotto, if you please, nurse,"
he said, "and read to me."
The nurse obeyed, and after seeinig that he was comfortably
settled, she opened her book and began to read. The invalid
lay back wearily with closed eyes, the while his white, almost
bloodless hands hung listlessly over the arms of the chair.
What a sweet voice she had, he thought, as the nurse read on ;
and how like her tones were to one who had passed out of his
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life ten years ago ! He had noticed it the first evening he had
come, and had given a sudden, startled glance at her face, only
to find that at first sight it was an almost painful one to see*
Smallpox had made ravages on Catarina Olgin's face. The
lips had become thickened, the eyebrows were gone, and the skin
was so deeply pitted and scarred that it was only when she smiled,
and you saw white, even teeth, and the exptession of her blue
eyes, that her face was redeemed from ugliness.
After a few weeks the man forgot she was plain, and thought
only of how good she was; and how comfortable she made him
in his long, weary struggle with the dread disease that had
laid him low. As he thus thought the nurse read on, until by
and by she saw by his breathing that he was asleep; so she
closed her book, and folding her hands, looked long and sadly
at the sleeping man. It was a fine face on which her eyes
rested. The temples and cheeks were wasted by illness ; but it
coald not destroy the delicate chiselling of eyebrow and nose,
the fine, sensitive mouth, and well-modelled chin ; and the eyes
—well Catarina Olgin knew how beautiful the large brown eyes
were which now were hid behind the motionless lids.
A fierce pain, that had been growing stronger and stronger
all these weeks, was tugging at her heart. Ten years ago they
had been engaged to be married. How old was she then ? —
twenty years; and the man before her had been twenty-five.
The mother had called him young, but he was now thirty- five
and she was thirty. How long those ten years seemed !
She had met him on a steamer going to Europe, and he
had joined them on the other side, and had travelled with
them until they had finally become engaged. But in spite of
going regularly with her to Mass in the glorious European
cathedrals, he had openly professed no belief, and it was this
which had finally parted them.
John Carter loved the beautiful Spanish girl with his whole
soul, but pride made him unwilling to agree to the usual con-
ditions of a marriage between a Catholic and a Protestant, and
Catarina, profoundly religious even then, had finally decided
she could not marry him. Had she done wrong ? she thought ;
and remembering all the misery that usually results from such a
union, her heart cried out No, a thousand times No I
She had remained two years in Europe after John returned
to America. Then came the loss of her father's fortune, and
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90 CATARINA. [April,
his death, and Catarina had returned to her old home in San
Antonio. Her guardian, an elderly man, a devout Catholic,
and an old friend of her father's — of American birth, with a
Spanish name and descent — had proposed to her, and Catarina
had consented. But she had been a wife only six weeks when
a fall from his horse so injured the Seiior Olgin that he had
died in a few hours, and Catarina, left a widow, and without
near relations, longing for some active work and occupation,
had entered a training school for nurses, and after her two
years' course and graduation had been appointed one of the
nurses at the sisters' Sanitarium in the beautiful hill country,
some thirty miles north of San Antonio. It was while she was
taking care of a poor colored woman on the outskirts of the
city that she had contracted the smallpox which had so ravaged
her beauty, and now the man who had loved her so passionately
did not know her; the change in her name had completed the
disguise. It was better so, she thought; better so; but oh! if
she could win his soul before he died.
" Deart Heart of Christ, help me ! " was her inward prayer.
" I cannot let him die without Thee."
A fit of coughing racked the figure that had been lying so
motionless, and the brown eyes opened ; in their clear depths
a look of dumb appeal. Catarina arose ; there were times when
she could scarcely trust herself, when she saw the look in the
man's eyes, and contrasted his present state with the strong,
vigorous manhood she had once known.
** I will wheel you to the top of the hill," she said ; " you
like that sunset view."
" Yes," he answered ; " you are very good to me, Senora Olgin."
As they started along the path up the hill the doctor's gig
drove in the gate, and, handing the reins to his colored boy,
he sprang out and came toward them.
" Give him to me, nurse," he said in his cheery voice. " I
will be his 'Withers the Wan.'"
" I think I am the wan one, doctor," said the young man
with a smile that irradiated his whole face, as he looked at the
sturdy, vigorous frame before him.
Catarina left them and went into the house, and Dr. Amend
wheeled his patient to the top of the hill behind the chapel,
where they were in full sight of the distant blue mountains
shining hazy and misty in the late afternoon sun.
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1904. ] Ca TARINA . 9 1
The sick man raised himself to an erect position, and gazed
long and silently at the exquisite scene. No sound broke the
stillness save the tinkling of a bell that seemed to come from a
herd of cattle that a swarthy Mexican was driving home.
" Doctor/' said John, turning his head toward where the
elder man stood, " how long a time have I got to live ? "
Dr. Amend turned his face toward the speaker, and was
silent for a moment before he answered. The blue eyes behind
the spectacles were beautiful with the man's strong tenderness
as he replied :
" I think three months." 1
Seldom had the doctor had to answer a harder question,
but he had long ago made it a rule to tell his patients the
truth when there was no longer a ray of hope, and he knew
that to parry the question in the present case would do no good.
"Thank you, doctor," was the quiet answer, as he held out
his long, thin hand, which was received in a firm, gentle clasp.
The doctor drew a bench up to the other's chair and sat down.
"The time may be longer or shorter," he said, "and I trust
in either case will be without great suffering; and," he added,
with a smile that was illuminating, " after the pain will come
the joy."
The sick man shook his head. " I hope I shall die like a
man," he said, " though my life, with all its hopes and aims, will
be broken and incomplete."
" My dear friend," the doctor said, " your life will not be
incooiplete. You have made a brave struggle to get well, and
have failed; but it will not be a losing fight. You will have
won the crown of a victorious manhood."
The large brown eyes, capable of expressing the man's in-
most soul, looked his gratitude.
" How you can comfort us poor fellows, doctor," he said.
" I can only give you a lift," was the answer ; " but the
Great Physician alone can heal you in body and soul ; and He
will do so in the life beyond."
The strong faith and vitality of the elder man seemed to
dominate the younger.
"The Via Crucis would be easier, doctor," he said, "if there
were more men like you."
He lay back in his chair drinking in the warm sunshine and
the sweet odor of the yucca plant that bloomed near them. A
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92 CATARINA. [April,
mocking-bird sang in the tree overhead, and be waited until
the sound ceased ere he spoke again.
" Doctor," he said, " you know I am all alone ; no relations,
no near friends except those far away in the North, iand whom
I do not want now; but there is one I long to see before I
die. I do not know where she is, but I can give you an ad-
dress that may reach her. Catarina Zegris is her name. I am
sure that wherever she is she would come to me if you will
write and try to find her.**
The soft rustle of a skirt was heard as Catarina drew near.
Even the doctor's usually keen eyes failed to see how pale she
was, and there was a note almost of pathos in her sweet voice
as she addressed her patient and said :
" I fear it is getting late for you to stay out."
"To be sure/* said the doctor briskly; and as the nurse
began to wheel the chair down the hill, he added: "I will visit
my other patients and then come to your room, and you can
give me the address you spoke of."
*' ril have it ready, doctor,** the sick man answered.
Three months passed. The dying man can no longer go
out, or leave his bed. The warm sunlight streams in his room ;
and nurses and sisters, with tender, practised hands, do all they
can to ease his suffering; but even human skill is powerless
now to save him pain.
A month before this time the doctor had been obliged to
tell his patient that the letter he had written to Catarina Zegris
had been returned to him from the dead-letter office unopened.
Reluctantly he decided there was nothing further to be done.
It was one afternoon early in October when Catarina, com-
ing into his room after a short absence, for they rarely left him
alone now, found him restless and his mind wandering.
"Catarina,** he murmured; *' Catarina, if I could ohly see
you again once, and have you sing to me ! You were noble
and brave,** he continued ; ** you loved me as I loved you, but
above your love was one higher and holier that took you from
me.
The young nurse bent over him, in her face unspeakable
yearning and tenderness, as she laid a light, cool hand on his
brow. He opened his eyes and smiled at her ; then closed them
once more, and presently his mind wandered again.
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1904.1 Catarina. 93
"Is it you, Catarina?" he said. "All these months of pain
I have tried so hard to believe in your God; and almost, I
think, I believe in Him now." Again his eyes opened. The
cloud seemed to lift, and he was himself again.
Gently she raised him in bed and commenced giving him
some spoonfuls of broth. Not once did she falter, nor did her
hand tremble, though sh^ yearned to take him in her arms and
speak to him of their love, and of God.
At seven the night nurse came to relieve her; and finding
herself free, Catarina set off for an abandoned quarry not far
from the Sanitarium, where there was a shrine to our Blessed
Lady. Tradition had it that the figure above the shrine had
been carved by one of the Franciscan fathers a hundred and
fifty years ago. Be that as it may, it was well done, and the
Catholics of that region, Americans, Mexicans, and Indian half-
breeds, believed that no one who prayed devoutly at this moun-
tain shrine would have their prayers left unanswered. Swiftly
Catarina passed up the road and commenced climbing across the
rocks of the quarry, A long, green lizard darted across her path,
and a bird of brilliant scarlet plumage fluttered close to her head.
The dry, delicious air revived her heart, heavy with its burden
of love and pain.
Should she reveal herself to him ? she thought. Then re-
membering the terrible change in her appearance, she decided
no. It would be too great a shock to him in his present weak-
ened state. The renunciation of ten years ago must be carried
out to the very end.
She has reached the shrine now, and clasping her hands as
she sank on her knees, she raised her eyes to the tender ones
of the Mother of Sorrows.
"Dear Mother of Christ," she said, "think how thy sweet
Son suffered. Ask Him to have compassion on my dearest
one. Ask Him to ease his pain, and grant him the light of
faith before he dies."
The sun went down, and the twilight deepened ; but still
the woman knelt and prayed.
It was a week later.
" Doctor," John said one morning, " I have been thinking
of many things since I have been here, and my mind is made
up. If you will find a priest, I would like to be baptized."
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94 CATARINA, [April,
Tae d 3 iter's face glowed, and from the heart of Catarina,
standing near, there came a fervent " Thank God ! *' The doc-
tor left the room, and in the hall he met the mother and told
her.
" Praise God and the blessed saints ! " she said joyfully.
" I will send at once for Father Lewis."
"Yes," the doctor answered, "there is no time to lose. I
doubt if he will live two days longer."
Then he went back to the cool, airy room, which he had
thought many times seemed like a sanctuary, as he watched
the gradual purification of the noble soul whose struggle to
reach out after faith he had fully comprehended.
" It will all be arranged in half an hour," he said in his
kind, sonorous voice. " Have you any special wishes, my
dear friend ? "
"Yes," the other answered, "I would like you and the mother
to be my godparents, and I want my two nurses to be present."
" It shall all be done as you want, my dear son," was the
answer.
After the ceremony of baptism, on the following morning
the blessed sacraments of Holy Communion and Extreme Unction
were administered, and John lay calm and happy. His beau-
tiful brown eyes, in their hollow depths, were full of a strange
spiritual light.
The mother came through the hall, and meeting Catarina,
stopped her.
"Do you feel able to sit up to-night, my child?" she said.
"I shall have to send the night nurse to a very sick woman
to-night, and if you will take the watch from twelve o'clock.
Sister Rosalie can take your place from six o'clock until mid-
night, during which time you can sleep."
" Yes, Reverend Mother," said the young nurse.
At twelve o'clock that night she was back in the
sick-room, and Sister Rosalie had departed. The man seemed
asleep, and after moving lightly around the room to see that
all was in order, Catarina seated herself near the bed. Sister
Rosalie had whispered to her that he had asked to have the
light put out and the Venetian blind drawn up, so the moon-
beams would come into the room ; it was therefore dark save for
this silvery light.
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1904.] Catarina. 95
For over an hour the patient slept ; then his breathing began
to grow rapid and labored. He had not coughed at all since
she came on duty, Catarina remembered ; nor for some hours
previous, as Sister Rosalie had whispered ere she left the room.
Softly Catarina arose and approached the bed and laid her
strong, light fingers on his pulse, which she found feeble and
intermittent.
Quickly she reached for her thermometer, and presently
removing it, went into the hall where a night lamp was burning.
Yes, his temperature had fallen very low, and there was no
time to lose. ' She pressed two electric bells, one to summon
the mother, the other for the doctor, who lived in a cottage
near the Sanitarium.
Even as she did so she heard him call " Catarina," and in
an instant she was back by his bedside.
There had come over him one of those hallucinations com-
mon to his disease, only in this case he had divined what
really existed.
" Catarina," said the voice, so weak it was now, — " Catarina,
am I dreaming, or is it you?"
Tenderly she gathered him in her arms and rested his head
on her shoulder; there was no need for further self-denial or
concealment now ; for the dying eyes could not see.
" Yes, my beloved," she answered, '* it is I, Catarina. I
have loved you and prayed for you all these years."
There was no question in his mind as to how she came
there; it was enough that his spiritual insight had reached out
and divined it was she.
There was a sigh of utter content, then a gasping for breath.
" Sing . . . to . . . me, . . . Caterina,^' he said.
Although her heart was breaking, she began to sing, her
voice softly rising and falling with the intensity of her own joy
and pain :
" Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast,
But sweeter far Thy face to see.
And in Thy presence rest."
She sang to the end of the glorious hymn, and as the last
sound died on the air the soul she had loved so purely and
devotedly took flight.
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96 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. [April,
NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL OUESTION.
ENGLAND-AMERICA-IRELAND.
jN more countries than one the education of the
children forms a prominent subject of discussion.
England, indeed, is the scene of the most acute
controversy, but in France it is by brute vio-
lence that the question is being settled. The
opponents of religion in that country have all power, strange
to say, in their hands. Those of our readers who wish for the
best account of the origin, causes, and authors of this perse-
cution — for it cannot be called by any other name — will find
it in the London Pilot, The correspondence of this paper
gives a better account of the French affairs which are of
permanent interest and importance than is to be found else-
where. Although the expulsion of the teaching orders is * an
event most deeply to be deplored, yet it is a testimony to
their success. The history of the educational struggle is one
of which all Catholics have tfhe right to be proud ; the zeal of
the people in erecting and maintaining schools at their own ex-
pense and with great self-sacrifice, is one which may well serve
for an example to Catholics in other parts of the world; and
although the prospect there is for the time being dark, yet
the faith of the French people, so often manifested in the past,
will again conquer the world.
England, however, as we have said, is the chief scene of
discussion. This discussion is worth more particular study be-
cause, both from the nature of the case and also on account of
the recent rapprochement between the two countries, whatever
goes on there affects this country ; and vice versa, whatever goes
on in this country is more and more affecting the minds of
those on the other side. This is shown by the Moseley com-
mission. The most striking feature is the so called passive
resistance which has been offered to the payment of the
education rate. Passive resistance consists in refusing to pay
the rate so far as such rate is applicable to the support
of what are now called the non-provided schools, but which
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1904.] ENGLAND— America — Ireland. 97
formerly were called voluntary schools. The non-payment in-
volves the seizure of goods, and the sale of these goods by
public auction in payment not merely of the rate but of the
costs. These sometimes amount to five, six, or even ten times the
amount of the rate. This mode of resistance to the law of the
land is accompanied by the assembling of hooting crowds, and
although no violence has taken place, yet in some cases the
auctioneer has had to escape by back ways; in other cases
the fear of violence and of loss of custom has rendered it im-
possible to obtain the services of an auctioneer. Tens *of thou-
sands of such refusals to pay the rate for the non-provided
schools have occurred ; members of Parliament, ministers of re-
ligion; magistrates even, have been numbered in the ranks of
passive resisters.
And. upon what plea has this breaking of law been
justified ? Upon that of the sanctity of conscience. The
passive resisters declared it to be their duty to obey God
and to disobey the law. Now, we are not lightly to scorn
such an appeal. Would to God it were more often made, or
at least that in voting the voice of conscience were more often
listened to. But when made as it has been done in this case,
it is more likely, we think, than not to bring all such appeals
into derision. The disobedience has been defended on the
ground that parents cannot rightly be called upon to con-
tribute to the payment for teaching which declares that they
themselves, and their children if they listen to their parents,
are heretics, and consequently on the road to everlasting per-
dition. So far, however, is this from being the case, that by
means of what is called a conscience clause every child whose
parents so wish is released from attendance at school during
the time devoted to religious instruction. Moreover, for thirty-
four years the objectors to the payment of rates have, with-
out resistance, been paying taxes for the support of the very
same schools. By what system of casuistry payment of rates
can be shown to be sinful and payment of taxes not a sin,
would require the subtlety of a Duns Scotus to make clear.
Moreover, those men of so tender a conscience — men who claim
to be the authors and founders of the greatness of their country,
to whom is to be attributed, they say, all in it that is good —
after having lopped off as sectarian everything distinctive of
their own respective . denominations, and put in abeyance all
VOL. LXXIX.— 7 Cc^C^C^\o
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98 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION: [April,
those truths which constitute the reason fof their own separate
existence, do not hesitate to take by force of law the money
of Catholics and of others who detest this monster — as Mr.
Gladstone called this latest form of Protestantism. Such is
their sense of justice. Well did Sir William Anson describe
their conscience as pampered.
But of what interest is all this to people in this country ?
Of great interest, it seems to us. For the originators and main-
tainers of the American school system are of the same stock,
and are actuated by the same principles. From the methods
and proceedings of the passive resisters in England we
learn the character of our opponents here. Purely secular edu-
cation here has been the result, and if the same class triumphs,
although it is not at present wished, secular education will be
established there. The Catholics in England have found allies in
the National Church in the struggle to prevent this step towards
de- Christianizing the country. Is there any hope that the Cath-
olics of this country will find help towards the reconstituting
the schools on a Christian basis? Of this we have seen some
signs which we have gladly welcomed. Bishop Doane, of Al-
bany, has recently pointed out how the financial immorality so
widely spread, so highly placed, so greatly honored, is due
to an irreligious education. The Rev. M. Geer has still more
powerfully and earnestly warned the country of the impending
dangers ; Dr. Seeley, of the New Jersey State Normal College
of Trenton, has clearly shown how inadequate is the teaching
of religion which it is possible to give in Sunday-schools. In
England the Free Church Council testifies to the fact that ninety
per cent, of the Sunday-school scholars are lost to the
churches.
The growing indifference to religion, and consequently to
morals, is being felt by many in this country. It has led to
the formation of a Religious Education Association. This
association held its second annual conference in Philadelphia at
the beginning of March. It was presided over by the modera-
tor of the Congregacional National Council. A Methodist
Episcopal bishop offered prayer; a Quaker college-president
read the Scriptures; a Protestant Episcopal bishop made what
\v4s thought to be the most tender and human address of the
evfening. A Presbyterian theological professor shared the
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1904.] ENGLAND — AMERICA^lRELAND, 99
audience's favor with a Baptist pastor, while a Lutheran uni-
versity professor made the address of welcome. The associa-
tion has a platform so broad that the Jew and the Catholic, as
well as the Universalist and the Unitarian, may stand upon it
if they will. The only qualification for membership consists in
being engaged in the work of moral and religious education.
A rabbi took part in the proceedings by delivering an address.
Its programme is declared to be constructive ; but what sort of
a building will result from the efforts of architects of such
opposed ideas it is not hard to foretell. Indeed, it is almost
pitiful to see men who are looked upon as leaders and teachers
engaged in such a hopeless undertaking. It is worthy of
note, however, as testifying to the dissatisfaction with the
present state of disunion which exists, and with the ruin to
souls which it is causing. It may perhaps lead to the recogni-
tion of the fact that the only way to union which is possible
is through unt:ompromising maintenance of the faith once
delivered to the saints under the guardianship and guidance of
a teacher divinely preserved from error. 'Dr. Cuthbert Hall,
president of the Union Theological Seminary, New York, de-
plored the apparent — we think he might have said the evident
and manifest — tendency toward tolerant non- religion which is
growing in American life, and hoped that the association, of
which he has been made president, would devote its best endea-
vors to awaken and to educate a public sense of religion as a
vital part of education for good citizenship.
The Catholics in England have been uncompromising in main-
taining their schools, and because they have been uncompro-
mising have rendered them secure. This is recognized by all
parties, and whatever may happen to the Church of England
schools there is every reason to hope that no attempt will be
made to take away support from Catholic schools, even if the
other schools should be secularized. But they have not tried
to fight alone. They were too weak to do that. They sought
for allies and they found them in the Established Church of
England; side by side they have fought the battle. And al-
though uncompromising, English Catholics have not been un-
reasonable. The present Act is recognized by Archbishop Bourne
in his first Pastoral Letter as by no means ideally just. It
gives undue advantages to the schools in which Undenomina-
tionalism is taught, giving them in every respect complete sup-
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loo Notes on the Educational Question: [April,
port, while Catholics have still to build and to maintain school
buildings and give them rent-free for the public use. The Act,
therefore, is far from being equitable ; yet for the sake of the
absolute necessity of having Catholic schools the archbishop
accepts it and urges his people to carry loyally into effect the
agreement, and to do all in their power to continue to take
that foremost place in all educational work which belongs of
right to the Church of Jesus Christ. In a subsequent letter the
archbishop has urged Catholics to take an active interest in the
election for the London Council, both by voting and by putting
test questions to the candidates. For so far has the lawless
spirit of passive resistance prevailed that all the Welsh Coun-
cils, and at least one English County Council, have refused to
levy rates for the support of the voluntary schools. That the
London Council would act in much the same way if the oppo-
nents of the religious education should get the power has led
the archbishop to advise active participation in the London
County Council Election.
In this the archbishop is co-operating with the Protestant
bishops of London and Rochester. The former affirmed that
English Churchmen have for eighty years been spending fifty
thousand dollars each week in the support of religious educa-
tion, and have added i,cxx),ooo new school-places since the
passing of the Education Act of 1870. He declares that when
a great principle is in danger church people are faithless to
their trust if they do not rouse themselves from apathy and
act quickly and decisively in defence of the teaching of definite
religious truth as an integral part of true education. It would
be a thing to cause joy in the hearts of all who wish for the
well-being of this country if the bishops of its Protestant Epis-
copal Church would make a similar appeal. The Archbishop of
Canterbury too, although not making so practical an application
of his teaching, is no less clear and definite in his teaching of
the duty to defend religious schools. He looks upon it as a
question which concerned the welfare of the country more than
any other, because it concerned the welfare of every single
family in the land far more than the question of the Boer war,
of Mr. Chamberlain's fiscal proposals, or anything else that could
occupy people at this period of national life.
The position of the enemies of definite religious education
is seen from the following scheme, which has been published by its
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1904.] ENGLAND — American-Ireland. ioi
General Committee and unanimously accepted as an embodiment
of their principles. The Free Church Council is an organization
of the more orthodox Dissenting bodies, nominally formed for
religious purposes but actually developing into a political power.
The following is the authorized scheme. It will be seen how
near this ideal approaches to the actual American Public School
system: '' i. That the system of national education shall
recognize only one type of public elementary schools — viz.,
schools provided and controlled by a public education authority.
2. That denominational school-buildings, if required and suitable
for use as provided schools, may be rented or purchased on
equitable terms for the purpose of elementary education, due
regard being had to the existing rights of the public in such
buildings* 3. That all schools maintained by public funds,
whether by rates or taxes, shall be under the sole management
and control of representatives appointed by the method of
popular election. 4. That there shall be adequate provision
(or the training of all teachers of public elementary schools,
free from theological and ecclesiastical tests, and under the sole
management and control of the popularly elected education
authorities. 5. That no ecclesiastical or theological tests shall
be applied in the appointments of teachers of publicly supported
schools or training colleges. 6. That no distinctively denomi-
national teaching or formulary shall be given or used in public
schools in school hours, but simple Biblical instruction may be
given according to a syllabus, as is general at present in pro-
vided schools. Attendance at such instruction shall be subject
to a conscience clause. 7. That the foregoing provisions shall
also have reference to secondary education as far as they may
be applicable. 8. That women shall be eligible for election to
any local education authority throughout England and Wales,
and including London."
The position of the defenders of religious schools may be
given in the words of the Protestant Bishop of London. He
declares that the principle to be defended is a three-rfold one:
(i) that the teaching of definite religious truth is an integral
part of true education ; (2) that the religious truth taught the
children should be the religion of their parents ; and (3) that
it should be taught them by those who believe it. Catholics,
while giving to the second clause qualified adhesion, give to
the first and third whole-hearted and active support.
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102 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION: [April,
The attitude of English Nonconformists to the schools forms
one of the most remarkable examples of contradiction between
principles and practice. The commoa characteristic and essen-
tial feature of the various dissenting sects, the point upon
which one and all agree, is the contention that the church
should be free from state control; whatever they differ about,
on this they are united. Yet it is to the placing of
religion under the control of the state — of the voters, that is,
for they are now the source of power in the state — that all the
efforts which they are so strenuously putting fortli are tendings
There is to be one national school system, not without religion
but with a religion from which everything that is disputed by
any body of voters, however small — a religion that is manu-
factured to suit the voters. This religion the state supports,
over it it is supreme; from every other it withholds all help.
Others it tolerates, but does not refrain from exacting money
for the support of its own. This is clearly a state religion, and
to support it is in fact a contradiction to the principles which
made the first Nonconformist.
The fact that purely secular and undenominational schools
have had the financial support of the state, widi all the advan-
tages which that gives, while voluntary and religious schools
have had up to the present to maintain themselves with inade-
quate resources, has led many to take it for granted that the
education imparted in the schools wholly supported by public
money must be unexceptional. This, however, is not the judg-
ment of those who are well qualified to judge. Sir John Gorst,
member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge and for
many years Vice-President of the Board of Education, in his
presidential address to the Association of Technical Institutions,
has recently said that there were millions of children who from
babyhood to the age of fourteen were drilled in reading, writ-
ing, and arithmetic upon a system the result of which was that
when they attained that age, and were finally dismissed from
school, they could neither read, nor write, nor cipher. There
were millions of children and young persons now upon whom
all the enormous sums annually spent out of the rates and taxes
upon elementary education had been absolutely thrown away.
The whole object of education had been mistaken ; the natural
propensities of the children were crushed, and they were made
into a quiet, orderly, stupid class without individuality, without
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I904,] ENGLANP—AMERlCA^lRELAJt^D. 103
any desire for knowledge, without, any power to do anything
practical or to be of any use..
Nor is Sir John Gorst the only censurer of the state sys-
tenj of education. Dr. Armstrong, professor of Chemistry at
the City and Guilds of London Central Institute, declares the
results obtained by the much-belauded London School Board a
grave peril to the city. He declares the elementary education
as given in their schools to have been of no use ; that all who
have seriously considered the system condemn it as unpracti-
cal; that a race of desk-ridden emasculates is being formed.
The belief in the dignity of manual labor among those who are
destined to perform it is fast disappearing. The absolute
failure to understand what is desirable in elementaty education
he declares to be proved by the Report for 1903 in the
examination held for scholarships at the disposal of the School
Board of London. A more ghastly farce could not well be
imagined. The report on the School Training and Early Em*
ploypent of Lancashire Children, issued by the Board of Edu-
cation, is full of deplorable revelations. To quote a few words
from this : '' It seems plain that whatever else the schools may
do they cannot yet be said to quicken the intelligence of the
children generally. . . . Though the boys and girls have
learnt reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a crowd of other
subjects, yet they do not read, still less do they write, and
they are perplexed by any calculation which is not expressed
in the forms to which they have grown familiar,"
It would seem, therefore, that the schools, although organ-
ized by the best intelligence and supported by all the resources
of the nation, have failed in securing efficiency even for the
merely materialistic aims which as now constituted form their
raison d'etre^ inasmuch as definite religious education has been
excluded. When we bear in mind, too, the fact that the phy-
sique of large masses of the people has so deteriorated as to
constitute a national danger and to demand the appointment
of a royal commission to investigate into its causes, it cannot
be said that progress is so evident under what are supposed
to be up-to-date methods as to justify the contempt of our
forefathers which is so prevalent. In Russia eighty per cent,
of the people are absolutely illiterate, yet its peasantry are
strong and vigorous, and the nation itself, as many think, only
too powerful.
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I04 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. [April,
In Ireland, too, the subject of education has been widely
discussed. There, however, it is to the University question that
attention has been called* Primary education, through the
strong religious sense of the Irish people, may be looked upon
as fairly well settled. After many long years, however, the
higher education still remains unsettled. Captain Taylor, whos6
efforts for harmony between landlord and tenant were so suc-
cessful, attempted to render a like service for bringing to
an end this long contention. He tried to bring together Cath-
olics and Churchmen and Presbyterians to a conference similar
to the land conference. Promises of attendance were made,
but for one reason or another not kept, and everything prom-
ised failure. Then Lord Dunraven made proposals, which were
accepted by the Catholic bishops. "Then Trinity College "be-
came alarmed, and offered special privileges to Catholic stu-
dents. This offer was rejected by Cardinal Logue with but
little ceremony. High hopes were entertained of the govern-
ment being favorable. In fact, the proposals of Lord Dun-
raven were generally supposed to be the very same as the Chief
Secretary for Ireland had suggested. But the hopes so faf
have come to nothing. A few days before Parliament opened
Lord Londonderry declared that the government had no inten-
tion of establishing a university for Catholics, and the speech
from the throne made no mention of the subject. The un-
yielding hostility of the Irish Conservatives is still too strong,
although Mr. Balfour several years ago declared the claim of
Catholics to be just. The fiscal controversy, too, precludes
any attempt this session to enter upon so thorny a matter.
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1904] A Day's Harvest. 105
A DAY'S HARVEST.
BY JOSEPH F. WYNNE.
^O lovely of her/' said the first beneficiary of good
fortune.
"Yes, very kind indeed," said the second.
They were two young girls, clerks in the great
dry-goods house of Bertram, Salter & Co., and
they were discussing the invitation just given by one of its
rich patrons for both of them to spend a week of their approach-
ing fortnight's summer vacation at her splendid country
house.
The rich woman was a member of one of those associations
known as "Fresh Air Societies," charitable organizations whose
special work is to give summer outings to the poor and sick.
The dry-goods clerks belonged to neither class in strict sense,
but they were certainly well tired out and with their slender
earning not far above need ; so since their assiduity and patience
had pleased the lady, on an impulse of special generosity she
had asked them to make the visit at her summer home.
Mabel Farley and Ella Caraher wondered if they had not
been translated into dreamland — or story-book land, which is
about the same — when they found themselves a few weeks later
domiciled at " Woodmere " as guests. They were treated with
all the kindness and burdened with none of the formalities of
the ordinary aristocratic visitors at the place, so of course they
could enjoy all thoroughly. The servants were inclined to be
covertly " uppish " towards them at first, resenting service to
those they thought their equals if not inferiors, but the simple,
unpretentious girls soon won from them a better feeling and
the happy week passed swiftly to closing.
The young visitors had come on Tuesday and were to leave
the same day of the following week. Sunday coming in between
brought a dilemma and their first embarrassment.
It happened that both the girls were Catholics ; their enter-
tainers were not, if we except those important functionaries the
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lo6 A DAY'S HARVEST, [April,
cook and stable-man. On Saturday evening the hostess an-
nounced :
''Mr. Emery has just telephoned that he will be detained
over-night in the city. His sister, Miss Constance, is to come
out with him and wishes to delay until to-morrow. They have
arranged for a yacht ride on Long Lake, and, so as not to
break in too far on the day, we are to take the carriage at
eight and ride out to Riverpoint to meet them. How does a
nine- mile drive and a day's cruise among the islands suit you,
girls?"
Of course the two young visitors were delighted at the
prospect. Just at the time they were the only guests; Mrs.
Emery, knowing that her usual associates were not all so
democratic as to be willing to accept shop-girls, or saleswomen,
as intimates, had tactfully arranged to entertain them alone.
But scarcely had they in chorus uttered exclamations of
enthusiastic approval, when Ella Caraber's face clouded, and as
Mrs, Emery left the room for a moment she said to her com-
panion :
" Oh ! but, Mabel, you know we can't go. It's Sunday and
we are to go over to Croton with cook, you remember. How
oddly it just happens to be the Sunday of the month they
have Mass there — I declare I was going to say I was sorry
too, for that yacht ride would be just glorious. I was never
on any boat but the ferry in my life — five minutes crossing
that muddy little creek they call a river, over in town. But
there's no use crying over it, I suppose ; Croton's only a mile
and a half from here, so we can't count ourselves out of our
duty there, of course. And oh ! what a pity too, the Mass is
at ten o'clock ! If they only had it good and early 1 "
Miss Mabel surveyed the speaker with a quizzical expression
— a look that was half amusement and half interrogation as to
her earnestness — then she burst into a loud laugh.
"Well I really believe you mean it, you solemn-faced little
preacher! My dear, devoted, walking catechism, I must just
tell you at once that you speak for yourself here. I have n't
the least notion in life of following your programme. I believe
in going to Mass on Sunday and all that, of course, but I am
not going to. make any such sacrifice to do it. Miss that yacht
ride to-morrow, and poke around all day, besidts slighting Mrs.
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1904.] A Day's harvest. loy
Emery's generosity, for. the sake of an hour at that little barn
of a church with the cook and the stable-man ? Well, I guess
not'-not if I know myself 1 "
A look of pained surprise sprang into Ella Caraher's soft
eyes. " I am sorry for you, Mabel," she said simply. " Here
is Mrs. Emery. I will ask her to excuse me now."
Well-bred Mrs. Emery only elevated her eyebrows when
Ella stated her case, and explained, as she did bravely, why
she must deny herself the treat of the morrow, If a slightly
contemptuous curve came to the lady's mouth, it was involun-
tary and unconscious. Keen-sighted Mabel noticed it, however,
and congratulated herself that she would not be reckoned
among the stupid following so bound by formularies,
Sunday passed for the girls as each had chosen. For Mabel
It was truly a red-letter day in her life-^as days of enjoy meiit
go. The weather was perfect, the sapphire sky and bluer
waters rippling about the innumerable verdant isles, and the
gull-like progress of the trim little craft, whose snowy sails
flapping in the fresh breexe reminded one of the handclapping
of a glad child enjoying a lively gambol, all made a bright
memory picture to carry through dull hours and tedious work*
Then the dainty lunch, the chatter and laughter, the courtesy
and attention of the refined company. Oh ! it was all so
delightful. No wonder the girl from the shop gave a sigh of
satiety that night when her head touched the pillow.
For Ella, the stay-at-home, the martyr of duty, the interval
had a very different filling. She went to Mass, and so far felt
the satisfaction of duty-doing. But there her comfort and
peace ended. The cook and the stable-man finding she was
"one of them," as they put it, treated her as such in every
sense for the rest of the day. They knew she was alone, and
not to let her suffer from loneliness determined to keep her
company. This they did so faithfully that she had not a
moment to herself, or of freedom from talk she found neither
congenial nor interesting in any way. So the day passed
wearily amid the cook's jargon of neighborhood gossip and the
stable-man's equally tiresome yarns and jokes. Ella was indeed
glad when in early evening she was at last able to make her
escape to her room and bed. She too sighed long as she sank
upon her pillow, but from her the tribute was not to content.
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io8 A DAY'S Harvest. [April,
The next mornings at late breakfast, Ella was introduced to
the master of the house and his sister; the first a jolly gen-
tleman, bidding every one good morning and good-by, almost
in the same breath, as he hurried to make the station in time
to catch his train for the city.
Miss Emery was a marked contrast to her brother. She
was stately and quiet, a woman of reserve and strong charac-
ter. She was several years the elder of the two ; also much
given to study, and a litterateur of note. She regarded Ella
Caraher through her glasses curiously for some moments, as
though she were a new problem she had happened upon, then
said in a voice in keeping with her scrutiny :
" So you are the young lady who, they tell me, gave up
the sail yesterday to go to church."
Ella, blushed and made some confused reply, while Mabel
smiled and thanked fortune that she had not made herself the
butt of this sharp lady's investigation and perhaps ridicule.
'' I presume you are always as particular about such mat-,
ters, Miss Caraher," the lady went on, still scanning the youn^^
face before her. "You are one of those rigid religionists, no
doubt ? " ,
Ella recovered herself now, and swiftly determined that, as
she had asserted conviction and sense of duty by making the
sacrifice of the day before, she would now take the further
step of emphasizing her declaration of faith — as it suggested
itself to her to designate it.
"I am a practical Catholic, certainly, madam," she answered
steadily, "if that is what you mean. I always attend Mass on
Sunday, as well as fulfil the other duties of my religion."
"Indeed!" said Miss Emery, nodding acknowledgment, and
to the surprise of the two girls, who looked for a perhaps not
altogether pleasant tournament of words, she said no more.
The next day the young visitors were to leave toward the
close of the afternoon. The time for departure was now
approaching, and having packed their valises and made a tour
of the grounds, bidding adieu to choicest spots there, they
were re-entering the house. Mrs. Emery and her sister-in-law,
who were seated in conversation on the piazza, beckoned the
girls toward them.
" Miss Caraher," said the latter lady when the two had
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1904-] A Day's Harvest. 109
taken the seats nearby to which they were invited, "I have
just been consulting with Mrs. Emery and she thinks you
would not be averse to a change of occupation, and might
accept a position I would offer you. I understand that you
are fairly educated already, and by a little additional course I
would have you make, you would be amply fitted to assist me
as I would wish. I am going abroad for a year's tour this
coming autumn, and I would like to take you with me, as a
sort of secretary and companion."
The notions clerk at Bertram & Salters sat dumbfounded.
Her expression of blank bewilderment was so intense that the
two ladies could not refrain from laughing outright.
"You seem amazed. Miss Caraher," Miss Emery went on,
" but I take it you are willing to accept my offer. Mrs. Emery
tells me that you are without near relatives and board in the
city, therefore I assume that you are practically free in the
matter. I will provide you with everything of course, and pay
you at least double the salary you have been receiving."
By this time astonished Ella was able to speak, though with
tremulous voice, on the verge of tears of joy.
'' O Miss Emery ! " she said, '' I can scarcely realize it
To travel — to be given such a position 1 Oh, it is too splen-
did ! I can hardly believe it possible that you should take me
for such a place ! "
''Well, my dear girl," said the lady who was henceforth to
be her best and life-long friend, " I choose you for a very
simple reason — none other than that you gave up yesterday's
pleasure to fulfil the duty of going to Mass. You see it hap-
pens—or rather it is the kind dispensation of Providence — that
I have but recently become a convert to the Catholic Church.
It was because I too had to attend Mass yesterday that Mr.
Emery stayed over for me. I went to an early Mass in the
city and then came on to the lake. But I am only a child in
the practice of my— of our religion, awkward and unaccustomed.
I want a strong, true, devoted young Catholic beside me — one
such as you have shown yourself to be. I intend when abroad
to visit the Holy Father and famous shrines everywhere, and I
know I shall both profit from and enjoy this in such company
as yours. So then, my dear Ella, we '11 call it settled, I sup-
pose. When you go to the city now you resign at the store;
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no A DAY'S Harvest, [April.
then come back here, as soon as you. can get your things
together. I will myself instruct you how to take part with me
in my work, and will arrange to have you taught such techni-
cal knowledge as you may require in connection. And now,
my dear, we bid good-by, — I hope for a few days only."
Mabel Farley had been listening with strained ears during
the conversation between Miss Emery and her fortunate com-
panion. Mortification, jealousy, and anger so filled her heart
that she could scarcely command herself to answer civilly Mrs.
Emery's kind inquiries as to whether they could not postpone
departure until a later train or after tea, and the cordial invi-
tation to come out to Woodmere again as soon as she o9uld
get another week's freedom.
So the two went back from their week of eventful termina-
tion ; Mabel Farley to resume her measuring off yards behind
the busy counter of Bertram & Salter, while her friend, the
'' walking catechism," as she had dubbed Ella, went away on
her foreign tour and her after-life of cultured surroundings. It
is not often well-doing is so visibly blessed in this world, but
it is always yet more abundantly rewarded otherwheres.
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• I
iDt ^ XTbe Xatedt Boolk9« ^ ^
We trust that not one of our xcad-
ORIGIH OF CHRISTIAN ers needs an introduction to the
WORSHIP. author of Les Origims du Culte
By Mgr. Duchesne. Chretien^ Mgr. Louis Duchesne
would probably be named by the
majority of impartial scholars as the greatest Catholic historian
now living. He was formerly professor of history in the Cath-
olic Institute of Paris^ but was obliged to retire from that posi«-
tion as a result of one of the most disgraceful campaigns of in-
tellectual despotism ever directed against any scholar. Under the
patronage of the French government he was appointed head of
the French school in Rome, where he still resides. The work
which has been the chief reason of his scholarly reputation is his
critical edition of the Liber Pontificalis^ an achievement of such
scientific erudition as to assure him for ever a place in the
front rank of savants. More widely useful, however, and
hardly inferior as an historical composition, is the work on
Christian liturgy now brought out in English. The title of
this volume, "The Origins of Christian Worship," is slightly
misleading, as the author himself remarks in the introduction.
For the treatment is almost exclusively devoted to the Latin
liturgies, and only by way of reference, comparison, or sum-
mary sketch, is there anything of Greek or Oriental litur-
giology* No one who knows aught of Mgr. Duchesne needs
to be told of the vast amount of information, of the keen criti-
cal insight, the just and judicious mind, and of the. fine Cath-
olic spirit manifested in this work. In a peculiarly happy
manner the theme discloses the best gifts of the author's
genius — a devoted love for Catholic antiquity and the highest qual-
ities of a modern scholar. The introductory section on ''Ecclesias-
tical areas," a summary of early church history which serves as
a basis for the author's researches, is a perfect model of an
historical sketch. It is packed as full of matter as Lord
• Christian Worship : Its Origin and Evolution. A Study of the Latin Liturgy up to the
Time of Charlemagne. By Mgr. Louis Duchesne. Translated by M. L. McClure. New
York: E. & J. B. Young & Co.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
112 THE LATEST BOOKS. [April,
Acton's Cambridge inaugural on "Modern History/' and is as
brilliantly finished as Dr. Barry's " Papal Monarchy." Succeed-
ing chapters deal with The Mass in the East, The Roman and
the GalHcan Liturgies, Early Liturgical Books and Formularies,
Christian Festivals, The Roman and the Galilean Rites for
Mass, Baptism, Dedication of Churches, and Veiling of Virgins,
Ordination, Vestments, Marriage, and the Divine Office. An
Appendix of six supplementary studies closes the volume.
It is a great temptation to cite a few specimens of Mgr.
Duchesne's critical acuteness and splendid scholarship; as, for
example, his contention, in opposition to many liturgiologists,
that the Galilean rite was not introduced into the Church of
Lyons from Asia Minor in the second century, but that it is
substantially of Oriental origin and became established at
Milan in the fourth century, whence, chiefly through the in-
fluence of the Milanese court and of the frequent gatherings there
of Oriental bishops, it spread so rapidly and so widely that it
became a formidable rival of the Roman usage, and was ob-
served, indeed, in some of the dioceses contiguous to the Apos-
tolic City itself. Or again, a reviewer would fain linger upon
the chapter on early liturgical formularies, so full is it of
glorious erudition. Or, finally, it seems like a moral delin-
quency to pass over without extensive mention the accounts
of the Galilean and Roman Mass, for they are so well done
that they stir the soul of any student who has ever known
the least thrill of historical or antiquarian enthusiasm. But
we are writing only a review, and not an article upon Mgr.
Duchesne, and we can do no more than hint at the treasures
of this work of his. We trust that every Catholic student of
the higher departments of knowledge will procure this volume
and become well acquainted with it. Not many books that
appear in a generation are so thoroughly solid, permanently
useful, and so deeply interesting. We cannot conclude this
notice without the sorrowful reflection that this English edition
appears under no Catholic auspices. The translation was
made for an Anglican missionary body, the Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge. Must we confine our translations
to worthless sermon-books and to absurd hagiographies, and
allow the finest fruits of European Catholic scholarship to be
brought to us by the hands of strangers?
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
£904-] THE LA TEST BOOKS. 1 1 3
In the literature of higher criticism
THB STORY OF CREATION, no w ' appearing from Catholic pens
• By Father Zapletal, O.P. a highly creditable, if not the very
foremost, place must be assigned
to the Dominicans. Their school at Jerusalem is a centre of
splendid research ; their Revui Biblique is the equal of any other
Biblical' periodical in the world; P^re Lagrange must be num-
bered among the greatest living Scripturists ; Pere Spheil de-
serves to be named with Winckler/ Jensen, and Ziminern as an
Assyriologist ; Fere Rose occupies a position of honor among
New Testament critics ; and now P^re Zapletal * shows himself
to be a just and erudite Old-Testament scholar. His study of
the creation*narrative of Genesis is very valuable as a piece of
criticism, and eminently consoling for all of us who have been
deploring the small number of Catholic names i^n the illustrious
roster of modem Biblical investigators.
P. Zapletal in this small but precious volume discusses the
double creation-account from both the literary and historical
points of view; he puts before us the various interpretations of
the narrative, and offers an explanation of his own ; and finally
he fills out the historical requirements of his task with a concise
and illuminating review of the cosmogonies of the nations among
whom ancient Israel was situated. Like P. Lagrange and the
Abbe Loisy, P. Zapletal admits that the Jews were deeply influ-
enced by surrounding civilizations, especially that of Babylonia.
It is hardly possible to deny the traces of that influence in Gen-
esis. Our author, however, seems to lean to the view that Babylo-
nian ideas began to take root in Israel, not in the time of Abra-
ham, nor yet in the period just before the exile, but under David
and Solomon. This problem has an extremely important bearing
on the general question of Babylonian influence, and we wish our
author had gone into it a little more fully and critically.
But while P. Zapletal would acknowledge Babylonian vestiges
in the Old Testament, he rightly insists upon the transformation
undergone by these ideas at the hands of the Hebrew writers.
Babylon, Phoenicia, and Egypt have their creation- accounts,
it is true, and to a large extent the author or authors of Gen-
esis were familiar with them; but when a comparison is made
^Li Ricit d€ la Creation dams la Genise expliqui d'aprh Us Ddeouvertes Us plus ricentes.
Pit v. Zapletal, O.P. Traduit de I'allemand par P. Meyer-Boggio de Stadelhofen. Paris:
FflixAlcan. r^ T
VOL. LXXIX.-^ Digitized by GOOglC
114 THE LATEST BOOKS. [April,
between the feeble polytheism of the non-Israelitish mythology
and the sublime religious conteqt of Qenesis, every theory
that would make the latter essentially dependent upon the for-
mer falls to pieces. A sufficient natural explanation has yet to
be devisied for the fact that a small tri^e of Hlebrews existing
amid polytheistic peoples far older, richer, and more cultured
than themselves could yet retain a pure belief in the one true
Gcjd^ could even adopt the general scheme of a polytheistic
cosmogony, cleanse it of all futility and error, and make it
the vehicle of the sublime truth th^t the Eternal Spirit is one,
and that all things that are have come from . his creative wilK
Precisely to convey this truth is the object of Genesis, our
author says. And he is right. It is time to put an end to
" interpretations.", literal, epochal, idealistic, liturgical, and all the
rest. Genesis, in its story of creation, means only one thing,
and that is that God, the one Lord of heaven and earth, created
the world. The pictorial division into six days, each with its
proper " work," is nothing biit a convenient framework, useful
foi: but not essential to the main purpose. A secondary intent,
our author says, is to insist upon the observance of the Sabbath.
We congratulate P. Zapletal upon this just, sensible, cautious,
critical essay. We trust that he will continue to labor long in
the fruitful. field he has chosen.
In a most interesting volume,* of
THE MYSTICS OF INDIA, almost three hundred pages, Pro-
By !• C Oman. fessor Oman makes us acquainted
with the ascetics who have formed
so prominent a feature of the religious history of India. As in
his previous publications, the author writes engagingly on
topics with which he is thoroughly familiar; bis pages are
enlivened with numerous sketches and photographs, and his
critical comment is mingled with popular description in what
we should call a very happy and judicious proportion.
The reader is introduced to the more salient characteristics
of Indian asceticism, or sadhuistn^ as presented in history; and
also some of the Sadhus as they appear to-day. The under-
lying principles of Hindu asceticism, and the main characteris-
tics of the more prominent religious sects are outlined ; and a
* Th* Myttics, AsuHcs^ Mtd Saints 0/ India : A Study of Sadhuism ; with an Account of
the Yogis, Sanyasis, Bairagis, and other strange Hindu Sectarians. By John Campbell
Oman. With Illustrations by William Campbell Oman. London : T. Fisher Unwin. 1903.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] THE Latest BOOKS. ns
summary sketch of the modifications and developments of creed
and worship during many centuries helps to show how firm a
grip the practice of bodily austerity has kept upon this people.
Occasional parallelisms between Hindus and Christians are
partly illuminating and partly irritating, our author's view of
the relation of Manicheism to Catholicity being at best obscurely
manifested, and his notion of the Christian doctrine about tb^^
necessity of the Passion '^ for the attainment of a greatt
object otherwise unattainable even by the Deity Himself"
being not at all correct. Professor Oman writes in such a
calm, good-natured, eclectic style, however, that nothing in the
way of misrepresentation can be voluntary; and it must be
confessed that most of the innuendoes and quiet thrusts in
which he indulges lack neither pointedness nor justification.
These favors are distributed very impartially, moreover, hitting
sometimes Eastern and sometimei^ Western faquirs.
. The book does bring before us very vividly the extraordin-
ary penances self-inflicted, by the Yogis and other mendicant
orders. That for general nobility and high-mindedness they
are not to be compared with our own ascetics will be clear to
any one familiar with both types ; but if ingenuity and ferocity
of penitential exercises were to be employed as the ultimate
canon of sanctity, the most extraordinary of Christian saints,
helped out by all the resources of popular fable and supersti-
tious imaginations, could never rank with these naked wretches
who hang head- down over smoky fires, sleep and walk on
sharp spikes, wear a quarter- ton of iron chains, stand on one
leg with the other curled about the wais^t, tie their bodies and
limbs into '^ something resembling a reef-knot and clove- hitch
combined," hang themselves up by iron hooks run through
their muscles, throw themselves from precipices, stand on one
leg until the other becomes paralyzed and shrunken, hold their
arms stretched out or interlocked overhead until they grow
permanently into that posture, pluck out the roots of every
single hair in the head, burn and cut their flesh, feed upon
human bodies and filth, go naked both summer and winter,
bury themselves in graves for weeks, and perform various other
edifying and interesting feats» too numerous if not too horrid
to mention. Of course no one ''saint" does all these things;
the honors are distributed throughont the various "religious
orders" and among many thousands of individuals. But
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Ii6 THE LATEST BOOKS. [April,
the degree to which such penances have been developed,
and the undoubted respect and reverence for these heroes
aroused and maintained in the popular mind, impresses two
things very forcibly on our consciousness: that the Catholic
Church's work in restraining penitential excesses is one of her
divinely guided activities; and that to have satisfied the insa-
](:iable wonder- lust of the multitude must always remain but a
poor gauge of a man's surpassing holiness. So, taken all in all,
Mr. Oman's book may teach us not a little.
Among recent "Browning Books "
BROWNING IN MATTERS comes a group of four lectures*
OF FAITH. originally delivered at the sessions
By J, A. Button. of a winter Sunday evening class.
The writer aims not at the pre-
sentation of a new, or even of a deep, estimate of the poet,
but at the simple urging of various aspects of his religious
message. So clear and simple is the style, so impressive is the
earnestness, so timely are the lessons of this volume that room
for it must be found among the straightforward and practical
inducements to the patient study of Browning.
" The Case for Belief " puts the poet forward as the real
friend of those whose minds refuse to surrender to arguments
for faith in God. His "bracing treatment of the human soul
in all its nineteenth century moods," his " interpretation of
those facts in the human situation which seem inconsistent
with the sovereignty of a just and loving God," his "strenuous
search for and discovery of God in all and through all and
over all," these are the points represented as making him the
great apologist of these days, " the man of God to our peculiar
age." The lecture is built around a somewhat unusual inter-
pretation of Bishop Blongram's speech as a serious defence of
faith; and whether or not we agree as to the likelihood of
this theory, at any rate we are interested in the consideration
of it.
The second lecture cites Cristina and Caponsacchi's story as
illustrative of Browning's teaching on conversion — that, though
we live under the constant tyranny of our past, yet as a tide
overcomes the wind and compels the waters its way, so does
* Guidance from Robert Browning, in Matters of Faith. By John A. Hutton, M.A.
Edinburgh : Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier. 1903.
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the pressure of the living God interrupt and turn the drift of
heredity and of misdeeds, and give us moments
" When the spirit's true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it, if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing."
The third lecture indicates passages — Rabbi Ben Ezra,
FtrishtaKs Fancies, the lines of the old Pope in The Ring and
the Book, and others — voicing the doctrine that " Life is the
pressure which brings the wine from grape, the soul from the
flesh," and so helping us to face less hopelessly the mystery of
evil. The last lecture pictures Browning clinging to the Incar-
nation of God in Christ as a drowning man clings to a life-
beh. To evidence the truth of the portrait Christmas Eve and
Saul are skilfully drawn upon :
''For the loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless God
Amid His worlds, I will dare to say."
" O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a man like to me
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever; a Hand like this
hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ
stand."
The Rev. Father Walsh's little
WOMAN. book. Woman,* is a volume of
By Father Walsh, SJ. prudent counsel addressed chiefly
to wives and mothers. Though,
in deference to Scriptural precedent, he abstains from the use
of the term lady, he speaks to what, in the author's atmos-
phere, are designated as the better classes. His instructions on
religious duties and practices, joy, gladness, and cheerfulness,
frugality and industry, almsdeeds, marriage, and supervision of
a household, are, as might be expected, applications of moral
principles and religious teaching, rather than detailed advice
for specific occasions. Like his distinguished Irish confrere.
Father Finlay, who recently visited us, he looks with disap-
• Wowtan. By the Rev. Nicholas J. Walsh. S. J. New York : Benziger Brothers.
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Il8 THE LATEST Books. [April,
proval on the movement for a higher education of women. He
supports his opinion with citations from Fenelon. Mrs. Mar-
garet Fletcher, an English Catholic lady who has published two
notable books for the in.«truction of girls of to-day, would find
in this book indications of "a fondness for the point of view
that has regarded ignorance as the handmaid of innocence — a
point of view which is a legacy from the eighteenth century,
and which had no place in the thought of earlier days." He
charitably suppresses the name, though he brings forward the tes-
timony, of a malig^er of her sex who wrote : " Women never
know anything thoroughly; so the little they do know makes them
proud, disdainful, talkative, and adverse to everything serious."
Philosophy has given as many an-
THE NATURE OF GOOD- swers to the question. What is
NESS. By Prof. Palmer, goodness ? as to What is truth ?
Professor Palmer's reply is, in the
main, framed on Spencerian lines.* He distinguishes between
extrinsic goodness, ''found when an object employs an already
constituted wholeness to further the wholeness of another," and
intrinsic goodness, '' the fulfilment of function in the construc-
tion of an organism." The elements of personality, self-con-
sciousness, self-direction, self-development, are successively
treated in their bearing upon personal goodness. Proceeding to
an examination of the tendency to self-sacrifice, Professor Pal-
mer offers a tentiative analysis of it and of its relation to self-
develdpment. He finds an inkling of the solution to the problem
in the fact that man is not only an individual, but also a com-
ponent of the social organism. The highest form of goodness
in conduct is to be found when the goodness is unconsciously
done. " Before goodness can reach excellence, it must be ren-
dered habitual.*' Among the references suggested by Professor
Palmer on the various topics of the book we do not see Aqui-
nas* Ethicus, Yet there Professor Palmer would have found
many of his views anticipated, and light that would have
helped him to classify some of the knotty points which he has
left unravelled. On the other hand, the student brought up on
St. Thomas will be helped by the ideas he finds here relating
to man as a unit in the social organism.
* The Nature of Goodness, By George Herbert Palmer, Alford Professor of Philosophy in
Harvard University. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
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1904.] The Latest Books. i i 9
The late Canon Carter was an
LIPB OP OANON CARTER. Anglican dignitary whose long and
Edited by W. H. HntchfaigB. very noble life was spent in en-
deavoring to arouse a deeper de-
votional spirit in the Church of England, in promoting Ritual-
istic sisterhoods and the various works of charity connected
with thein, and incidentally, we may add, in trying to prevent
his disturbed co-religionists from advancing toward Rome, on
the one hand, and from falling into Broad- Churchism and infi-
delity, on the other. Mr. Hutchings' biography * of a man thus
occupied is naturally an interesting volume. It is interesting
chiefly as the record of a devout soul which clung fast to the
memories of Catholic sanctity when much of their sabstance was
but dimly apprehended. It is touching to be told that Canon
Carter had a -special love for the Blessed Sacrament, that he
strove for a ritual of becoming dignity, that he felt the power
of Mary's heavenly purity, and that he appreciated the value
and divine institution of confession. This is touching, we say,
for such a man must feel a stranger in a church where all these
divine Catholicities are either ridiculed by the rank and file of
his fellow-believers, or regarded with sullen suspicion by his
ecclesiastical superiors. Touching, too, because in such a posi-
tion one must strike a compromise. Catholic affirmations he
wishes to accept, yet Anglican denials he cannot wholly reject.
Hence such declarations as that drawn up by Liddon, Bright,
and Carter on the subject of confession. It is, they say, a divinely
appointed means for forgiving sin. It is, secondly, a means
never abandoned by the Church of England. Yet, they con-
elude, it is a thing not to be insisted upon, although a clergy-
man may on occasion " move *' a penitent's mind towards the
subject. Suppose this anaemic method of preaching Christ's
sacramental institutions were applied to baptism? Canons Lid-
don, Bright, and Carter would shudder at the thought. No,
they would protest, there can be no entering into the king-
dom of God without this one means thereunto ordained by
Christ. Why then any forgiveness of sins without the one
means similarly instituted ? Again, as to invocation of saints.
Invocation, say Pusey and Carter, is wrong. Comprecation is the
* Tke Lift and Letten •/ Thomas Thellussmt Carter, Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and for
Thirty-six Years Rector of Clewer. Edited by the Rev. W. H. Hutchings. A.M. New York :
Ix)ngmans. GreeD & Co. 1903.
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120 The Latest Books. [April,
proper thing. That is, we may not ask the saints to pray for
us, but we may ask God to allow the saints to pray for us.
Dread of Rome as a church to submit to, but a love of Rome
as a church to imitate, lead fine souls and good minds into
curious perplexities.
Canon Carter was exceedingly disturbed by the ravages of
higher criticism in the Anglican Church. He had a part in
drawing up a declaration against it which is of the rigidest
conservatism. Indeed, some of the theses formulated there
should be seriously modified, if we are to give any place to
conclusions of modem learning which seem well established.
In all things Canon Carter looked to antiquity, and endeavored,
according to his light, to base his life upon the ancient church.
It is pitiable to a Catholic reader of his life that he did not
see the Church which is the sole legatee of antiquity, the heir
of all the ancient beliefs, and the still fruitful mother. of primi-
tive sanctity.
This volume on Aristotle,* the lat-
ARISTOTLE. . est issue in Alcan's Les Grands
By M. Plat. Philosofhes^ is recommended both
by the series of which it is a part
and by the author's name upon its title-page. M. Claudius
Piat needs no introduction to students of philosophy. His studies
of free-will and personality, and his work as editor of the series
just mentioned, to which he has contributed an earlier volume
on Socrates, have raised him to high rank among living phi-
losophers, and guarantee thoroughness and sincerity in every
production of his pen. It is understood that these studies upon
the great philosophers are not biographical but rather are
critical expositions of systems of thought. Accordingly, the
present volume is a full expose of Aristotelianism, its general
headings being Nature, Being, the Soul, and Human Acts. Un-
der these main divisions are chapters upon the well-known
features of the peripatetic philosophy; for example, on the
categories; on movement and the Primus motor; on sensation,
thought, and will ; on the individual, the family, and the state.
Scattered through these extensive details of expository study
are many keen criticisms and hints upon wider philosophical
interests than those immediately connected with the author's
subject. Thus, for example, M. Piat tells us that with all Aris-
^ Les Grands Philosophes, AristoUe. Par M. Claudius Piat. Paris: F^li> Alcan. 1903.
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I904-] THE LA TEST BOOKS, 1 2 1
totle's insistence upon the sovereignty of will, the great possi-
bilities of educating it, and the extensive province of moral
responsibility, strict Aristotelianism involves a doctrine of ne-
cessity by reason of its postulate of a rational good which the
will is bound to seek. This fault of the master, Thomas of
Aquin avoids by deploying the volitional activity into a region
of dim vision where we cannot perceive the relation of our free
acts to their ultimate end, and consequently cannot be necessi-
Utcd by that end. There is a concluding chapter of great
value, though it is all too short, on the progressive development
of Aristotelian naturalism and its growing divergence from the
idealistic schools proceeding from Plato.
We are not easily pleased in the
LEHTEN SERMONS. matter of sermons, and on occasipn
By Father Graham. we have expressed in these review-
pages some sharp criticisms of ser-
mon-literature. But we read with pleasure Father Graham's
seven sermons* for Lent, and we pronounce them commendable
and good. Their tone is dignified, their style excellent, the
motives they insist upon are sensible, the appeals they present
are straightforward and sincere. They contain not a fantastic
line, not one exaggerated sentiment, and they are absolutely
free from secondary, tertiary, or any other degree of subsidiary
religiosity. God, Christ, and the immortal soul of man are their
theme, and simple, strong, and direct is the presentation of it
One correction alone we would suggest — namely, that there
should be more attention given to the dignity of the human
soul. To make men know the supreme beauty and nobility of
the God-image within them is to make them hate sin, to love
virtue and to be devoted to their Creator and Redeemer. Men
love religion when religion is made manly, and they respond
with alacrity to such inspiring motives as duty to God, loyalty
to Christ, and sovereign respect for themselves. Americans es-
pecially love such preaching. As freemen the very air they
breathe is charged with the sense of honor, dignity, responsi-
bility ; and when these are woven into their religion, they in-
stinctively lay hold upon religion as something noble, virile,
and fit for sturdy characters. Father Graham could have made
•AVif Serviam: A Lenten Course of Seven Sermons on the Subject of Mortal Sin. By
Rev. W. Graham. New York : Joseph F. Wagner.
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122 THE LATEST Books, [April,
more use of such appeal, especially iii the sermons on Mortal
Sin and on Drunkenness. With the deficiency thus indicated
made good, this little volume of sermons would be near per-
fection.
Regarding the *' state " of religious
ELEMENTS QF RELIGIOUS there is a great deal in theok>gy
LIFE. that is speculatively interesting,
By Father Humphrey, S.J. and a great deal rn canon law
that is practically' useful for those
concerned. Both the theological speculation and the canonical
legislation on the subject will be found in cojiveilient form in
Father Humphrey's " Elements." ♦
Possibly it is beyond human capacity to make such a book
interesting, but at least a step towards it would be taken by
more care for English idiom. Sentences like: "It does not
follow that the state is ordained in order to external actions
only," and "The state of perfection is ordained in order to
perfection," may be excellent Latin, but they are deplorable
English.
Any mere priest who reads this book will wonder if he
is admitted among the elect at all. For Father Humphrey
says of such : "Inferior pastors and priests in cure of souls,
although by force of law their position may seem to possess
stability, yet looking to the fact of the absence of any bond or
even purpose of perpetual permanence in their benefices, they
cannot be said to enter on a state. They rather hold for a
time being a ministry, an office, or an ecclesiastical dignity."
Nothing, mind you, of the priesthood of Jesus Christ; nothing
of the august association with the Deity permitted to the
priest, and to the priest alone ; nothing of the sacred state of
the apostolic ministry ; no, but the mere priest being only an
ecclesiastical functionary, cannot be allowed the dignity of any
sort of "state." We can imagine the indignation with which
Cardinal Manning would read such words, he who held so
firmly that the priesthood of the Son of God was exalted
above all other states, and that it laid upon those called to it
a supreme obligation to be holy, and a grievous responsibility
to practise every religious virtue and to follow every evan-
gelical counsel.
• Elements of Religious Life, By William Humphrey, S.J. New York: Benziger
->thcrs. 1903.
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1904] THE Latest Books. 123
There are many gravci respectable,
CLERICAL EDUCATION, conservative men who think that
By Father Zocchi. any attempt to introduce new
methods into our seminaries is
semi-heretical; that to study theology historically is danger <>
ous; that to depart in the least from scholastic philosophy is
to be infiltrated with Kantism ; that to cultivate th^ critical
spirit in exegesis is un-Catholic; and that to develop iii future
priests personal initiative and the desire to mingle intimately
with the people, is a horrid innovation. Such as are of these
opinions will read with pleasure a book* on clerical education,
by the editor of the Civilth CattoHca. It deserves to be placed
by the side of that other classic of conservatism, Pefe Fon-
taine's Infiltrations Protestantes et le Clergi Frangais,
We have here a little booklet t
A MISSIONARY IN THE of vigorous counsel, given by a
FAMILY. pastor to his people, which we
By Rev, J. F. Noll. doubt not will do a great deal of
good. The chapter headings indi-
cate pretty nearly the entire field of pastoral care: What it is
to be a Catholic; Fallen- Away Catholics; (3hurch Support;
Unity in the Parish ; Mixed Marriages ; the Parochial School,
etc. These topics are treated in the manner of familiar talks
in a sturdy, straightforward style and with a vast amount of
good sense. Earnest zeal is back of every word, and love for
souls gives power to every page. The English is uniformly
good; such a slip as this in the very first sentence of the
book being so rare as to be readily pardoned: ''Every pastor
realizes how difficult it is to make his people real spiritual."
We would suggest, too, that the author in estimating the num-
ber of Christian martyrs in the first three centuries at ten
million is misled into an egregious exaggeration.
The South has produced some no-
POETS OF THE SOUTH. ble poets and a considerable part
By F. V. N, Painter. of the best American verse. A
volume, therefore, of selections from
the singers of Dixie is sure to be good ; % and fot such a vol-
• De r^dtuatUn du Jeune CUrgi. Traduit de I'ltalien du P. Zocchi par Elie Philippe,
Paris: H. Oudin. 1903.
iA Missionary in th« Family. By Rev. J. F. Noll. Published by the Author, New
Haven, Indiana.
I P9ets of the South : A series of Biographical and Cridcal Studies, with Typical Poems.
By F. V. N. Painter. New York : American Book Company. igitized by CjOOQIC
124 The Latest Books. [April,
ume Mr. Painter has our thanks. He has given us specimens
of the finest work of Poe, Hayne, Timrod, Lanier, and Father
Ryan ; true Southern spirits all of them, chivalrous, high-souled,
and sentimental, whose very existence in this land of strenuous
trade is a tribute to the American character, and whose work
is creditable to the literature of English speech. Except for a
few words in the sketch of Father Ryan, wherein Mr. Painter
shows himself hardly capable of understanding the poet- priest's
religion, this little book of selections is highly commendable and
will serve a useful purpose. We should say as a tribute to the
good taste of the compiler that he includes in his collection
Sidney Lanier's lovely offering to our Lord, " The Crystal,"
and the same writer's marvellous poem; '' Sunrise," one of the
greatest compositions in the language.
We have on previous occasions
HENNEPIN'S NEW DIS- called the attention of our readers
COVERY. to the remarkable work being done
Edited by Thwaites. in American historical investiga-
'tion, and now the republication
of A New Discovery of a Large Country in America* by A. C.
McClurg & Co. of Chicago, more than forms additional evidence
of this energetic and commendable labor. When we say that
the editor of the present work is Reuben Gold Thwaites, we
have said that it is done with the most exacting care and the
highest grade of erudition.
This " New Discovery " of Father Louis Hennepin, the
Recollet, is a most valuable work concerning many of the
geographical features of the northern and central United States,
of the enterprises of La Salle, and of the life and manners of
the North American savages when they first came into contact
with the white man.
But in many of its personal details and in the statement of
Father Hennepin that he made the journey down the Mississippi
to the Gulf it is untrustworthy, and has been the cause of much
controversy and discussion among historians. Charlevoix, Kalm,
Bancroft, and Parkman all maintained that the account was
false; so also in the beginning did the historian Shea. The
last named afterwards sought to exculpate Father Hennepin
and throw the blame on some unscrupulous editors and pub-
• A New Discovery of a Large Country in America. By Father Louis Hennepin. Edited by
Reuben Gold Thwaites. 2 vols. Chicago : A. C. McClurg & Co. f^ t
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] IHE Latest Books, 125
Ushers. But the present editor, Mr. Thwaites, says "a careful
comparison between Louisiane** (Father Hennepin's first publica-
tion) ''and its successors leads us irresistibly to the conclusion that,
as Shea originally held, the blame must rest upon the shoulders
of Hennepin quite as much as upon those of his publishers."
In 1698 an English version of Father Hennepin's travels
was published in London. A reissue of the same appeared
within a year, and from thid second edition the present work is
taken. The work, moreover, contains a thorough bibliography
of Father Hennepin, compiled by Mr. Paltsits, of the Lenox
Library, New York ; and facsimiles of original title-pages, maps,
aad illustrations, together with a critical introduction, notes, and
index by Mr. Thwaites.
The typographical work in the volumes is of an excep-
tionally high order.
The reprint is a most valuable contribution to the biblio-
graphy of American history and an invaluable addition to every
library.
Letters from the Beloved City • is
LETTERS OF A CONVERT, a little collection of controversial
To S. B. letters written in Rome by an Eng-
lish convert and addressed to an
Anglican friend. What is most attractive in them is a deep
and tender piety. There is a certain persuasiveness in the ex-
alted spirituality which the writer has found in Catholicity, and
probably if his friend was induced by this correspondence to
enter the church, it was due to the fervor of the author's piety
rather than to the strength of his arguments. For only the most
elementary difficulties are dealt with, and these in the most
elementary way. In fact the book can scarcely be called con-
troversial. It more properly belongs to ascetic or homiletic
literature, in our judgment. This passage struck us as about
the best in the volume: the author refers to the priesthood
as " a power which we confess and acknowledge surpasses every
earthly power, which, to my mind, is even more miraculous than
that Papal Infallibility at which the enemies of Christ murmur,
and, like the Jews of old, call a claim equivalent to blasphemy.
Inconsistent as ever, they will hold their peace if they see a
pope baptize and absolve and consecrate, yet not if he defines
doctrine and confirms the brethren ! "
* Utters from the Beloved City, To S. B. from Philip. New York: Lbngm^s, Green
126 The Latest Books. [April,
Mr. Henry Harland has been using
MY FRIEN]> PROSPERO. hi^ magic wand again. This time
, By Henry Harland. it is to conjure up a delicious bit
of fiction from a charming valley
of the Rainpio in the mountains of northern Italy. My Friend
Prosfero*' is the name he gives it. In the garden of an old
Italian castle, with its terraced lawns, metrical parterres, dark
avenues of ilex, its sun-dial, fountains, statues, and balustrades,
the scene is laid.
A handsome young Englishman, John Blanchemain, with a
decidedly interesting personality and no special purpose in life,
finds himself sojourning indefinitely here under kind April
skies, and chance brings a beautiful young woman to the same
place at the same time under similar conditions. A romance is
inevitable, and Mr. Harland weaves it with an artist's sure and
conscientious hand. One knows the theme and sees the out-
con^e from the beginning, but he falls at once under the spell
of clever invention, ingenious situations, sparkling dialogue, and
delightful comedy.
There are several excellent characterizations, besides the
principal figures. Every one must love Annunziata, a bewitching
little Italian maiden who lives with her uncle, the parish
priest, and who has imbibed perhaps too freely for her years
of his learning and piety. Then there is a fine old fairy god-
mother in the person of Lady Blanchemain, John's aunt, who
made his future all too easy for young Prospero ; but we must
not question the wisdom of fairy godmothers.
The story ripples along as blithely as the Rampio itself. It
is full of sunshine and flowers and gentle- heartedness. John is
a gay, droll fellow, and t]ie mock seriousness of his bearing
toward little Annunziata, who adores him, is one of the charms
of the book. If Annunziata had been ten years older there
might have been a different story to tell.
Don Ambrogio, the parish priest, is not the least interest-
ing* character in the book. He appears only twice in person,
but his character is nicely defined through his opinions and
beliefs as expressed by Annunziata. " On week days," we are
told, "'he maintained a prodigious silence," and the reason was
that '' a going clock may be always wrong, but a stopped
clock is right twice a day."
There is a healthful atmosphere of reverence and discerning
• My Friend Prospero. By Henry Harland. New York : McCliuire,^ K?'@¥>t5^1c
1904.] The Latest Books. 127
piety about. this story which Catholic readers will not fail to
observe.. Mr. Harland. writes as one who knows, aftd it is
pleasing to meet, among modern writers of .fiction one who can
toueh upon matters > pertaining to Catholic customs and belief
without blundering. Some of Mr. Harland's many admirers
may be 'pleased to learn that he is a convert to the Catholic
Church. ' - .
) i Mr. Bartlett's story* is an inter-
JQAN OF mS AXW5Y. esting narrative based upon th^
3y F. 0. Barttett. lot of a great city's poor. He
djescribes thoroughly well how
readily and how dangerously socialistic fevers burn within
the hearts tif the: toilers ; he draws with commendable skill a
type or two * of submerged humanity; he shows that he is
capable of pathos — ^highly capable, in fact; and as for the slang
of the street, he has caught it with ludicrous exactness. We
venture to think that Mr. Bartlett has a brilliant future as a
writer of fiction. He is very true to life, and he is gifted with
a rare sensitiveness both to life's humorous and life's sorrowful
impressions which ought to give him a place among the very
foremost in his craft. He must be somewhat more painstaking,
though,, in the mechanics of his art. The incident of little
Maggie in the present story is completely independent of the
mam action, and might as well be in any other book as in
this. And then the happy denouement is altogether too sud-
den. The instantaneous change of the heroine from a fiery
Jeanne d'Arc of the factory to a comely helpmeet for Denny
Ryan is violently improbable and inartistic. Defects like these
are conspicuous, but after all easily overccizie, and we would
fain forget them, so good is the general workmanship of Mr.
Bartlett's story.
TAe Aristocracy of Health^ by
ARISTOCRACY OF HEALTH. Mary Foote Henderson, the wife
By Iff. F. Henderson. of ex-Secretary John B. Hender-
son, is an exhaustive study on
physical culture and the poisons which operate against physi-
cal and moral strength. A glance at the table of contents
shows the versatility of the writer : " Longevity," " Mrs.
Grundy," "Tobacco," "The Cocaine Habit," "The Favorite
^Joan of the Alley, By Frederick Orin Bartlett, Boston. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
t Tk€ ArUt9cracy of Health, By Mary Foote Henderson. Washington, D. C. : The
Colton PubUshine Company. ^^^^^ ^^ GoOgk
128 The Latest Books. [April,
Poisons and Heredity/' are a few among the many subjects
discussed. The book covers a vast amount of material, and the
author is evidently familiar with the best authorities on her
subject. Every report, pamphlet, or book of any value in con-
nection with her subject has been quoted from by Mrs. Hen-
derson. From one point of view this is a decided merit, for
there is no opinion so convincing as that of a specialist, and
no argument stronger than statistics. But numerous quotations
have made a very lengthy book of Mrs. Henderson's treatise,
and it is doubtful if many readers will persevere to the end of
its 772 pages of reiterated denunciation of tobacco and alco-
hol. The chapters have been so arranged, however, that they
can be read independently, and this fact, together with the
attractive form in which the book has been published, will
insure its reaching a fair percentage of the public to whom it
has a message.
Mrs. Henderson's book closes with a suggestion for a
" national and international league for the advancement of
physical culture." A proposed constitutiofi for the organization
of such an association supplements the suggestion.
The Louisiana Purchase and the
LOUISIANA PURCHASE. Exploration, Early History, and
By Hitchcock. Building of the West* is the title
in full of a simple, scholarly nar-
rative by Ripley Hitchcock. The subject has been discussed
under four sub-divisions. The first part treats of the early
Spanish and French discoverers, of the pioneer American set-
tlers, and the final transfer of the territory to the United
States government. A well- condensed summary of the famous
Lewis and Clark expedition from the city of St. Louis to the
Pacific Ocean is given in Part II. In the third part Pike's
explorations and the experiences of some of the great path-
finders, such as .Ashley, Wyeth, Bonneville, and Fremont, are
briefly touched upon. *' The Building of the West " is the title
of Part IV. In this the growth of industries, the distribution
of public lands, and the social and economic consequences of
the purchase are discussed. A carefully compiled appendix
gives statistics of the population, wealth, and histoi^y of the
various States formed out of the Louisiana territory.
• TAe Louisiana Purchase and the Exploration, Early History, and Building of tk€ West,
By Ripley Hitchcock. Boston : Ginn & Co. [^.g.^.^^^ ^^ GoOglc
1904.] THE Latest Books. 129
Mr. Hitchcock states that the purpose of his book is "to
afford a continuous and very simple narrative " of the purchase
of Louisiana. With that object in view he has not " deemed
it necessary or wise to enter at length into the diplomatic or
political history of the purchase." This is an omission which
impairs the value of the book for the historical student. Nor
has the author cited the texts of his authorities as frequently
and explicitly as a special student would ask. However, a
book must be judged with reference to the readers for whom
it has been written. Mr. Hitchcock has written for the general
reader, not for the historian, and his book is simple, direct,
and accurate.
The Century for March has as its frontispiece an interesting
portrait of His Holiness Pius X. The portrait is the work
of George T. Tobin, done from a photograph of the Pope
when as Patriarch of Venice he walked in the Corpus Christi
procession. The portrait, together with another of His Holiness
standing in front of the papal throne, accompanies a timely
article by the well-known correspondent; William Cooke, on
"Anecdotes of the New Pope."
To The Catholic Review of Reviews^ the successor of The
Review of Catholic Pedagogy^ we extend a most hearty welcome
and sincerest wishes for its success. The Review, as its name
implies, will contain, besides original articles, a summary of the
leading articles in all the principal magazines of this country
and of the foreign periodicals, with a special view to those of
Catholic interest and import. It includes, moreover, a Catholic
literary index. In the three numbers published up to date the
Review has made a very creditable showing, and covered the
field which it marked out for itself with thoroughness and
intelligence. The editors are Rev. Thomas E. Judge and Wil-
liam Stetson Merrill. The publication office is 637 Harding
Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.
vot. txxix-9 ^ T
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ai ai ai Xibtar^ XTable. » » »
The Tablet (6 Feb.): A leader on "The Bishop of Bristol
and the Athanasian Creed" discusses Bishop Browne's
new method of getting rid of the damnatory clauses of
the Athanasian Creed. ^The Oxford Correspondent, in
the University Notes, reports nearly sixty Catholic lay-
students at Oxford this term. Correspondence con-
tinued on the propriety of bowing the head at the
Elevation.
(13 Feb.): Dom Maternas Spitz, O.S B., contributes an
article on " Catholic Progress in Equatorial Africa."
The Roman Correspondence notes further measures of
the Holy Father in the reform of the Roman Congrega-
tions, and intimates that important pronouncements,
which will aflfect the clergy of the world, will soon be
made. A summary of the bill for the suppression of
the authorized teaching congregations in France is given.
(20 Feb.): A translation of the Pope^s Encyclical on
the Jubilee of the Immaculate Conception is printed in
full. More correspondence from Fr. Thurston, S.J.,
and others, on bowing the head at the Elevation. A
description of the marriage ceremony of the Duke of
Norfolk and Miss Constable Maxwell is given, together
with a list of the bridal presents.
(27 Feb.): Under title "More Victims for M. Combes"
the bill for the suppression of authorized teaching con-
gregations in France is discussed. Rev. Herbert Lucas,
S.J., contributes the first number of some papers on the
Westminster Cathedral, in reference to the necessity of
certain architectural changes in the edifice. ^The
Roman Correspondent reports that the progress of reform
in church music in Rome is .slow, but that the Holy
Father has declared that he is absolutely determined to
attain the results specified in the Motu Proprio. The
correspondent also reports a change in the mode of
making cardinals; hereafter the cardinals are to be
chosen on their merits, and not because they happen to
occupy a certain office.
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1904.] LIBRARY TABLE. IS I
(5 March): The. Roman Correspondent gives pfdgramme
for the celebration of the centenary of St. Gregory the
Great at Rome, which will begin on April 6. A
leading article on *' Socialism in Italy " discusses some
articles on this subject by Signor Yamchelli, printed in
the Rassegna Nazionale, The conclusion to be drawn
from the. correspondence on the question of bowing the
head at the Elevation seems to be that the individual
may suit his own devotion as to whether he shall look
upon the Host or keep his head bowed.
The Month (March) : Rev. Sydney F. Smith contributes an
interesting account of the peculiar and much^abused
Spanish custom connected with the granting of Indul-
gences, dispensations from fasting, etc., for the gaining
of which the faithful are required, besides the ordinary
conditions of prayer and contrition, to procure a " Bula,"
or certificate, on the payment of a nominal sum as an
alms. After outlining the history of the practice from
its origin in the time of the Crusades till the present
day, the writer undertakes a defence of the system from
the charges of simony and laxity so frequently brought
against it, and shows that though in practice it may be
attended by abuses and misconceptions, the principles
which underlie it are spiritually and morally sound, being
those which underlie the granting- and gaining of indul-
gences throughout the Universal Church.
International Quarterly (Dec-March) : In a paper on Satire
RoUo Ogden, editor of the New York Evening Post,
treats of the influence for good or for evil that may be
wielded by the political satirist. Hon. C. H. C.
Wright, of Harvard, contributes an article on the Paris
Commune of J871; it contains a review of the political
conditions of France at the time of the insurrection,
together with a brief account of the working of the
Commune. The social conditions of the early Teutonic
peoples is discussed by W. J. Ashley, of Birmingham
University, England. In an article entitled "The
American Scholar of the Twentieth Century," a brief but
very Interesting estimate of Emerson's spirit, work, and
influence is given by William Morton Payne, of Chicago.
^The subject of knimal consciousness is discussed by
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13^ Library table. [April,
Edouard ClaparMe, editor of the Archives de Psychologie.
He undertakes to answer the following questions: How
has the discussion been revived? What interest can it
have for science ? Of what nature are the arguments
employed by both sides ? A very interesting article
from the pen of Hon. Carroll D. Wright on Trade
Agreements appears in this number. Mr. Wright shows
that trade agreement is one of the best offsets to social-
ism, and consequently deserves careful and considerate
attention. Kentaro Kaneko, writing on our diplomatic
relations with Japan, contends that the people of both
countries ^* might work, hand-in-hand, on the Asiatic
continent, and reap all the harvests of Chinese trade by
their mutual support and reciprocal assistance."
The Commonwealth (Feb.): A. L. Lilley, vicar of St. Mary
Magdalene's, Paddington, notices at length a book on
Americanism which has just been published by a French
priest, M. Houtin. The author is said to feel that his
narrative is but " the historical prologue to a great
drama which is already beginning to unfold itself upon
the stage of religious history." This conception redeems
the movement from being contemned for that uninterest-
ing flaccidity proper to all things as seen by contempor-
aries. '' If the critical and philosophic movements con-
nected with the names of Loisy, Blondel, and Laberthon-
ni^re, had not come to foreshadow a theological revolu-
tion, Americanism would be unable as yet to justify its
claim to the serious attention of the historian." Owing
to the apparent accident of a religious movement grow-
ing naturally out of a new soil, alive with the instinctive
appreciation of a new atmosphere, results have taken
place which will either give the Roman Church the
practical hegemony of the Christianity of the future, or
leave her an abandoned hulk in the wake of human
progress. The spirit of the movement expresses itself
in the lack of a regret that America cannot attain to the
uniformity which was the ideal of the old national
European groups. That spirit springs from the recogni-
tion by Catholicism of the psychological climate to which
it has to accommodate itself in America. The extent
of accommodation is not perhaps yet quite realized.
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I904-] LIBRARY TABLE, 133
This and not insincerity explains the momentary con-
fusion of some of the leading representatives. In America
Catholicism shares the national confidence in the demo-
cratic system, state education, and social activity of the
church. If a movement is to be judged by the tenden-
cies of its greatest minds, then Bishop Spalding's writ-
ings justify M. Houtin's estimate of Catholicism as some-
thing which Europeans took to be identical with Liberal
Protestantism.
Annales de Philosophie Chritienne (Feb.) : The editor, in a letter
addressed to his Eminence Cardinal Steinhuber, prefect
of the Holy Congregation of the Index, dutifully accepts
the condemnation of his two little books. He expresses
regret that, while the Congregation, in compliance with
the counsel of the late Pontiff, allowed to three religious,
whose books had been delated, an opportunity of satis-
factorily explaining their views, the same paternal con-
sideration was not extended to him. M. TAbb^ Denis
pledges himself to continue, with the utmost loyalty and
submission to authority, his efforts towards the liberation
of Catholic doctrine from the false position in which he
sees it placed with regard to science and history by some
theologians '' who do not sufficiently distinguish between
authoritative teaching and those logical explications of it
which enjoy their preference." There is a third instal-
ment of the '' Lettres Romaines." As the correspondent
wrote before the recent condemnation of Abbe Loisy's
works, he considered himself at liberty to show that M.
Loisy's exegesis "relieves the theologians from the neces-
sity of maintaining" that several statements of the
Gospels, including some of our Lord's own sayings, must
be interpreted in a sense contradictory to their obvious
meaning.
Le' Correspimdant (25 Jan.): The article of M. Rene Lavollee
on the new projects concerning the separation of the
church and state gives a clear account of the Concor-
dat, the opportune hour at which it was signed, and the
benefits which it brought to France at the time of her
return to union and peace with Pius VII. From those
well-remembered scenes, when heaven and earth seemed
to smile on France and the First Consul, the author
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134 LIBRARY TABLE. [April;
leads us to the troubled times through which France is
passing now. He paints in sad colors the dangers that
would result from the abolition of the Concordat, and
from the execution of such measures as have been pro-
posed in the Chamber of Deputies during the last six
months. A few examples will illustrate sufficiently the
character of these new projects: the suppression of the
appropriations for Public Worship; the confiscation of
buildings used for religious purposes or for the dwellings
of ministers; the prohibition of church bells; the restric-
tion of processions and the religious habit to the pre-
cincts set apart for religious exercises; the penalty of
fine and imprisonment for all priests who censure in any
way a government official. Such is the liberty left to
the clergy who under the Concordat were guaranteed
their full legal rights! After reading this article we
say, with the author : '' If there is an inauspicious
moment for experimenting with a system which entails
the separation of church from state, it is, without doubt,
the present."
(i Feb.): In one of the most interesting articles of this
number M. F^lix Klein gives us his views of persons
and things, and the condition of religion in " the land of
the strenuous life." The aspect of American life which,
more than any other, seems to attract his attention, is
the harmonious blending into one people of so many
different nationalities. The author traces the peculiar
assimilative power of America to three causes. The
first of these is Religion, which binding men to God,
binds them also to one another. The second cause he
finds in the schools. In these the child of foreign par-
entage comes during his earliest years into close contact
with American teachers and American school-fellows;
and as all the knowledge he receives comes to him from
American sources through the medium of the English
language, his ideas take forms quite different from those
that prevail in the land of his forefathers. The third
cause of this assimilative power is, according to M.
Klein, the amelioration in the conditions of life. By far
the greater number of emigrants, owing to the superior
resources of the country, and the wider opportunities
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 Library Table. 135
for improvement, are in much better circumstances here
than they ever could have hoped for in the old world.
To these three causes, then, he attributes the fact that
many different nationalities not only live amicably side
by side but, after a short time, forget all racial preju-
dice, and become enthusiastic and loyal Americans.
Rtvue d'Histoire et de Liitirature Religieuses (Jan.-Feb.): M. P.
Richard gives us a hitherto unknown page of the diplo-
matic history of Leo X. This consists of a series of
letters sent from the Papal court to various nunciatures
in France, Spain, and Lombardy for the purpose of arous-
ing a league of states strong enough to check the am-
bitious designs of Francis I. upon the Italian peninsula.
These letters are some of the earliest work of the Papal
Secretaryship of State. They disclose a curiously sincere,
human, and undiplomatic tone, indicative of the begin-
nings of international policy. P. Turmel gives in de-
tail the post-Augustinian theology of the consequences
of original sin. Augustine's view of the deep corruption
brought into human nature by the fall continued in the
main victorious, but eminent theologians refused to accept
so extreme a view, and divided the schools hopelessly
upon such questions as: How far is death an effect of
original sin ? and Is not Augustine unjustifiable in his
theory of the innate corruption of human nature? The
debate was carried on between Thomist and Scotist, and
was by no means terminated by the condemned propo-
sitions proscribed by Pius V.
Rtoue Apologitique (16 Jan.): In view of the condemnation of
Abb^ Loisy, two of his contemporaries take occasion in
this number to criticise both the writer and his methods.
R. P. Fontaine attempts to establish a contradiction be-
tween the interpretation Loisy gives to the Synoptistic
Gospels and the interpretation given to the Pauline Epis-
tles. In the second article, M. Gollier states Loisy's posi-
tion in regard to the New Testament, Revelation, found-
ing of the church, and the institution of the sacramental
system for the purpose of showing the justice of the
action ef the Holy OfHce.
{16 Feb.) : Apropos of the Encyclical, Motu Proprio, M.
Verhelst contributes an article on church music. He
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136 Library Table. [April,
appeals strongly for a return to the plain chant of
Fdl«strina.
Democratie Chritienne (Feb.) : This number contains a summary
of two lectures on the relations of church and state de-
livered by M. Leroy-Beaulieu at the University of Lille.
The lecturer considers three different phases of these
relations as they appear in history. First, there is a
union of church and state, which may be called the con-
dition of the past ; second, there is a partial separation
where the spiritual and political systems enter into con-
cordats — this is the condition of the present ; and, finally,
there is the system of complete separation which, accord-
ing to every indication, is to be the system of the future.
France is not ready for it yet, but is rapidly tending
toward it. M. L. Marnay writes an interesting article
on the work of a temperance society in the town of
Lassalle, and describes the influence that this work has
had on the whole social question in the vicinity. The
Italian correspondent gives reasons for believing that the
Supreme Pontiff will offer such encouragement to the
social movement as will enable it to make great progress
in the near future. An article on the ''Social question "
reviews the support given to the reform movement by
some of the leading men of France, such as MM. de Mun
«ad Brunetiere.
£tudes (5 Mar.) : In a loag but temperate article M. Paul
Didon maintains the rights of the French Cardinals, the
Archbishops of Paris and Rheims, to protest against the
legislation forbidding religious congregations to teach.
The project of M. Combes is shown to violate several
articles of the Concordat, five of the Declaration of
Rights, as well as the laws of 1850 and of 1875.
M. Ferdinand Tournier continues his account of Mgr.
de Prat, /Archbishop of Clermont, and his patronage of
the Jesuit fathers at the time of the Council of Trent.
M. Paul Bernard discusses the value of mountain air as
a cure for tuberculosis, and the treatment to be pursued
with patients. M. Joseph Burkes contributes a com-
mendatory notice of M. Cordier's recent -work on the
relations of China with the Western powers.
Science Catholique (Feb.): Contains the first instalment of an
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1904.] LIBRARY TABLE. 137
article by Dr. Laucber on '^St. Jerome and the Inspira-
tion of the Deute.ro- Canonical Books/' in which the
writer discusses at length the views of that learned
doctor and Scripture scholar in reference to the Deuteio-
Canontcal books and parts of the New Testament.
After an examination of the evidence the writer arrives
at the conclusion that, though from a theoretical and
critical point of view St. Jerome gave expression to the
doubts and difficulties existing in his time as to the
. canonicity and inspiration of these books, yet in prac-
tice he always made use of these books as the in-
spired word of God, thus bearing testimony to the
apostolic tradition as preserved from the beginning in
the belief and practice of the Church of God.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Feb.) : Rev. J. Bloetzer begins a
series of articles entitled "Anglicanism on the Way to
Rome ? " in which he undertakes to point out the causes
which have led so many English Protestants to embrace
the Catholic religion since the beginning of the Oxford
Movement. The data are drawn almost exclusively from
the writings of prominent converts which have been
embodied in two works, namely. Roads to Rome and
Spencer Jones's England and the Holy See, Fr. Wass-
man, S.J., contributes a brief criticism of Dr. Kass's
The Faculty of Orientating in Birds and Insects — a work
which professes to answer the question : By what sense or
faculty are birds and insects guided in finding their
way? The reviewer declares it to be a truly scientific
treatment of that interesting but extremely difficult
problem. He praises the author, especially for the pains
taken to acquaint himself with the vast literature on the
subject. Among other articles of interest may be
mentioned: The Gospel Criticism of Abb^ Loisy, by Fr.
Knabenbauer, S.J.; Progress and Development in the
Labor Question, by H. Pesch, S.J. ; and The French
Bishops as ^* Aufriihrer / ** by Fr. Gruber.
^tudi Religiosi (Jan.-Feb.) : In a continuation of his brilliant
examination of Harnack's Essence of Christianity^ G.
Bonaccarsi calls attention to some of Harnack's invaluable
admissions regarding the state of mind of the earliest
Christian believers. Harnack admits: i. that in assign-
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1 38 Library Table. [April,
ing an expiatory value to the death of Christ, St. Paul
did not invent an atonement doctrine, but that this was
the belief of all the first followers of Christ; 2. after the
Master had suffered death as the voluntary victim for
our sins, He had arisen from the dead and had become
the source and foundation of a new creation. Now, if
all this is true, and unless the historical proof of it were
overwhelming Harnack never would concede it, it abso-
lutely destroys Harnack's main contention that our Lord
never uttered any statement as to His own Person, but
preached only the Father's love. For it would be an
impossibility for our Lord's \^xy acquaintances to de-
velop immediately their elaborate doctrine about His
nature and His mission unless illuminated by Himself.
Equally unfortunate is Harnack in discussing the Resur-
rection. He sharply distinguishes between the Easter
message and the Easter faith. The Easter message was
the announcement of an incredible miracle. The Easter
faith was simply belief in the moral victory of Christ
over death, and in the spiritual permanence of His
Gospel. But clear as day in the records left us of
Christian origins is the fact that the Apostles based the
Easter faith upon the Easter message, and that they
won believers to Christ's Gospel by their "We have
seen Him risen ! " P. Minocchi concludes a series of
studies on the psalms which promises to take front rank
in the Biblical literature of recent times. N. Terzaghi
continues his profound study of the myth of Prometheus.
Rassegna Nazionale (i Feb.): G. Patroni writes on the practi-
cal mission of archaeology in Italy. In Cardinal
Capecelatro's discourse at the opening of the scholastic
year of his seminary in Capua is quoted -with approval,
and for the inspiration of his audience, a religious ex-
pression of Roosevelt, " un grande Protestante e uomo
di Stato Americano." Prof. Oberle advocates greater
attention in Italian schools to foreign languages.
(i6 Feb.): Translates from the London Pilot (of 9 Jan.)
an article of Baron Friedrich Von Hiigel, the famous
Catholic Biblical scholar, praising the learning, critical
sense, historical outlook, and inspiring courage of M.
Loisy, predicting on his part a respectful submission to
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I904.] Library Table. 139
the decrees of the Index and the Holy Office, and fore-
telling that he will one day be reckoned alongside of
Pascal, F^nelon, and Newman^ E. de Gaetani gathers
together some results of Assyriological researches to
show that the monuments of Nineveh and Babylon do
not threaten religious and moral foundations.
Civilta Cattolica (6 Feb ) : Answers a critic who complained
that a recent article in the Civilth Cattolica had praised
Spencer too highly ; and declares that with Spencer's
many errors were mingled such forcible and convincing
expositions of truths, practical as well as theoretical, that
they certainly justified a few words of praise accom-
panied by unfavorable comments. " Some would like us
to say only evil of him. Let them then indicate a book
of Spencer's containing nothing but error, and we shall
forthwith comply." Praises highly Wilpert's monu-
mental " Pictures of the Roman Catacombs," and declares
these two volumes must henceforth be absent from no
important historical or theological library. Says of
Loisy : " Hence the oft-repeated assertion of the French
exegete, / am concerned only with history^ is possibly
only a sort of wretched jest. It was a real jest, or
rather an insult, when by way of complete submission to
the condemnation of his first book by the Cardinal of
Paris he wrote : * That which is true in my book I can-
not retract. But I willingly condemn all the errors
which others have drawn from my book by interpreting
it from .a point of view different to that which I occu-
pied in composing it' "
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I40 THE Columbian Reading union. [April,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
EDUCATIONAL unification, established by a majority vote in the legisla-
ture^ will have the force of law on the first of April under the State Com-
missioner, Dr. Andrew S. Draper, who deserves good wishes and loyal co-
operation until he can be judged by the results of his administration. It is
hoped that he will show appreciation of those who have rendered conspicuous
professional services to the cause of education in New York State, especially
during the past ten years. Among those having a claim that demands just
recognition there is no one more entitled to honor than James Russell Par-
sons, Jr., the recent secretary of the Board of Regents. Few can be found
in official life at Albany whose qualifications are more noteworthy. He
deserves high honor from the educators of New York State.
• • •
The report of James Russell Parsons, Jr., covering the work of the
University of the State of New York for 1903, has just been issued from the
press. It comprises a review of the powers and duties of the Regents and a
historical sketch of the developments of the interests in their charge. It says
that the total expenditures of the university in 1903, including grants to
schools and libraries, the statutory allowances to professional examiners, and
returns to State treasurer, salaries, services, and all other expenses of main-
tenance, show a decrease over 1902 of $11,173.48. The transportation ac-
count, including both mail and express, shows in 1901, 1902, and 1903, as
compared with 1900, an average decrease in cost of $933.58.
Since 1900 there has been an annual reduction in the cost of legislative
printing, and in 1903 the amount paid was less by $399393*37 than in 1902.
In 1903 bulletins for all departments of the university, except the State
Museum, cost $3,452.12, while receipts from sales of the same bulletins were
$3,854.02. Though only $620.64 was realized from the sale of the State
Museum bulletins, yet these publications perform an invaluable service to
education, agriculture, and the commercial development of the natural re-
sources of the State ; and they have a good financial value, in that they
enable the State Library to procure by exchange valuable works which must
otherwise be purchased. Since 1900 the additions from this source, exclud-
ing duplicates (36,556 volumes and 122,482 pamphlets and periodicals), have
greatly exceeded the additions paid for (19,225 volumes and 139 pamphlets)
from the direct appropriations of $92,500 for new books, serials, and binding.
The report declares that the New York State Library can fairly be
compared only with the Library of Congress, since both have responsibilities
that do not fall on the ordinary public library. The Library of Congress,
with only two and a half times as many books, has three times the staff of
the New York State Library and Home Education departments combined, and
nearly five times as large a salary appropriation.
The State Museum reports activity in scientific field work, classifying
and labelling specimens, and publishing. Forthcoming publications include,
among others, a report on the salt industry, a "Catalogue of the Crustacea
of New York," a report on the birds of New York, a memoir ^on insects in-
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I904-] THE Columbian reading Union. 141
jariotis to forest and shade- trees, and a bulletin on the use of wood by the
aborigines of New York.
• • •
The North Buffalo Catholic Association and Library has the reputation
of having the finest collection of books for an organization of its size in the
country. The library committee are pleased to present a list of the new
publications which have recently been added, among which are : Echoes from
Bethlehem, by F. J. Finn, SJ.; Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIIL, Rev.
J. J. Wynne, SJ.; Christian Apologetics, a vols., by Rev. W. Devivier, S.J.;
The Beg^ning of Christianity, Very Rev. T. J. Shahan ; History of the Chris-
tian Era, by Rev. A. Guggenberger, S.J.; Ruskin's works; Hawthorne's
works; Ireland and Her Story, Justin McCarthy; Carrol Dare, by Mary T.
Waggaman; Poems of PopejLeo XIIL, Latin and English; The Red Poacher,
Seumas McManus; The Crossing, Winston Churchill; The Adventures of
Gerrard, Conan Doyle ; Col. Carter's Christmas, T. Hopkinson Smith ; The
Heart of Rome, Marion Crawford ; Long Night, Stanley Weyman ; The Whole
Difference, Lady Amabel Kerr ; The Sheriff of Beach Fork, H. S. Spalding, S. J.;
Man Overboard, F. M. Crawford.
The Columbian Reading Union was organized to assist in the work of
libraries as well as Reading Circles. We would be pleased to notice any
report from Public or Parish libraries, and to get the list of books added for
the year 1904.. Communications may be sent to the Manager of Columbian
Reading Union, 415 West Fifty-Ninth Street, New York City.
• • •
Thus far in the United States the Jewish people have not followed any
aniform standard of religious belief. Some are patrons of papers published
in Yiddish, which advocate theories akin to anarchy ; while others, like Felix
Adler, are properly classified as rationalists, who wish no religious teaching
for children. It seems very opportune, therefore, to know that there is
a movement to strengthen the claims of the orthodox defenders of Judaism,
and that the Jewish Theological Seminary of America has arranged a course
^ of free public lectures by members of the faculty and other prominent Jews
of the United States. The lectures, which are held on Thursday evenings at
8 : 30, in the auditorium of the seminary building, at Twenty-third Street and
Broadway, are partly as follows: Mayer Sulzberger, of Philadelphia, Books
and Bookmen ; Dr. Cyius Adler, of Smithsonian Institute, Jewish Educational
Problems; the Rev. Dr. Schulman, Moses Mendelssohn and his Religious
Philosophy.
The seminary has decided to establish a special teachers' course, to be
conducted by members of the faculty. It is proposed that the course shall
occupy three years, at the end of which a certificate will be awarded to per-
sons who successfully pass the prescribed examinations. Those who signified
their intention to follow the course met at the seminary building on Monday
evening, January 11, at 8: 30 o'clock, when brief addresses were delivered by
Professor Schechter, Dr. Cyrus Adler, and Louis Marshall, and the hours for
instruction definitely fixed. Women as well as men are welcome in the course,
which is free.
A special Jewish students' service was also arranged for Sunday evening,
at eight o'clock, at the Temple Beth Israel Bikur Cholim, Seventy-second
Street and Lexington Avenue. The speakers were Professor Solomon
J42 The Columbian Reading Union. [April,. 1904.]
Schechter, Professor Richard Gottheil, of Columbia University, Processor
Morris Loeb, of New York University, Cyrus L. Sulzberger, the Rev. Dr. H. P.
Mendes, the Rev. Dr. M. H. Harris, Dr. Cyrus Adler, of the Smithsonian
Institute at Washington, and Rabbi Aaron Eiseman, of the Temple.
' ' • • •
Paul Otlet, the secretary of the Brussels Intcirnational Bibliographic
Institute, estimates the number of printed books since the invention of print-
ing to Jannary, 1900, at 12,163,000 works, and the number of periodicals
between 15,000,000 and 18,000,000. The same authority adopts 200,000 as
the yearly average of books published during the past few years. But, as is
pointed out by Mr. A. Growoll, the editor of the Publishers* Weekly (New
•York), such vast computations must necessarily be based very largely on
guesswork. A study of this and similar authorities, he declares, leaves the
conviction that for the average reader much very interesting information may
be gleaned from the material which as yet does not satisfy enthusiastic experts.
In point of number of output, Germany and German Austria collectively
yearly lead the world. Then follow France, Italy, England, the United
States, and the Netherlands. In speaking of classification and comparative
mental value of publications, Russia and the Oriental countries are not taken
into present consideration.
In creative works England leads the world, having by far the largest out-
put of novels, romances, and works of pure imagination. In Germany educa-
tional works, theological works, and books for the young predominate. The
largest number of historical works appear in France, and Italy leads in reli-
gious publications. The largest number of books published in the United
States fall in the department of fiction; but works of fiction are generally
duplicated in the English and American, statistics, as novels of merit written
in the English language almost invariably appear on both sides of the Atlantic.
While it appears that Germany leads the world in book-production, it is
also evident that the greatest number of periodicals are printed in this country.
Germany is the land of thinkers, the United States is the land of readers.
Mr. Growoll says in conclusion :
The vast distances of our country and the constant travel that has built
up the far-reaching interests of our commerce have led to the American habit
of newspaper and magazine reading. Everybody reads every minute, and
everybody reads his own paper that embodies his special views of politics or
religion, or deals with the subject from which he procures his means of support.
£verything is wanted as soon as it is known, and the most valuable contribu-
tions to knowledge on all subjects generally appear first in the periodical
literature, that has been conceded by many publishers to be far more pro-
fitable than books.
The vast literary production of the world has naturally led to the growth
of various manufactures that have made important changes in the economic
conditions of many countries. The manufacture of paper has become an
industry of enormous importance, as has also the manufacture of type and the
various inventions that have taken the place of type. The manufacture of
books and periodicals, their sale and circulation, employ great armies of men
and women, and certainly in material ways the world is benefited by its
fabulous book production.
All the world takes pride in increase ; but in the matter of mental pro-
duction quantity does not necessarily make for the highest results. The great
increase in useful, technical, and educational literature serves an important
temporary purpose ; but it would be well for the civilized world to call a halt
on the phenomenal output of mediocre books that can have no lasting in-
fluence on the true culture of the world, from which must come at last the
true freedom and universal peace. ^ M. CM.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. LXXIX. MAY, 1904. • ' No. 470.:
THE REFORMATION.-THE CAMBRIDGE MODERN
HISTORY.*
BY REVEREND JAMES J. FOX, D.D.
I
I.
'HE second volume of The Cambridge Modern His^
tory covers the period of the Reformation. The
scheme adopted by tbe editors considers thie
opening of the movement to be indicated by
the assembly of the Fifth Lateran Council, which
was followed closely, by Luther's theses. The treaty of Cateau
Cambresis, the completion of Elizabeth's measures for the estab-
lishment of Protestantism, the death of Calvin, the peace of
Augsburg, and the dissolution of the Council of Trent, mark
the close.
The volume consists of nineteen chapters. The first, from
the late Professor Kraus of Munich, the only Catholic contribu-
tor, deals with Rome during the pontificates of . Julius II., Leo
X., Adrian VI., Clement VIL, Paul III., Paul IV., and Pius V.
The next two chapters cover the struggle as it was fought out
in the wide domains of the Houses of Hapsburg and Valois.
Events in Germany occupy five chapters. But little space is
given to France ; for the great conflict began there only at a
• The Cambridge Modem History. Planned by the late Lord Acton, LL.D., Regius Pro-
fessor of Modern History. Edited by A. W. Ward, Litt.D. ; G. W. Prothero, Litt.D. ; Stanley
Leathes, M.A. Vol. ii. : The Reformation. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp.
xxiv.-8s7.
Thk Missionakt Society of St. Paul the Apostle in the State
OF New York, 1904.
VOL. LXXIX. — 10 ^ T
Digitized by VjOOQIC
144 The Reformation. [May,
later period. The course of affairs in Switzerland, Scandinavia,
and Poland is traced with less preoccupation about detail than
is shown in the case of the other countries. The editors, however,
can justly claim that the proportions of the volume correspond
with the relative importance of the several themes. It is not un-
reasonable that in a work intended for English readers they
should adopt a liberal scale in the assignment of space to Eng-
land and Scotland. One of the most weighty chapters is that
on the Catholic Reform and the Council of Trent.
When the late Lord Accon planned this great history of
modern Europe, and distributed the various parts of the work
to the collaborators whom he had chosen, he reserved the
Council of Trent for himself. It is a subject of universal regret
that the scholar, whose immense learning and unrivalled
knowledge of every subject bearing upon the history of
modern Europe qualified him above any other man of the
age for directing the execution of the work which he pro-
jected, did not live to see his plan realized. His thorough
acquaintance with Catholic theology, canon law, and the
ecclesiastical constitution, as well as with secular history, fitted
" the most erudite man in Europe " to give an account of
the Council of Trent, and all the deep currents that ran
through its life, with a thoroughness that can be expected
from no other man of the present age. Whether the spirit he
would have brought to the task would have been as far above
challenge as his intellectual equipment, is open to question.
He always showed himself a severe critic of the Papacy, espe-
cially on its secular side, and in his court a pontiff seldom got
the benefit of any doubt that might arise. In his writings,
especially during the fierce controversies that sprung up around
the Vatican Council, as well as in his recently published Letters,
are passages that read very strange from a Catholic pen — for a
Catholic, that is, a Roman Catholic, Lord Acton always claimed
to be; and the organ of his most uncompromising opponents,
on the occasion of his death, stated that he was not obliged to
protest that he was a Catholic, for no act of his had ever de-
nied it. Perhaps the serener atmosphere of the later time, and
the mellowing influence of advancing years, would have tem-
pered his intransigeance. But it is idle to speculate on what
might have been.
A perusal, however cursory, of this fine work recalls the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1 904. J THE REFORMATION. 1 45
weighty words of Bacon : '' Read not to contradict and con-
fute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and
discourse, but to weigh and consider '' ; for this is eminently a
volume worthy to be read wholly, with diligence and attention.
To say that its text occupies over seven hundred closely printed
folio pages, conveys only an inadequate idea of how compre-
hensively it covers the story of the Reformation in every coun-
try of Europe. Every chapter, almost every page, is a model of
condensation. The first aim of each contributor seems to have
been to lay before the reader every fact, however trivial, pro-
vided it has any pertinence at all. Anything approaching to
picturesque writing or rhetoric is so steadily shunned that the
style is as coldly scientific as that employed in- works of mathe-
matics or astronpmy.
There is, of course, an endeavor to trace motive and pur-
pose beneath the surface of action related, otherwise we should
not have history at all. But, generally speaking, the authors
have recognized the limitations which beset the historian in this
respect. There is little of that kind of slenderly warranted con-
jecture masquerading as solid induction, which fills so many
pages of so-called history with oracular demonstrations and ex-
haustive analyses of the inner thoughts and complicated motives
of men long dead and gone, who, in many instances, very
probably, would have been unable themselves to analyze so
thoroughly their secret springs of action. Nor have these
authors fallen into the other pitfall, which has captured so
many of their predecessors of every theological shade. They
have abstained from drawing morals, and constructing cryptic
apologetics. The frontispiece might bear the motto : Tros
Tyriusque mihi nulla discrimine agetur. The most finely attuned
ear will be at a loss to detect any jarring note of partisanship.
The last remark is not to be construed as meaning that
Catholics can accept, everywhere, the point of view presented
here; or subscribe to all the appreciations and interpretations
of men, events, and movements offered by the scholars who
have done the work. Perfect neutrality of attitude and abso-
lute inerrancy of judgment, such as we conceive to be the pre-
rogative of the Recording Angel, are not enjoyed by the human
historian. When Buffon said Le style c'est Vhomme he but
touched the outside of a truth which is more adequately em-
bodied in the words of Montaigne : Je suis moy mesme la mature
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
146 THE REFORMATION, [May,
de tnon livre. For reasons too obvious to be mentioned, this
truth is emphasized by every history that has yet been produced
of the mighty conflict whose results are still to be traced, in cross-
ing lines and conflicting currents, amid every community to be
found within the domain of Western civilization. The time is
yet far distant, it may never come, when either Protestant or
Catholic or Agnostic will be able to consider the Reformation
with the same serene indifference and absence of bias as a
modern mind can bring to the struggle of the Gracchi or the war
against Thebes. On their respective sides Von Ranke and, as
far as he has had to consider it, Lingard are the authors who
come nearest the ideal of judicial impartiality. Yet who will
say that either one or the other has been able always to make
allowance for the influence of character, national feelings, and;
above all, religious convictions?
In saying that the present work is impartial, we mean that
there is no trace, to borrow a happy phrase, of "the man who
writes history with a purpose," who " starts with the object of
whitewashing somebody or proving some theory of his own."
It is a great deal to have a non-Catholic history of the
Reformation in which nothing is intentionally extenuated nor
aught set down in malice. Allowance can easily be made for
the personal equation. The treatment of the English Reforma-
tion under Henry VIII. by Dr. Gardiner is conspicuously fain
In the affair of the divorce the Pope fares much better at his
hands than he does in Father Taunton's Life of Wolsey, Little
fault is to be found with the manner in which the gentlemen
to whom fell the reigns of Elizabeth and Edward VI., and the
course of events in Scotland, have fulfilled their task. The pic-
ture of the English Reformation on this canvas differs in no
essential feature from that which Lingard has left us. Anybody
who can contemplate it steadily and yet continue to hold the
Anglican theory that the English Church was, from the begin-
ning, a national church independent of Rome, may congratulate
himself upon having ascended from this material world into the
Hegelian universe in which the principle of contradiction is un-
known.
Those who never weary of recounting the immediate benefits
conferred upon morality and intellectual progress in England
by the establishment of Protestantism will find food for reflec-
tion in the pages of Dr. Gardiner, Mr. Pollard, and Mr. Bass
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I9P4.] The Reformation, 147
Mullinger. We. can permit ourselves but one quotation, in which
is summed up the moral results of Henry's achievements : " The
king's high-handed proceedings, alike as regards the church,
the monasteries, and the coinage, lowered the moral tone of the
whole community. Men lost faith in their religion. Greedy
courtiers sprang up eager for grants of abbey lands. A new
nobility was raised out of the money getting middle- classes, and
a host of placemen enriched themselves by continual peculation.
Covetousness and fraud reigned in the highest places."
Similar testimony is borne to the evil eflfects of Henry's
policy on education. With regard to the respective merits of
Catholic and Protestant services to the cause of learning and
education there is one passage in the chapter on the Catholic
Reform which is to be commended to the notice of some dis-
tinguished American educators and pedagogical specialists.
The author, after referring to a letter of the saintly Canisius,
of the Jesuit order, says : ** A revival of Catholic scholarship,
such as Canisius advocated, marked the close of the sixteenth
century, a revival in which his own order played a prominent
part. Rome became again a centre of Christian learning; and
the Annals of Baronius were worthy to stand by the Centuries
of Magdeburg, New editions of the Fathers were prepared.
In 1587 appeared the Roman edition of the Septuagint, and
both Sixtus V. and Clement VHI. endeavored to improve the
text of the Vulgate. Historical scholarship ceased to be the
monopoly of one party. The Jesuits were the equal in learning
of their adversaries, and their educational system was immeasur-
ably superior'^ We have taken the liberty of italicising the last
sentence. The preceding lines sufficiently attest, in opposition
to prevalent assertions, that if Rome to- day does not so strenu-
ously maintain her pride of place in the front rank of intellec-
tual activity, the reason is to be sought for elsewhere than in
some essential antagonism between Catholicism and culture.
II.
The historian of the Reformation encounters one prpblem
a proper treatment of which demands, besides an intimate ac-
quaintance with events, an intimate knowledge of Catholic the-
ology. Owing to a lack df** technical information, or through a
misplaced confidence in unreliable authorities, he may do less
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
148 The Reformation, [May,
than justice to Catholic doctrine in the matter of indulgences.
It is with no intention of casting any imputation on Principal
Lindsay's impartiality and evidefit solicitude for accuracy that
we take exception to some of his statements on this topic in
his chapter on Luther. Here one regrets that in this History
the new fashion of dispensing with references has been adopted.
There are some statements here, concerning Catholic theology,
which ought not to be made unless supported by precise cita-
tion, or by referring the reader to sources ; and if this con-
dition had been imposed upon Principal Lindsay some of his
lines would not have been written. There is every reason to
believe that Father Thurston, S.J., who has published in the
London Tablet a very pertinent criticism on this point, is right
in his opinion that Principal Lindsay here stands on the shoul-
ders of Mr. Henry Lea, who slips and stumbles at almost every
step when treading his way through the theology of indulgences.
His capacity for misunderstanding documents and misrepresent-
ing their gist is on a par with the air of finality in which he
delivers his judgments.
Among popular books, both Catholic and anti- Catholic, there
is a great deal of apprehension as to what is really the crucial
question in this controversy. The issue upon which depends
the justice or injustice of the charges made against Catholic
doctrine and practice is not whether Tetzel or any other preacher
of indulgences did, or did not, sell them. If they did, they com-
mitted the crime of simony; and they were not the first eccle-
siastics who did so ; nor have we any grounds for trusting that
they will prove to have been the last. Some Catholic authors,
Janssen for example, do not hesitate to admit that "grievous
abuses there certainly were in the proceedings and behavior of
the preachers, and the manner of offering the indulgence bills,
and touting for customers, caused all sorts of scandal." Did the
church grant indulgences professing to remit the guilt of sin, as
well as penalties attached to sinful deeds ? This is the paramount
question. And it is in the solution of it that Principal Lindsay
lays himself open to severe animadversion. He admits that all
theologians who haye written since the Council of Trent teach
that indulgences have to do with temporal punishment only.
He acknewledges, furthermore, that this modern opinion " is con-
firmed by the most eminent mediaeval theologians who have
written before the Council of Trent." But he implies that theie
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Reformation. 149
were other theologians who taught that indulgences remit guilt.
He explicitly states that some Papal documents assert that
indulgences remit guilt, as well as penalty, and that evidence
exists to show that intelligent laymen, Dante for example, had
been inevitably led to believe this to be ecclesiastical doctrine.
Here the hand is the hand of Principal Lindsay, but the voice
is the voice of Dr. Lea.
For a complete refutation of this charge, as far as the Papal
documents are concerned, we may refer our readers to an article
by Father Thurston in the Dublin Review ^ January, 1900. In
the Tablet he takes up the passages of Dante that are supposed
to bear on the case, and shows that there is nothing to be ex-
tracted from them in favor of the above view. And he draws
attention to the fact that the well-informed work of Dr. N.
Paulus, who has examined the whole question thoroughly, has
not been included in the extensive and carefully classified bib-
liography contained in the Cambridge History,
Before passing from this subject it is worth while to touch
upon \.iiO other points of the indulgence controversy. With
regard to the necessity of sacramental absolution before the
obtaining of the granting of indulgenjces, it must be remembered
that in the case of indulgences granted exclusively for the
benefit of the dead, those who sought them did not need to
be in the state of grace. In the Mayence " Instructions " for
the preachers, quoted by Janssens, it is stated that the only
condition insisted on in applicants for indulgences for the dead
was the gift of a sum of money towards the building of St.
Peter's. Another charge is that, in order to increase their har-
vest, the preachers assured the people that the plenitude of the
indulgence was infallibly applied to the soul for whose benefit
it was obtained. The Mayence ** Instructions " did, it appears,
on insufficient authority, affirm such to be the case. But Car-
dinal Cajetan, representing Roman views, repudiates as unfounded
this opinion, and declares that no credence is to be given to
the theologians or the preachers who publish it. "The preach-
ers," he said, " come forward in the name of the church in so
far as they proclaim the teaching of Christ and of the church ;
but if they teach out of their own heads, and for their own
profit, things , about which they have no knowledge, they cannot
pass as representatives of the church, and one cannot wonder
if, in such cases, they fall into error."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
ISO The Reformation, [May,
III.
There is little doubt but that this present work will become,
and long remain, for the English-speaking world, the popular
standard authority. An eminent English Protestant has recom-
mended it as a work which supersedes all else on the subject
with which it deals. A competent Catholic scholar has de-
clared that, from the circumstances of its production, it offers
on the great religious crisis "the nearest approach to a Anal
verdict which is possible in this world of progress." Hence
Catholics, both clergy and laity, who make any pretence to a
liberal education, or who are called upon to do any educa-
tional, controversial) or apologetic work, ought to be familiar
with it, or at least sufficiently acquainted with it to be able to
consult it oh occasion. Many of those who may do so will
find that, on some very important matters, they will have to
modify considerably the views which they have acquired from
such histories as Darras, Brueck, and even the comparatively
impartial Alzog. It is a misfortune that, for a long time past,
Catholics have, on the whole, written the history of the Refor-
mation and the following epochs from an apologetic and an
a priori stand-point. This method, however laudable the senti-
ment which prompts its adoption, is absolutely fatal to histori-
cal honesty, and in the long run does more harm than good
to the cause which it is meant to serve. Such history does
nothing to confute opponents. It merely strengthens their con-
tention that Catholics are kept in ignorance, because the light
is fatal to their blind faith. What is more common and what
more humiliating than to find in some popular book defending
the church or attacking Protestantism, written by some per-
fectly honest and well-meaning man, allegations that are with-
out foundation, and denials of the undeniable ? Everything
reflecting unfavorably on a Catholic champion, an ecclesiastic,
a religious corporation, everything speaking of abuses or cor-
ruption, is suppressed, or disguised in euphemisms. Disin-
genuous argument to make the worse appear the better reason
is not disdained; while against the adversaries of the church
the method is just reversed. Charges made against this or
that individual are answered by the argument that Christ
founded the Church; therefore there can be no stain upon her
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] The Reformation. 151
story. Does somebody say that a pope obtained the Papacy
by bribery? An all-sufficient answer consists in proving from
texts of Scripture that the pope is the divinely appointed head
of Christ's church, in whom the Spirit of Truth and Holiness
abides. Somebody asserts that some German monk sold indul-
gences. An invention of the enemy : for the church teaches
that indulgences are gratuitous mercies dispensed from the
treasure-house of the church to those who are worthy of re-
ceiving them. At most it will be admitted that here and
there along the way some solitary individual has strayed from
the narrow path, or has failed to display the wisdom and offer
the good example expected in his position; but endless pains
are taken to show that every such case must have been grossly
exaggerated. •
The chief reason offered for this system by those who are
aware of the truth is, that the faith of the people ought not to
be exposed to injury by the proclamation of scandals which
have occurred in the past. But what is the value of such an
argument in this country to-day? If the dead past could be
left to bury its dead, perhaps we should be able to apply in
history the same rule of reticence which, in the case of living
persons, charity, prudence, and the common good dictate.
If the legislation of Leo X., which decreed that no book
whatsoever should be published in any diocese in the world
without episcopal authorization, could be enforced, then, per-
haps, it would be possible to control the dissemination of his-
torical knowledge. But we must deal with conditions as they are.
Even as early as 1581 the learned Jesuit Canisius, writing to the
Duke of Bavaria, declared his conviction that such measures were
futile. A steadily increasing number of Catholics are seeking
information elsewhere than from Catholic sources. There they
learn what their own books and teachers have not imparted to
them. And, as a consequence, their trust in their former in-
structors is shaken. Along with the truth, they are exposed to
swallow much error; so that they sometimes fall victims to a
poison against which they might have been made immune by
judicious inoculation.
To hold that the honor of the church calls upon us to sup-
press ' all historical scandal, is to admit the false principle of
our opponents that the existence of such scandals is fatal to
the church's clainis. This has been the position assumed by
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
152 The Reformation, [May,
anti-Catholic writers all the time; and it must be met as Car-
dinal Newman meets it. The passage is long, but it ought not
to be mutilated. " We do not," he writes, " feel as a difficulty,
on the contrary we teach as a doctrine, that there are scandals
in the church. * It must needs be that scandals come. Never-
theless, woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh.' There
are, to all appearance, multitudes of Catholics who have passed
out of the world unrepentant and are lost ; there are multitudes
living in sin, and out of grace ; priests may and do fall in this
or that country, at this or that time, though they are excep-
tions to the rule ; or there may be parties or knots of eccle-
siastics who take a low view of their duty, or adopt dangerous
doctrines ; or they may be covetous, or unfeeling, as other
men, and use their power tyrannically, or for selfish secular ends.
There may be a declension and a deterioration of the priest-
hood of a whole country. There may be secret unbelievers
among clergy and laity ; or individuals who are tending in
their imaginations and reasonings to grievous error or heresy.
There may be great disorders in some particular monastery or
nunnery ; or a love of ease and slothful habits, and a mere
formality of devotion, in particular orders of Religious, at par-
ticular seasons. There may be self-indulgence, pride, ambition,
political profligacy in certain bishops, in certain states of
society; as, for instance, when the church has been long estab-
lished or abounds in wealth. And there may have been popes
before now who, to the letter, have fulfilled the awful descrip-
tion of the unfaithful servant and steward, who 'began to
strike the men-servants and maid-servants, and to eat and
drink and be drunk.* " This catalogue covers, generically, the
whole historical indictment. Yet what does it avail as an
argument against the Catholic Church? Nothing, as Cardinal
Newman concludes, until it can be proved that the scandals
within her pale have been caused by her principles, her teach-
ings, and her injunctions.
On this issue she can confidently repeat to the historian
her Master's challenge to his enemies:. Which of you can con-
vict me of sin ? There is a dose of truth, though it be clothed
in a wrapping of fiction, in an anecdote recounted by Dumas.
During the reign of Alexander VI. a worthy French priest
had a Jewish friend whom he labored long to convert. Finally
the Jew said he was ready to embrace the Catholic faith; but
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1904.] The Reformation. 153
before doing so he must go to Rome to observe the stream
at the fountain head. Naturally the abbe endeavored to dis-
suade him from the unpromising purpose, but in vain. The
Jew went, and saw, and, after a protracted stay, returned.
" What have you seen ? " asked his apprehensive friend.
"Everything that ought not to be. Down to the vergers of
St. Peter's, everybody there is living in a way that sets at
defiance all the law of Christ and his Church ! " and he pro-
ceeded to details. "Well,*' said the dejected abb^, at the end,
''you have followed all the lights that God has given you. He
evidently means that you save your soul in the religion of your
fathers; instead of calling you to the Catholic Church." " But,"
returned the other, " I am coming to enter the Church ; I am
here to ask you for baptism. An institution that can survive
the human corruption that I have seen must be divine."
With his usual penetrating judgment the late Pope perceived
the injury wrought by the h priori methods; and exhorted
scholars to abandon them for a more excellent way. He reminded
them that, as Cicero said, the first law of history is to say
nothing false, and to tell the truth impartially. God, he con-
tinued, hath no need of our lies. Neither has his church. If,
as Cardinal Manning said, the evangelists did not conceal the
sin of Judas, or of Peter, why should the Catholic historian
hide sins of churchmen? Let non Catholics but find that the
truth is known to us and yet does not touch our faith, and
they will cease to iterate that the allegiance of the laity is
founded on ignorance. One may recall the reluctant confession
of Lord Macaulay that when he perceived a man of Sir Thomas
More's character and intelligence ready to die for the doctrine
of transubstantiation, he could not but doubt whether the doctrine
of transubstantiation may not triumph in the end. Another
prominent Protestant has recorded the profound impression made
upon him when he heard Lord Acton say : " I am not con-
scious that I ever in my life had the slightest shadow of a
doubt concerning any dogma of the Catholic Church." "That
statement," said Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, " coming as it did
from . a man who had read everything worth reading in the
remotest way bearing on the controversies between his own
and other forms of faith, who was a profound theologian as
well as a profound philosopher and historian, was the most
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154
The Reformation.
[May,
remarkable ever made to me by a human being. Of its
absolute sincerity, however, I am as certain as I could be of
anything.'' It will be a good day for us, and a day of grace
for many earnest souls outside the fold, when it will be commonly
understood that a Catholic layman, without ceasing to be staunch
in his faith, may know all that is authentic in the annals of
the Houses of Theophylact and Borgia; may know that the
Papacy was more than once obtained by wholesale bribery ; that
the constant cry for money, money, and yet more money,
was a potent factor in the rise of the Reformation ; that there
were abuses in a thousand ways, on a wide scale, at different
periods of the church's history. Then the occupation of the
petty scandal- mongers in popular literature, educational text-
books, and the daily newspapers will be well-nigh gone; and
serious men will ask themselves, with earnest heart- searchings,
whether, after all, the grand historic arraignment of the
Catholic Church does not fall short of the mark.
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1904.] A Trappist Monastery in Japan. 155
A TRAPPIST MONASTERY IN JAPAN.
BY FRANCIS McCULLAGH.
|APAN is hardly the sort of country in which one
expects to find a Trappist monastery, yet there
is such a monastery near Hakodate, the princi-
pal port of Hokkaido, the most northerly of
the five large islands which go to form the main
part of the Japanese empire. Hokkaido is bleak, cold, covered
with primeval forest (at least for the most part), and inhabited
not only by Japanese settlers but by the aboriginal inhabitants,
the hairy Arno, a most singular people. The Japanese gov-
ernment consequently looks upon it in much the same light (to
compare great things with small) as the Russian government
looks upon Siberia, or the British government upon Canada;
that is, regards it as a country which, when developed and
colonized, may. prove to be a very valuable possession.
On the occasion of a recent visit to this outlying port of
the Mikado's empire, I went from Hakodate to the Trappist
monastery above memtioned. It is reached in a few hours by
steam launch, being situated at a little distance from the little
fishing village of Tobetsu and at the foot of a forbidding-
looking mountain called Maruyama (Round Mountain). The
monastery is a white, barn-like, one-storied structure about two
hundred feet in length and facing the sea. This main building
is flanked by two other structures which are somewhat higher
and whose gables are turned towards the approaching visitor.
In the centre rises a church steeple sixty or eighty feet in
height, bearing on the summit a cross, and in a niche near the
summit a large .terra- cotta image of the Madonna and Child.
It is almost unnecessary to say that the appearance of this
severely plain edifice with its bleak background is not exhila-
rating ; and, to heighten the dismal effect, there was on the
occasion of my visit an entire absence of life and movement
in the surrounding landscape — not a living thing being in sight
except a large raven perched motionless on one arm of th^
cross on the steeple.
It is generally known that all over the world the Trappists
make a special point of receiving visitors and entertaining theni
156 A Trappist Monastery in Japan. [May,
gratis as long as they wish to stay. This hospitality I and a
friend who accompanied me (a gentleman friend, for no lady,
unless she be a sovereign or a princess, is ever admitted into a
Trappist monastery) experienced to the full ; in fact the Hok-
kaido monks seem, perhaps on account of their isolation, to be
unusually hospitable.
Into a detailed description of this monastery I need not
enter, as all the internal arrangements are the same as in
Trappist monasteries in England and elsewhere. The monks
tell me that in winter-time the cold is excessive, so that it is
almost impossible to prevent the water which is used in the
ceremonies of the Mass from being frozen. Moreover, in order
to withstand the winter hurricanes the windows in the hotel lerte,
or guests' quarters, are double.
The lay brother who had charge of myself and my friend
was, strange to say, a Dutchman, and he told me that there
are two other Dutchmen in the community. He seemed to
know all about the Transvaal war; but tactfully avoided any
discussion of it, saying (in French, the language in which he
ordinarily converses to guests) that there was no use in talking
of it now it was all over, and that the Boers and British were
fast friends. Besides these three Dutchmen there is one
Italian and eight Frenchmen in the community. The Japanese
monks outnumber the foreigners, there being no less than
thirteen of them, eight of those thirteen being novices, and al]
very recollected, devout, and almost angelic-looking.
The Trappists had no difficulty in obtaining thirty-seven hec-
taires of virgin soil from the Japanese government, and they
have now brought most of it under the plough, their principal
crop being corn. In their byres they keep about thirteen Japa-
nese cows, two fine Holstein cows, several calves, and one fine
Holstein bull. There are also seven or eight horses, all of them
Japanese ; that is to say, by no means famous, and mostly used
for ploughing. I have, however, seen Japanese boys employed
by the monks ride about on them while driving home the cat-
tle ; and this fact is sufficiently striking, for in Japan proper a
farmer's boy has very seldom a horse to ride on and does most
of the horse's work himself. There is nothing remarkable about
the collection of domestic fowl kept by the monks save that,
perhaps, the only other collection of the same kind is at the Sap-
poro Agricultural College, a government institution. Besides their
agricultural pursuits, the Trappists have a school and an orphanage.
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1904.]
A Trappist Monastery in Japan.
157
Here in Hokkaido the Trappists lead the same severe life
as they lead in Europe, living only on vegetables, fruit, and
bread; working six hours a day ivith their hands, and getting
up at two in the morning to pray.
Their winter is, as I have already remarked, extremely se-
vere, as may be judged from the fact that near Aomori, which
is further to the south, two hundred soldiers were lost in the
snow exactly a year ago, and all of them frozen to death. The
monks manage, however, to survive their six- months' winter;
and perhaps the excitement of sallying forth occasionally on
snow-shoes in order to collect fuel on the mountain is a wholes
some break in the monotony of their lives. The monastic
museum, which also contains a few snakes, preserved in spirits,
and a number of severely religious books, among the latter
all the ponderous tomes of Cornelius ^ Lapide.
A final touch and I am done. While walking with the
guest-master on the day of my departure among the waving
cornfields I came suddenly on the cemetery. It is as yet only
twelve feet square, for it contains only one grave, at the head
of which is. planted a wooden cross painted white and with a
low fence running around it. The cross bears the following in-
scription, the Christian name, surname, nationality, and age of the
deceased being omitted:
IHS
1
ARSENIUS
UOWNUS
SAtERDOS
R
I
p
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158
Magnificat.
[May,
(Qagnifigaif.
BY M. G. J. KINLOCH.
ND art thou faint and wearied with thy way,
Mother expectant of the Holy One ?
Now Juda's vine-clad mountain heights] are
won,
And the last glories of the orient day
Kiss thy pale face with reverent, soothing ray;
O moon, whose light is borrow'd from the sun 1
Fear not, the journey long well-nigh is won.
And thou shalt rest, while lips beloved shall say
The second Ave ; then, dear arms, enfold
The living shrine of God — on bended knee
The minstrel angels hush their harps of gold —
That they may learn Magnificat of thee ;
And soon the first notes of- thy song have rolled,
Whose echoes ripple o'er the Crystal Sea.
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1904.] A Glimpse of Old England. 159
A GLIMPSE OF OLD ENGLAND.
BY DUDLEY BAXTER.
|N the greatest of modern countries some account
of a recent tour in our common and historic
home-land may be of interest to Catholic kins-
men over the water. Almost every inch of our
seagirt isle has its storied memories across the
centuries — memories of special interest to us Catholics, for the
story of England is inseparably bound up ivith , that of Holy
Church, and scattered broadcast are the traces — magnificent
even in their fall — of that devout, and once most devoted union.
Starting from my brother's secluded home in Essex, I
travelled via Cambridge to Peterborough. The scenery was
typically English and very picturesque before reaching the flat
and dreary '' feci " land ; en route the train passed quite close
to the curious conical "Bartlow Hills," hundreds of years old
and probably dating from the days of our British ahcestors.
Each tumulus is surmounted by a single tree, and doubtless
contains hidden mines of buried treasures. Cambridge, which I
had visited a few months before, is now quite dominated by its
superb new Catholic church. The magnificent spire and lantern
tower form a charming group, while the interior is a vision of
beauty, " Ccelestis urbs Jerusalem,*' with its elaborate carvings,
groined vaulting, and beautiful glass.
As its name denotes, Peterborough affords a notable instance
of our forefathers' intense devotion to St. Peter and the Sacro-
sanct Roman Church. As far back as the middle of the seventh
century a Benedictine monastery was founded here by royal
Saxon converts ; the foundation-stone of the existing minster
was laid on March 8, 11 18. The work continued under suc-
cessive abbots, and finally received its consecration at the hands
of the famous Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, on
October 4, 1237.
Vast sums have recently been spent upon restoration, and
to-day Peterborough Cathedral is the most perfect Norman
church in all England. Its chief and unique glory, however, is
VOL. LXXIX.— XI ^ ,
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l6o A GLIMPSE OF OLD ENGLAND. [May,
that world renowned western fafade, with its three mighty
recessed portals of Early English date, still surmounted by an
ancient figure of Blessed Peter the Key- bearer.
In contrast to the grim severity of the nave's stone arcades,
its wooden roof is gaily painted with curious representations of
saints, kings, etc., in ** diamond " panels. Few cathedrals dis-
play the wondrous advance towards Rome made by the modern
Anglican Church more than this; the desolated choir has been
elaborately restored, with an exquisite series of carved stalls,
superb marble pavement, pulpit, throne, organ, etc., and a very
fine baldachino over the principal communion table. Amid all
this new furniture still stands the old brazen lectern, in the
form of an eagle, given to their beloved monastery by its
black- robed abbot and prior late in the fifteenth century. The
work is about to be completed by the erection of a massive
stone rood-screen, while the great west window in the nave
has just been filled with stained glass in memory of gallant
soldiers killed in South Africa,
So are the descendants of iconoclasts happily endeavoring
to repair the dreadful damage perpetrated in past days ; here,
in reality, more havoc was wrought under the Puritan Common-
wealth than at the Reformation — for example, alas ! the vanished
glass. Here, too, lies poor Queen Catharine of Aragon, of holy
and sad memory, whose life- story is so closely intermingled
with the schism under Henry VHI. ; an engraved marble slab
has recently been placed above her grave.
Another famous queen — hapless Marie Stuart — was tempo-
rarily buried at Peterborough ; there is an unrivalled series of
abbatial effigies, representing the Benedictine abbots of Peter-
borough vested in pontificalibus, as well as several Saxon incised
slabs (including the remarkable *' Monk's Stone ").
Beyond the Norman apse stands, in charming contrast, " the
New Building" — not new according to the New World! — but
built in A. D. 1438-1528, in the Perpendicular style. Its fan
tracery vaulting is very fine, and all around are exquisite carved
devices, such as crDwns, Tudor roses and portcullis, fleur-de-lys,
grotesque animals, etc. In the moulding over the entrance to
the south choir aisle are four sets of letters, denoting the
Omnis spiritus laudet Dominitm from the Psalter ; there were
once three altars here, the central one being our Blessed Lady's.
In Catholic days this was, of course, a great place of
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1904.] A GLIMPSE OF Old England. 161
pilgrimage, in honor of St. Peter; similar indulgences were to
be obtained, through Papal indult, as at Rome itself. The chief
relic here was the arm of St. Oswald, Saxon King of Northum-
bria, and his chapel in the north transept is being restored ; an
alabaster reredos has been presented, and above the altar has
actually been placed the ancient stone mensa, which sacrilegious
" reformers " purposely utilized as pavement. Terrible to relate,
its surface has been worn away by constant treadingSy but the
five crosses of its consecration can still be traced — all carved
together in the centre, an unusual circumstance.
Clustered around, in the cathedral close, are various pictur-
esque remnants of the Benedictine monastery ; several fine gate-
ways still remain, including the beautiful ** Prior's Door,"
erected in A. D. I520^carved with the triangular symbol of
the Holy Trinity, the arms of Kings St. Edward and St.
Edmund, and the Prince of Wales' feathers. The abbot's
house and the refectory are now merged into the Anglican
bishop's palace ; the ruins of the monastic infirmary looked
singularly charming wreathed with crimson '^ Virginia" creeper
(an American settler!) '
From Peterborough I travelled to Lincoln, but broke my
journey thither in order to see the ruins of Crowland Abbey,
near the former place. This meant a sharp walk of over eleven
miles from and back to the nearest railway station, along the
raised *' Welland Bank " and through the fens. Here the old
toll- houses still remain.
Crowland Abbey was also Benedictine and also founded in
Saxon days, by the glorious martyr-king, St. Edmund. Enough
is left of the great church to show how splendid it once was;
the elaborate west front is of various dates, and several Statues
still remain in their mutilated tiers — indeed, this fragment is
remarkably fine. The north aisle of the nave has been roofed
in and is used as a parish church ; here on an ancient parclose
screen are the symbols of St. Guthlac, the famous hermit of
Crowland. Now ''high and dry," in the village street, stands
the curious Abbot's Bridge, with triple archway and long
vanished stream ; but, — pardon, I had to " rush " Crowland in
American style, as my time was so limited.
Lincoln — the city set upon a hill and crowned by one of
the most majestic temples in the world — is a wonderful place ;
whe, privileged to have seen it, could ever forget that glorious
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1 62 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
vision with its three mighty towers? No cathedral in Europe,
save, perhaps, that of Laon in France, has such a site, and surely
none equals its exterior in sablime majesty.
The city itself dates from British days, and one of its
Roman gateways still exists; the cathedral was founded by its
first bishop, Remigius the Norman. Of this church, however,
only fragments remain, as it was destroyed by an appalling
earthquake in 1185.
Then appears upon the scene one of England's greatest
saints, the Carthusian monk, Hugh of Avalon in Burgundy;
forced, on account of his sanctity, to exchange the cloister for
this important bishopric of Lincoln, St. Hugh thereupon at
once commenced to build anew. Moreover, he was the first to
fully utilize the* pointed arch, and thus his original work here
marks an epoch in the history of Gothic ardhitecture. Lincoln's
matchless "Angel Choir" was built by him, with its strong
lines and delicate wealth of detail — indeed, the saint himself is
said to have been among the workmen. But only a portion of
the transepts was finished when St. Hugh passed to his eternal
reward on November 16, 1200, lying on a cross of ashes.
Afterwards the remainder was gradually built, especially under
the illustrious Bishop Grosseteste and that holy prelate, John
de Dalderby.
Now St. Hugh's angelic choir became the scene of his own
shrine ; on October 6, 1280, the venerated body was translated
thither in the presence of our first King Edward (who himself
assisted in carrying the feretory) and his beloved Queen Eleanor
(afterwards temporarily buried here), the Primate of All England,
many bishops and nobility, and a vast concourse of the faith-
ful. Ah! what a gorgeous scene it must have been — worthy
of Our Lady's Dowry. Future generations added to the
magnificent decorations of the shrine, until alas ! everything was
transferred to the abominable melting-pot of King Henry VIII.
As to its still more precious contents, nothing definite is now
known. When the tomb, in which St. Hugh's relics were
traditionally supposed to have been interred, was opened in
A. D. 1886, only fragments of vestments were founds
Despite the awful havoc wrought by sixteenth century
Reformation and seventeenth century Republicanism, Lincoln
Cathedral's interior is one of striking richness. Nearly all the
tombs have perished, but some of the painted glass remains.
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1904. J A Glimpse of Old England. 163
while the purity of architectural detail, the exquisite loveliness
of the truly angelic retro* choir, the splendid series of ancient
canopied stalls^ the double arcading of St. Hugh, the interest-
ing "Easter Sepulchre/' the graceful chapter-house with its
single central column, form a delightful ensemble. But the
exterior, with that unrivalled group of towers and perfection of
detail, is Lincoln's chief glory ; a very imposing view may be
obtained from beyond the ancient close gateway or from near
the historic castle. No visitor to this city should miss seeing
the famous " Jew's house " — one of the oldest even in England,
and of Norman date.
From Lincoln I journeyed via Doncaster to Selby, and
thence to York. Selby Abbey was yet another Benedictine
house, and its church is the only one in Yorkshire not a ruin.
The nave is grand Norman work, with a curious triforium,
while the choir is Gothic. After enduring centuries of utter
neglect and appalling vandalism, the old fane has been at length
restored to something of its former beauty ; but never again
can its past appearance be reproduced. Here at Selby. as at
Benedictine Peterborough, the abbey tithe- barn has "disap-
peared " in the last few years — actually pulled down for build-
ing purposes.
The northern metropoJis is well known, especially to
American tourists, and there are few more stately piles than
York Minster. St. Paulinus was its first archbishop, and after
having baptized King Edwin on Easter Day, A. D. 627, he
built a church upon this identical spot in honor of St. Peter ;
wholesale conversions followed, and the good missionary received
his pallium from Pope Honorius I. Then followed the desola-
tion oi pagan victories, eventually repaired by another of
England's many saints, that '' Ultramontane " St. Wilfrid.
The mighty minster of to-day dates chiefly from the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries. Here too there are triple towers and,
in addition, double transepts, while the sacred fabric is one of
the largest in Christendom. Fortunately the greater portion of
its ancient stained glass still illumines the interior ; that of the
'' Five Sisters " transept window is at least six centuries old.
An elaborate stone rood-screen separates the choir from the
nave and was erected in 1475-1505 ; its niches contain their
original statues of our English kings, from William the Con-
queror to the Venerable Henry VL I noticed that in one or
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1 64 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
two cases the sovereign is represented holding two sceptres —
usually the orb and the sceptre — exactly as I had seen their
Majesties King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra, after their
coronation in Westminster Abbey — a sight magnificent beyond
description.
The choir is Perpendicular work, and very fine; its great
east window is one of the largest in existence, and still retains
its original glass. Happily, too, a splendid series of archiepis-
copal tombs also remain almost intact. How imposing the effigies
look, vested in their Gothic pontificals and the historic pallium !
In the nave, exactly under a boss of the vaulting repre-
senting the Madonna, now rest the holy relics of York's own
St. William (Prince and Archbishop, 1143-1154); they were
translated to a gorgeous shrine in the choir during the visit
of King Edward I. and his consort, in A. D. 1284. Hither to-day
come, now and then, many a Catholic pilgrim, to kneel in
silent prayer, while once a year there is a public pilgrimage of
several hundreds.
The chapter-house is a superb octagonal structure, without
any column, also adorned with old glass and magnificent
arcading ; the carving of foliage and heads is quite wonderful,
especially in the canopies over the range of seats. Well does
this gem merit its proud inscription — *' Ut Rosa flos florum,
sic est Domus ista Domorum " ; it is reached by an exquisite
vestibule.
Underneath the choir is a large Norman crypt, and, still
more interesting, a portion of St. Wilfrid's Saxon church. The
ancient choir-stalls were alas ! destroyed in the fire lighted by
a maniac in 1829, and their present reproductions are a sorry
substitute. The vestry contains the famous ivory horn — made
out of an elephant's tusk by Byzantine artists — given just
before the Norman Conquest to the minster; also the wooden
Mazer-bowl, or Indulgence cup, of the ill-fated Archbishop
Scrope (i 398-1405), together with chalices, rings, etc., taken
from archiepiscopal tombs. Here, too, is an object of intense
interest to Catholics, viz., the splendid silver pastoral staff,
plundered from the Vicar-Apostolic, Dr. James Smyth, during
the reign of James II., and given to him by Charles the
Second's Queen. Apparently, if deprivation had not ended
his plans, this Catholic sovereign had intended to create Smyth
Archbishop of York and restore the old religion there.
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1904.] A Glimpse of Old England. 165
An infant son of Edward III. is here interred ; this mon-
arch was married in the minster, which often saw a royal wor-
shipper; thus, poor Charles I. was very fond of York.
The old city is full of interest : the famous walls, the pic-
turesque ruins of St. Mary's Benedictine Abbey, the unique
series of "Bars," or gateways, the multi-gabled "Shambles" —
all contribute to the tourist's enjoyment. Moreover, to Catho-
lic visitors there is another object of unique interest: this is
the historic " Bar Convent," the oldest convent in Great
Britain. It was founded during the penal days, as far back as
A. D. 1686, and despite various persecutions, here the sanc-
tuary lamp has glimmered ever since. This is the mother-
house of the Institute of St. Mary, now flourishing in many
lands, of which a saintly Englishwoman — Dame Mary Ward —
was the founder; under the iniquitous penal code, the good
sisters were obliged to adopt ordinary attire and the establish^
ment was known only as a school.
The chapel is hidden away in the midst of the. building
and contains a priest's hiding-place under the floor. Here is
preserved the hand of Venerable Margaret Clitheroe, "the
Pearl of York," who suffered martyrdom by the frightful agony
of being slowly "pressed" to death in A. D. 1586. Close by
is the Micklegate Bar, several centuries old, and we may note
that the Archangel St. Michael has more than once miracu-
lously preserved this community in times of persecution.
Not far away, too, is the site of the York Tyburn, where
so many a glorious English martyr was barbarously butchered
alive for the ancient Faith during the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries. In York Castle numerous Catholic confessors
spent years of miserable imprisonment, and here, under Eliza-
beth, the Blessed Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland,
passed to his eternal reward.
I stayed at the quaint old " Windmill Hotel," almost oppo-
site the Bar Convent, of which intendinp^ tourists may be glad
to know; also I should like to recommend the excellent little
" Caledonian Hotel " at Lincdn.
From York I travelled via Durham to the magnificent
Catholic Seminary and College at Ushaw, founded over a hun-
dred years ago and, through Douai, an heir of Catholic Oxford.
This stately pile now shelters about three hundred persons;
mostly boys, of course. There is a large staff of professors.
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1 66 A Glimpse of Old England, [May,
all clerics, and more than half the students are future
priests.
Here resides the aged Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle,
Mgr. Wilkinson — truly the " grand old man " of our English
Hierarchy. His lordship is over eighty years old, and was
ordained more than half a century ago. He is a convert him-
self, and was once a member of Dr. Fusey's staff at Leeds.
The good bishop enjoyed the friendship of Cardinals New-
man, Wiseman, and many other famous men ; very interesting
was it to hear his reminiscences of the past and of the changes
witnessed in his lifetime. It would be difficult to imagine a
more dear and charming old gentleman; despite a recent, seri-
ous illness, his lordship came down to breakfast each morning
with the professors, and, despite medical orders to the con-
trary, insists upon pontificating on great festivals. Every
evening after dinner he would take me to Rosary and Bene-
diction in the Junior boys' chapel, and there humbly knelt
among them all. His kind courtesy and ready wit render this
venerable prelate the most delightful of hosts.
Ushaw is a bewildering mass of quadrangles, corridors,
halls, etc. ; the collegiate chapel itself is a splendid structure
in the ancient style. First of all there is the ante-chapel, with
its massive stone rood-screen, all painted and gilded, but with-
out any rood at present ! On either side are altars, and there
is also an exquisite Lady chapel adjacent. Beyond the screen
stretches the great church, with its ranges of carved oak choir-
stalls, elaborate reredos, and stained glass.
Ushaw is dedicated to Durham's St. Cuthbert, and here is
preserved the ring which was found inside his shrine at the
wretched Reformation; it is always worn by the bishop at
ordinations, as the heir of this renowned Benedictine prelate.
Although there are no other notable relics, the plate and vest-
ments are very fine; especially interesting is the magnificent
old chasuble which once belonged to the Royal Abbey of
Westminster. The latest addition is a massive chalice and
paten of solid gold, which Bishop Wilkinson himself presented
as some reparation for the blasphemous " Accession Declara-
tion" perforce uttered — to his Majesty's known and natural
dislike — by our new King Edward VH.
Then there are to be seen an interesting museum, a valua-
^^e library, a very large college hall adorned with valuable
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igo4.] A GLIMPSE OF Old England. 167
portraits; moreover, a visit to the wondrous kitchens should
not be omitted — the enormous ovens and so forth are like a
comfortable outside glimpse of Dante's Infernal
Historic Ushaw is the alma mater of an ever- increasing
array; numerous bishops, for instance, have been among its
alumni, and many hundred sons to-day turn with grateful
memories to their northern home. It stands magnificently,
with far-reaching views all round ; here and there fumes a
coal-mine, for this is the land of nascent fire. A short dis-
tance from the college the towers of Durham Cathedral become
visible — another glorious but alas! now desolated fane.
This was a cathedral priory belonging to our ancient and
unbroken English Congregation of the Benedictine Order, and
is one of the grandest examples of Norman work extant; the
view from the railway station is singularly imposing. Here
again are triple towers crowning a hill, together with a castle;
underneath runs the river with its wooded banks and its cluster
of roofs, encircled with smoke. At the time of my visit the
trees were all painted in Nature's autumn colors, and the fall-
ing leaves seemed to harmonize sadly well with the fallen
glory once so illuminant here — the departed ethereal beauty not
of this world.
Our great cathedral rose over the holy body of St. Cuth-
bert, which nearly three centuries after his death was brought
for safety to Durham in A. D. 997. The foundation-stone of
the present building was laid on August 11, 1093, and the
work continued for two hundred years ; its central tower was
rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and from time to time both
additions and alterations were made, of course.
Entering through the fine north door, we here notice the
famous " sanctuary " knocker, representing a bronze grotesque
head, with a ring in its grinning mouth : every criminal was
safe for the time as soon as he had touched this. Inside, the
visitor is at once impressed by the massive grandeur and
devout simplicity of this Benedictine work in long past ages;
each alternate column of the nave is curiously incised with a
different spiral pattern.
To the west lies the renowned " Galilee " Lady chapel —
an almost unique building, constructed by Bishop Hugh Pudsey
about the year 11 75, and once among the most beautiful of
fanes. According to ancient tradition, St. Cuthbert was very
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1 68 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
averse to the fair sex even entering any church of his — what
would " la belle Americaine " have said ? — so the poor creatures
were not allowed beyond the Galilee Chapel's precincts. Here
rest under a simple stone slab the holy relics of St. Bede the
Venerable; St. Cuthbert's contemporary and our most illus-
trious Saxon writer, like him a Benedictine monk. St. Bede was
lately declared a Doctor of the Universal Church by the lamented
Pope Leo XIII., and well has he deserved this signal honor.
The vandalism of " reformers " and Puritans at Durham
was truly friightful. Shrines and tombs, glass and imagery,
have all been ruthlessly hdcked away. Here, however, still
reposes the dust of many a bishop, of countless monks and
clerics, or members of the old north-country families, such as
the Nevilles. Here was the pathetic scene of short-lived
restoration, when the Holy Sacrifice was again offered at its
high altar during the northern rising against the Elizabethan
religion in A. D. 1569.
But the chief centre of attraction is still the hallowed site
of St. Cuthbert's Shrine, once beyond the elaborate altar
screen. Oh! what a vision must have been displayed here
when this superb work of art stood intact. The exquisite *' Nine
Altars " Chapel, belonging to the Early English period, forms
the eastern extremity of the cathedral ; and in its centre an
immense raised platform is surmounted by the stone base of
the shrine. Certain smooth grooves here are said to have
been worn in the pavement by generations of pilgrims, who
included Kings William I., Henry III., Edward IL, and Henry
VI., among other famous personages.
The painful description of its sacrilegious destruction under
Henry VIII. is well known ; even the "reforming" crew were
frightened when, on hacking open the coffin itself, they found
St. Cuthbert's holy body actually incorrupt after nine centuries.
Its subsequent fate is a mystery. When the tomb underneath
was opened in 1827 a skeleton was found, which is supposed
by most Anglicans to have been the saint's; but an ancient
Catholic tradition maintains that the body was reinterred
elsewhere in Mary's reign by our forefathers. The exact spot
is still a secret, handed down among three members of this
identical Anglo-Benedictine Congregation which built Dur-
ham's Minster, and whose corporate continuity has happily
never been broken.
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1904.] A GLIMPSE OF Old England. 169
The shrine must have been one glittering mass of gold and
jewels, set in so perfect an architectural frame, and now — eheu !
desolation reigns supreme — its very form unknown. The beau-
tiful stone altar-screen was set up by a Lord Neville in 1380,
and once its numerous niches were all filled with statuettes,
over a hundred in number.
Just in front of the high altar's site is the enormous matrix
of an episcopal brass, probably one of the finest in the world,
but of course long since dissolved in the Tudor crucible. The
tomb of Bishop Hatfield (1345-1381) is very remarkable; the
monument with its recumbent efHgy is surmounted, through a
staircase, by the episcopal throne, which thus dominates the
entire choir. Opposite is the graceful marble tomb of Dr.
Lightfoot, the eminent Anglican Bishop of Durham, in whose
memory the destroyed chapter-house was rebuilt.
The monks' dormitory is now the chapter library, and here
one sees the wonderful wooden cof&n of Saxon workmanship
which for centuries contained St Cuthbert's body. It is now
in fragments and roughly carved with representations of our
Lord, the Madonna, etc.
In the adjacent rooms are many interesting treasures,
especially the vestments found inside this coffin in 1827, includ-
ing girdle, pectoral cross studded with garnets, and very
remarkable stole and maniple, the gift of a queen. Although
made in the tenth century, the gold and colors still glitter in
faded magnificence. The saints represented include Sts. Peter
and Sixtus, popes, and Sts. Peter and Lawrence, deacons of
Rome.
Durham's Castle was formerly the episcopal palace, for the
old bishops were counts-palatine, and possessed immense terri-
torial power. Here one sees the splendid hall, adorned with
pictures, built by the Patriarch Bek and Bishop Hatfield ; a
superb oaken staircase, black with age, the work of Dr. Cosin
(1660-1672); the confessor Bishop Tunstall's Renaissance
chapel (1530-1558), charming galleries and interesting rooms;
above all, the perfect Norman chapel down in the crypt, liter-
ally mellowed with age. Close adjacent is the modern univer-
sity, and a glimpse of several lady undergraduates rushing
across the green in their mortarboards reminded me that St.
Cuthbert's Durham is decidedly a thing of the past!
Travelling via Darlington, with its ancient parish church.
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I70 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
and past the battlefield of Northallerton, my next halting-place
was the Benedictine Abbey of Ampleforth, in Yorkshire. What
a joy to find a " living " monastery instead of the usual ruined
" corpse " I Moreover, this house by an unbroken chain is the
heir of Westminster Abbey itself, and has recently been given
a mitred abbot by Rome in the prepossessing person of Dom
Oswald Smith, O.S.B. The abbey is very picturesquely situ-
ated, overlooking a charming and typical English vale; its
'* Decorated " minster, though incomplete, is of striking beauty.
The unique stone rood-screen with parclose screens surrounding
the various chapels form a notable feature of its interior; the
plate includes probably the most splendid monstrance in Eng-
land. This monastery has just celebrated the centenary of its
foundation, on its return from exile abroad, and the quaint
original fabric is still standing amid subsequent fine additions.
Recently another new wing has been added, with a lofty cale-
factory, library, etc. There is a large college, where about
one hundred boys are being educated. Instead of forming
a quadrangle the cloisters here consist of one very long gal-
lery.
On All Saints' Day the abbot pontificated in gorgeous
Gothic vestments at the High Mass, which was celebrated with
all the liturgical splendor traditionally cultivated by the Order
of St. Benedict. There was a solemn dirge and abbatial High
Mass of Requiem on All Souls' Day. The chanting of the
Dies IrcB was very impressive, and these hooded and cowled
^' black monks " in their miserere stalls quite recalled bygone
Ages of Faith.
Not far off stands all that is left of Byland Abbey — once a
great Cistercian house, with a church of cathedral proportions.
Happily the large stone mensa, which probably formed its high
altar, is now in Ampleforth Minster — having been discovered
years ago, dreadful to relate, in a pigsty near the ruins of
Byland. Five miles away is the far more beautiful ruin of
Rievaulx — another Cistercian abbey — one of the most lovely
scenes in all England.
Thence the train transports one through a charming coun-
try to Malton, a curious, rambling sort of place. The parish
church was once the nave of a Gilbertine Priory, and still
boasts two western towers; but the central tower, together
with the choir itself, has perished. This was the only religious
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1904.] A GLIMPSE OF OLD ENGLAND. 171
order founded by an Englishman before the Reformation, and,
after an attempted revival, is now unhappily extinct.
After spending a few hours at Malton, I travelled on to
Beverley — an old city of surpassing interest and consecrated to
the memory of its own St. John. He was at first Bishop of
Hexham and founded a monastery here about the year 700.
Soon afterwards our Benedictine saint became Bishop of York,
but in A. D. 718 resigned this office; thereupon he withdrew,
into retirement to his foundation at Beverley, where the venera-
ble prelate died on May 7, 721,
St. John was canonized by Pope Benedict XL in A. D.
1037, and his holy relics were then translated to a magnificent
shrine in the minster here. He soon became one of England's
most popular saints — hence the old rhythm:
" Come ye from the east, or come ye from the west.
Or bring relics from over the sea ?
Or come ye from the shrine of St. James the Divine,
Or St. John of Beverley?".
Beverley afterwards was converted into a collegiate church
of secular canons. The existing fabric, with its rare symmetry
of style, dates from the thirteenth century, but was not com-
pleted until Perpendicular days. It seems to have fared much
better than most of our great churches, and is quite a vision of
beauty, although in reality only " a beautiful skeleton " to-day ;
nowhere can be seen more exquisite carving — positively mar-
vellous and perhaps matchless. The capitals, the arcading, the
canopies are all varied designs in stone, with a wondrous series
of " grotesques," representing verily " all sorts and conditions
of men," animals, etc.
In the choir rises the famous "Percy Shrine," or tomb of
Lady Percy of Alnwick, who died in A. D. 1328. Its mar-
vellously carved stone canopy is probably the finest thing of
its kind in Europe. Even the tiny statuettes are perfect in
every detail. I may add that one of the angels' heads was
broken off by some unpleasant tourist and translated to
America! After remaining there for twenty-eight years, mira-
bile dictUy it was happily returned and restored 1
Then there is an unrivaUed series of ancient wooden choir-
stalls — ^sixty-eight in number, ranged in two rows on either
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172 A GLIMPSE OF Old England. [May,
side of the choir; forty-two are canopied, and every "miserere"
seat is carved with a different design, usually grotesque. How
our mediaeval ancestors rejoiced in these quaint pictures, such as
a fox in a friar's habit with a rosary between his paws preach-
ing to a congregation of geese I or a very early representation
of " Hey ! diddle diddle ! the cat and the fiddle " ! for it was
truly a " merrie Ynglonde " in those days — merry because
Catholic to the core.
Near the north-east transept stands the ancient " frith-
stool/* or sanctuary chair, hundreds of years old — seated in
which malefactors were safe for a time. Close by an exquisite
staircase with marble shafts led to the destroyed chapter- house.
The great east window is filled with old glass, like a casket of
jewels, but alas! the remainder has all been smashed.
Outside there are two graceful towers, with famous bells, a
charming west front, and lovely porches ; but the central tower^
as at Westminster, has never been built. Nearly all the niches
have lately been refilled with statues; some of these are fear-
ful examples of modern "art" — e, £., the ridiculous dumpy
statue of King Edward VH., which would assuredly cause that
jovial monarch a hearty laugh if his majesty were to see it !
Above all, Beverley Minster still contains the precious trea-
sure over which it rose, viz., the holy relics of its own St,
John himself, patron of the deaf and dumb. In the year 1664,
upon opening a grave near the site of his destroyed shrine, a
square stone vault was discovered, upon which there was a
leaden plate engraved with a Latin inscription proving the
fact beyond doubt. Fragments of bone, sweet-scented dust,
and rosary beads were found inside, together with a knife —
probably the identical one left as a pledge by the great Saxon
King Athelstan, the minster's foundei. Everything, save a
seal, was reinterred almost in the middle of the nave, and in
1736 these relics were once more identified. So here, Sunday
by Sunday, the Protestant congregation unwittingly profane the
sacred treasure, once so gloriously enshrined, by treading upon
it; but as at York, ever and anon there can be seen a Catho-
lic pilgrim as of old. May the happy day eventually dawn
when St. John's relics — so providentially preserved — may yet
again be translated to a fitting shrine; when Beverley will
profess the dear old faith of its forbears once more I
In bygone times many illustrious ecclesiastics held the
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1904.] A Glimpse of Old England. 173
office of provost here, including the glorious martyr, St. Thomas
a Becket, and hither amid the crowds of pilgrims came several
of . our sovereigns. Edward I. visited Beverley twice — the
second time being accompanied by his queen and the first
Prince of Wales. The latter, when King Edward II., came
again soon after his coronation. Henry IV. was here twice, and
our great warrior. King Henry V. — a truly royal "jingo"! —
was a most devoted client of St. John. The victory of Agin-
court occurred on the feast of his translation and was conse-
quently attributed to the saint's intercession, especially as oil
miraculously flowed from his tomb meanwhile. Thereupon
Henry V. came on a pilgrimage to the shrine in 1420; the
holy King Henry VI. was also here in 1448, while other royal
visitors have since appeared, including Charles I.
Close by the minster are the remains of a Dominican
priory — now cottages — and the house in . which probably the
blessed martyr, John Cardinal Fisher of Rochester, was born.
There are many ancient buildings, a quaint Georgian market-
cross, an old gateway, and similar interesting fragments.
Beverley's other great attraction, almost the minster's rival,
is the magnificent church of St. Mary ; few towns — none of its
size in England — possess two such splendid edifices. Its west
front dates from the reign of Edward III., but the building is
mainly Perpendicular, with a fine central tower. The carving
throughout is here again quite wonderful, especially the intri-
cate bosses of the roofs and the diversified capitals or corbels.
It is touching to note how the nave was built by individual
families and parochial guilds: thus, a Mr. and Mrs. Croslay
erected certain pillars, and an inscription to that effect runs on
either side in Latin as well as English : '' Orate pro anima-
bus . . . Xlay and hys wyfe . . . " The celebrated
Minstrel's pillar has a curious capital, carved with unique
figures ol its donors — the guild of minstrels — including a piper,
lute-player, drummers, violinist, and harpist! The font, set up
as late as 1530, bears the following inscription: *'Fray for the
soules of Wyllm Ferefaxe, Draper, and his wyve's, which made
thys font of his* pper costes. . . . '/ It must have been
superb once, with its great marble bowl, but has been shock-
ingly mutilated by " reformers."
The wooden choir ceiling is very interesting, being painted
with about forty portraits of English kings, down to Edward IV.,
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174 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
in whose reign it was executed; there are fine remains of the
rood-screen and the misericorde stalls. The stone groining of the
north choir aisle is remarkable ; up above are priests' chambers,
where inay be seen many a curiosity — such as the ducking-
stool, in which refractory ladies were ruthlessly "ducked" in
cold water during the good days of old I
A few miles from Beverley lies the great seaport of Hull.
Its parish church of the Holy Trinity is the largest in England
and a very fine edifice indeed, with superb proportions and some
remarkable modern glass. The Catholic church of St. Charks
Borromeo is a striking edifice in rich Renaissance style.
From here I crossed the Humber by a ferry steamer, and
thence travelled to Louth in Lincolnshire, via " fishy " " Grimsby-
the-Great " ! The tapering spire of St. James' Church at Louth
is one of the most beautiful that rise heavenwards and well
repays a halt here; the steeple is 294 feet high and unsur-
passed for beauty of outline. The fabric dates chiefly from the
fifteenth century and took quite a hundred years to build ; the
spire itself was finished in A. D. 15 15. It is interesting to note
that the famous "Pilgrimage of Grace" commenced here; but
alas ! the result was dire failure. The good vicar of Louth
was among those subsequently executed — in reality martyred
for the ancient Faith.
Thence I journeyed to Boston — a place of great interest to
Americans, as your mighty city in the States is its name-
sake. The fame of " Boston Stump," viz., the slender lantern
tower of its parish church dedicated to St. Botulph, is wide-
spread. It was commenced in A. D. 1309, and is nearly three
hundred feet in height. Exactly three hundred and sixty- five
steps are said to lead to its summit, whence a weird panorama
of fenland and gleaming dikes can be obtained, with the Wash
— in which King John lost his clothes! — to the east. This su-
perb tower forms a landmark for miles to the mariner; it is
four stories high and surmounted by a stone lantern with fly-
ing buttresses. The church itself is of the same length as the
tower is high, and is one of the largest in this island ; while
the steps up this tower correspond in number with the days of
each year, the fifty-two weeks are each represented by a win-
dow — now alas ! despoiled of their painted glass, with fatal result.
The span of Boston's nave is very large, with its fourteen
bays, and when the interior gleamed with its original exirich-
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I904.1 A GLIMPSE OF OLD ENGLAND. 1 75
ments the scene must have been indeed grand on chief fes-
tivals.
Countless brasses once adorned the pavement, but only a
few remain ; notably the " Peascod " brass — set up to a mer-
chant of that name and ornamented with punning pods of peas !
In the choir a magnificent series of " miserere " stalls may be
seen — among the finest in England — and there is an old Eliza-
bethan pulpit.
Now, a Boston man was one of the founders dl your great
American city, and a former vicar of Boston, who often occu-
pied this very pulpit — the ReV. John Cotton — afterwards emi-
grated to America in A. D. 1633, thereby materially assisting the
new English settlement. So, when this famous church was re-
stored, not long ago, many good citizens of American Boston
contributed liberally to the fund. The stone vaulting of the
tower (inside) was then and thereby completed according to the
original design. Ay, despite past misunderstandings, is not blood
thicker than water ? How invigorating to think of this racial
union of our two great nations, especially concerning their
future destiny in the Church Militant!
On my way to Ely, being a quite indefatigable sightseer, I
again, halted — ^this time for an hour at. Spalding, where an in-
teresting old parish church exhibits various styles of architec-
ture. It is in " High- Church" hands now, and in the Lady
chapel an Anglican altar has been placed, of most ridiculous
dimensions — about a yard in length !
The historic Isle of Ely owes its fame to that holy virgin,
St Ethelreda, daughter of the Saxon King Anna and after-
wards queen of Northumbria; she eventually became a
Benedictine nun and abbess, as well as foundress of this illus-
trious convent. Ely Isle was also the scene of the last great
Saxon stand against the Norman Conqueror, led by Hereward
the Wake. The nave and transepts of its glorious cathedral date
from Norman days, while the choir is mainly thirteenth- century
work.
On September 17, 1252, the whole building was solemnly
consecrated in the presence of King Henry III., with whom was
Prince Edward of Wales ; the holy body of St. Ethelreda was
then also translated to a resplendent shrine in the new choir.
Barely a hundred years afterwards the great central tower fell,
and afforded a golden opportunity to Dom Alan de Walsing-
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176 A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
ham, the talented sacrist, afterwards Prior of Ely. He now con-
ceived the idea of rebuilding this portion of the fabric in the
august form of that matchless octagon which still stands with-
out a rival in the architectural world. Moreover, Dom Alan
also built the exquisite Lady chapel, which was finished in
A. D. 1349.
Of late years over ;^70,ooo has been spent in restoring the
devastations of iconoclast and " Father Time," with the result
that Ely's interior is perhaps the most beautiful in all England.
The nave is unusually lofty, being more like a French cathedral,
and the view through the superb " Galilee " porch at the west
end once seen could never be forgotten.
Externally the building, with its massive western tower and
immense stretch of roof, situated as it is on a hill, dominates
everything around with majestic splendor. Inside it is a vista
of varied loveliness throughout, and even now — though despoiled
and desecrated — a dream of beauty.
This Norman nave, with its painted ceiling and severe sjm-
metry, leads through the wondrous octagon to an elaborate
Gothic choir, with its delicate carving and other enrichments —
partly Early English and partly Decorated. The Lady chapel,
instead of being at the east end, stands detached to the north,
and was once one of this world's wonders. All round runs a
unique series of canopied tabernacle work, with the legendary
life of our Blessed Lady carved in each spandrel. Almost every
piece of foliage is different, and numerous brackets formerly held
statues, while the whole then glowed with color; the enormous
span of its stone vaulting is very remarkable, and we may note
how the bosses all refer to the Madonna — displaying the An-
nunciation, the Assumption, and the Coronation, etc.
But here the destructive fury of Protestantism has been
awful; every single figure is headless and otherwise mutilated —
quite heartbreaking and quite irreparable. Gone is the painted
glass from those great glaring windows, gone the wondrous de-
tails of Catholic imagery, and — far worse — gone is "the Lady-
Mass" itself!
There is a splendid series of episcopal effigies, while the
chantry chapels are of unique magnificence — alas ! rather should
one say, they were so. For the same cruel hands have wrought
terrible havoc here as well. The chantry of Bishop Alcock,
erected in 1488, and before his death, is one mass of empty
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1904.] A GLIMPSE OF Old England. 177
niches and mutilated enrichments, with fan- tracery roof. This
prelate's rebus, a cock on a globe, is quaintly carved in stone
throughout; his recumbent effigy and fragments of the altar
remain.
The corresponding mortuary chapel of Bishop West, who
died on the very eve of the Reformation, is even more wonder-
ful with countless exquisite niches and elaborate Renaissance
panelling, but equally mutilated beyond repair. Traces of the
gilding and color can be discerned, and show what a gorgeous
scene it must have presented — for just a few years only.
The conventual buildings have here almost disappeared ;
the ruins of the infirmary are now picturesquely incorporated
with modem houses. The great gatehouse of our old abbey
remains intact, though built over five hundred years ago ; but the
refectory, etc., have all perished. That delightful gem, the Prior's
Chapel — ^now belonging to the King's School — was also the work
of Walsingham, and should by no means be missed.
A new Catholic church in honor of St. Ethelreda, whose
relics, no doubt, repose somewhere under the cathedral pavement,
has just been erected in her own city. Tourists had better note
that the " hotels " of Ely are wretched ; the writer stayed at
the Angel Inn near the station, and found it far from angelic !
Hence I travelled to Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk, once the
glorious scene of a Royal Martyr's shrine, embowered in the
stateliest of Benedictine abbeys. Nowhere has the " reforming"
devastation been more completely awful than here ; for a splendid
basilica, with even three attendant fanes, once soared amid a
bevy of quadrangles, cloisters, halls, and gateways. This church
was of cathedral size, with actually five towers and the largest
western front north of the Alps.
And now — ^alas ! all that remains are a few crumbling walls.
Terrible to relate, the august building was used as a quarry.
Grass covers the site of St. Edmund's magnificent shrine, and
an ugly tablet recalls the fact that here, through Cardinal
Langton of Canterbury, arose the Magna Charta, the origin of
our proud, our common, Anglo-Saxon freedom ; here therefore
sprang forth the germs of your great Republic.
St. Edmund himself was one of England's principal and
most popular saints. This glprious young king suffered for
Christ at Danish hands in A. D. 870— /r^ Deo et patria — being
cruelly scourged and then slowly transfixed with arrows. His
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178 A GLIMPSE OF OLD ENGLAND. [May,
emblem is very appropriately three crowns — the triple tiara of
martyrdom, virginity, and sovereignty.
To Bury his holy body was finally brought in A, D. 1013,
and we have indisputable evidence that it was there still incor-
rupt in the year 1198. After this date there is a significant
silence, and it is supposed that the greater part of St. Edmund's
sacred relics were conveyed by stealth to Toulouse, in France,
early in the thirteenth century. Here they remained until three
years ago, when the late Cardinal Vaughan obtained them (at
the writer's humble suggestion) for Catholic England once more,
through Pope Leo XIII. himself.
However, unfortunately grave criticisms have since been
raised against their authenticity, though no proof positive has
been produced and the cumulative evidence in favor of the
Toulouse tradition is exceedingly strong. Many leading Catho-
lics still believe these relics — at present reposing in the private
chapel of Arundel Castle — are in reality none other than St.
Edmund's priceless bones, and trust that they will eventually
be placed in the splendid new cathedral of royal Westminster.
Here, to his own St. Edmundsbury, came countless thousands
as pilgrims — rich and poor, king and peasant; here many a
wondrous scene was presented, especially on the martyr's
anniversary each year, within those hallowed walls. From the
days of the abbey's royal founder. King Canute — himself a
Danish convert and the first-fruits of the saint's martyrdom —
nearly each successive English sovereign came to Bury. St.
Edward the Confessor and King Henry VI. were specially
devoted clients of St. Edmund; the latter spent Christmastide
here in A. D. 1433.
The massive abbey gatehouse alone remains intact, while
most of the site is now a public garden; the recent excava-
tions had just been commenced, and it was most fascinating to
watch the work in, progress. The foundations of the chapter-
house were being laid bare; every now and then the workmen
would unearth some fragment of glazed tile or stained glass,
etc. Everything was carefully sifted first, and then these frag-
ments were all conveyed to an adjacent " strong room." The
glaze on the encaustic tiles was remarkably brilliant, and under-
neath this mutilated pavement were afterwards discovered the
tombs of several abbots, including that of the minster's builder,
the famous Dom Sampson. The crypt is supposed to rest
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1904.] A GLIMPSE OF Old England. 179
intact under a private lawn, and great anticipations were
raised of possible discoveries there; unfortunately, the project
of excavating this has had to be abandoned. Oh 1 how unutter-
ably sad to realize all this hideous havoc — truly the very
"abomination of desolation.''
The adjacent parish churches of St. Mary and St. James
still remain, and have been well restored ; the former possesses
the most superb of timber roofs. Angels, as it were, support
the corbels, and above are rows of saints, including the Blessed
Edmund himself; in this church lies the last abbot, who died
of a broken heart upon the dissolution of his wondrous abbey,
— poor man ! think what he must have suffered and what he
must have seen.
Bury St. Edmund's stands in a charming part of old Eng-
land, and many a stately mansion is situated around. On my
final journey home I halted twice — first at the village of
Taverham. This boasts a magnificent church, enormous in
comparison with the village, with one of the grandest towers
even in England. . The exterior is, as usual in Suffolk churches,
elaborately faced with patterns in fiint, including Latin in-
scriptions, sacred monograms, and armorial bearings of bene-
factors. Inside, the ornamentation must have been very fine:
minute fragments of stained glass and some miserere stalls, old
brasses, and another carved roof remain, while the fabric itself
is exquisitely proportioned. These mediaeval brasses are very
noticeable, especially one of an infant (an only son, with
pathetic inscription), quaintly set crooked, in its grave-clothes,
and another of an entire family arising naked from their
shrouds. There is also a curious seventeenth century monu-
ment to a Protestant rector " by ye space of 45 years," who
is denoted "painefulle and vigillant."
In the old market-place stand the stone 6ase and pedestal
of the village cross; close by is a fine old timbered "guild"
house, with picturesque gables, but rather in a state of col-
lapse. At the inn where I lunched, a crown and other royal
emblems are still visible under the plaster, and from their
Tudor form I think it very possible that Henry VI. stayed
here en route to Bury. In a cottage I saw a woman making
horsehair seats at an old-fashioned loom. The process re-
minded one somewhat of an organist!
Then I journeyed on to Long Melford, another village with
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i8o A Glimpse of Old England. [May,
a huge church, thus called from its one long and straggling
street. This edifice is of extr/^ordinary intjerest and^great beauty ;
its windows, once blazing with color, are purposely so closely
framed that the church almost resembles a lantern. Several of
them actually still contain their original glass of surpassing
beauty. The east window displays the Madonna and various
saints, including St. Edmund, as well as representations of the
donors — '• Mr. Justices " — in their mazarine gowns. The two
others which remain intact are those of St. Michael and St.
Gabriel — full of angelic figures, and underneath, again, the donors
(then alive, as proved by the inscription, Orate pro bono statu).
The ladies wear those long "candle- extinguisher" headdresses,
once the very latest fashion in female attire. Though a kaleido-
scopic mass of every color, the effect of these windows is at
once refined and gorgeous; imagine, then, this church when
every window was alike !
There are some elaborate tombs and more brasses, but Mel-
ford's most precious gem is its unique Lady chapel. This stands
semi-detached beyond the sanctuary and is not visible from the
church. It is an exquisite stone structure, with an inner shell
forming a veritable shrine, or capella, surrounded by an ambu-
latory. There is said to be only one other building like it in
Europe. Outside, touching invocations for the founders' and
benefactors' souls are carved all along the battlements in flint —
" pray for ye soule of . . . pray for ye soule of . . ." —
an eloquent testimony to the faith of our fathers who built this
famous church.
Here one has a typical glimpse of our dear old England :
the village green surrounded by its towering trees, all aglow
with autumn tints; this grand parish church ; the gabled Jacobean
Hall (ancestral seat of the Parkers), and the Elizabethan alms-
houses — a scene calculated to inspire any painter or poet.
Passing through Sudbury, with its three fine churches and
splendid " timbered " houses, and along the delightful banks of
the river Stour, I at length alighted at our station once more
and thence drove " home, sweet home " — after an enchanting
fortnight of pilgrimage, a ramble through this historic Isle of
Saints.
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1904.] The Mystery of the White Thorn. 181
THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE THORN.
BY SHIELA MAHON.
[HE Hill of the Caves looked lonely in the sun-
shine; the gray, rugged rocks that crowned its
summit seemed more melancholy by contrast.
By an odd freak of nature these rocks bore a
striking resemblance to the face of the great
Corsican general who once held Europe in his grasp. This
grim profile lying on Irish soil, with shamrocks growing round
it, and Irish breezes whispering a requiem, lookecl like a wraith
of the mighty dead. In winter this effect was heightened when
the rain and mist enveloped it with ghostly shadows, and the
wind howled in anguish, as if keening for the souls of the
soldiers lost in battle.
The view from this lonely hill was very beautiful; a blue
lough divided it from a sister hill, a veritable Land of Promise
with its golden cornfields and rivulets shimmering in the sun-
light. The only blot on the horizen was the smoke of a great
city, with its countless chimneys belching up volumes of black-
ness that writhed and twisted like serpents in their upward
ascent.
Halfway up the hill was a plantation of young firs, where
the birds nestled contentedly, and the hum of winged things
filled the air like the fairy strains of an xolian harp. In the
cool shadow of the wood, midst the soft heather, lay two
children. They were city children, gutter- sparrows who had
walked a long way from their home to enjoy the happiness of
breathing God's pure air and radiant sunshine on the Hill of
the Caves. Both were wretchedly clad; the girl's dress was of
the poorest description, viz., a winsey skirt too short by far
for the childish limbs, which showed painfully thin; a "black
jacket evidently made for some one very much older; the
sleeves baggy and half covering the hands; a pair of boots
laboring under the same defect, and a battered hat completed
her outfit. But her face, as seen through the grime that over-
shadowed it like a veil, was pretty and shining with happiness.
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1 82 The Mystery of the White Thorn. [May,
The boy might have been described as a bundle of rags,
with a white, pinched-looking little face, and sharp gray eyes,
and an old-man air about him sadly at variance with his years,
which could not have numbered more than twelve ; he too
looked happy.
The girl carried a basket at which she often glanced with a
proud air of proprietorship, peeping into to it now and again
to satisfy herself as to the safety of its contents. Both children
lay stretched upon the grass in the silence of absolute content-
ment — a silence more expressive than speech. Overhead a lark
sang wildly; the girl listened, ecstasy written on her face.
" I wish, Ann Jane, wot I could catch it," said the boy,
his eyes following the little quivering thing soaring in the
clouds.
A look of absolute horror crossed the girl's face, '' I 'm
glad you can't, Jim," she said briefly, with a sudden snap of
her lips. "Wot you want to kill things for, beats me."
''I don't want to kill it," said the boy in an aggrieved
tone. " I would make a wooden cage for it, the same as Jack
Ryan's, and it would sing all day in the lane; and he couldn't
crow over us any longer with his yellow canary."
" I say, Jim, is n't this heavenly ? " said the girl, her spark-
ling eyes raised towards the sky, where great fleecy clouds
chased each other across the horizon.
"Purty jolly," said the boy absently; "but I wish, I wish I
could catch a rabbit. It would make a tasty supper for mother
with biled onions. Do you remember last year, Ann Jane, when
the nob gave us one for our Christmas dinner? I smell the
onions yet." He sniffed the air appreciatively.
"Yes," answered the girl thoughtfully; "but I don't like
the killing business; it's a pity we can't live without eating."
Jim, without a word, suddenly shifted his position. " Hist ! "
he cried in a warning whisper; and his hand grasped for a
stone.
"Don't, Jim, don't!" cried the girl imploringly; she laid a
restraining hand on his arm as a pretty white rabbit scudded
noiselessly across the heather, its ears cocked with fright as it
perceived the two figures sitting so quietly in the cool green
shadow.
" You 're a fool, Ann Jane ; only for you cotching me it
was a deader, and mother would have had a nice supper."
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1904.] THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE THORN. 1 83
A shadow passed over the girl's face. '- I don't think
mother would like you to kill it/' she said earnestly ; '' she's
like me, she hates to look at dead things. Besides, if you
were caught, you would be ridin' in Black Maria to-night, and
that would break her heart."
"Well," said the boy flippantly, "I wouldn't be the first
gent wot rode in his carriage and pair."
A tear trickled down the girl's face. "Jim, yer a brute,"
she said ; " an' I thought we was goin' to have a lovely
time."
A dull red mantled the pinched- looking, old- mannish face.
" Chuck yer crying," he said hoarsely ; " you was alius as soft
as butter. Do you mind the day I brought the kitten home to
you," he added, adroitly changing the conversation.
"Who was the softy then ?" she inquired, her eyes brighten-
ing. " I alius knew you was n't as rough as you purtends.
What a whacking you gave that coward, Tim Murphy, for
stoning it."
" Yes," said Jim modestly, " I did give him a lickin' ; man,
how he squirmed!" Both children laughed at the recollection
and peace was restored.
" Jim," said the girl in a mincing voice, " do you think it
is time for lunch ? " She slowly lifted the lid of the basket,
disclosing two oranges peeping from a torn newspaper.
The boy looked at her in astonishment. "Stop yer gam-
mon," he said ; then the humor of the situation seemed to
strike him, and he rolled over on the heather in an ecstasy of
mirth. " Ann Jane," he said, " you '11 be the death of me yet
with yer quality ways. Chuck out the things, an' I '11 polish
'em off; but perhaps," he added, falling in with her humor,
"it's better to wait until ye spread the tablecloth."
The girl nodded gravely, and proceeded to smooth out the
crumpled newspaper and place it on the heather. Then she
took out the oranges and set them in company with two large,
albeit stale-looking buns ; three sticks of candy, the third of
which she broke evenly in two; this, along with some black
dillisk and whelks, and pink lozenges of the kind known as
conversational, she spread carefully on her make-believe cloth.
With an air of mystery she undid the cord of a brown paper
parcel and disclosed a penny bottle of lemonade. ''Chim-
pagne," she whispered ecstatically; "where is the ice^ Jim?"
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l84 THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE THORN. [May,
''In the cellar/' answered Jim promptly. "Shall I send
. the footman for it?"
" No, we '11 *ave to make it do. I 'm afraid I shall 'ave to
dismiss John, he's getting so careless. It's hard to get good
servants nowadays." She affected an air of languor ludicrously
life-like.
"Ann Jane, you would make a good play-actor," said the
boy admiringly.
"That's wot I intend to be," said the girl calmly. "Susan
Cassidy is going to get me into the Pantomime next year."
" Gammon," said the boy scornfully, as he sucked his
orange. "I heard mother say that she was going to put you
in as a half-timer in the mill."
" I '11 never be a mill hand," said Ann Jane loftily ; " wot I
wants is to be a lady. An' that reminds me, Jim, we must
look for the fairy thorn ; if we find it, our fortunes is made.
I dreamed last night wot it grew just above the first cave,
though mother told me she alius heard that, it was in the
third." She looked thoughtfully up the hill, where, perched
dizzily amid the rocks, was an aperture that looked like the
mouth of a pit, so J^lack and sombre was it in the morning
sunshine.
" I 'm afraid that want will be your master," said the boy
callously. " It 's only old women's tales. Why," he added,
with the complete assurance of a man about town, "it's only
kids wot believe such rubbish. Do you think it would n't have
been picked up long ago ? "
The girl sighed. " It was mother told me the story. She
said wot the hill was full of treasures that the fairies have
buried. If it would be your luck to come across a fairy thorn,
all you would have to do was to commence an' dig under it,
and you would find dimmons an' jewels an' goold guineas.
An' you know yerself, Jim, you told me that the jography
said wot there was goold an' silver on the Hill of the Caves."
For a second Jim looked nonplussed. "Jography is all
lies," he answered boldly ; " they put things in them books
just for filling- up stuff; the man wot wrote them was at a
loss for something to say. I tell ye wot it is, Ann Jane," he
added with boyish brutality, " if ye don't get them notions out
of yer head in double quick time, people will say wot yer
cracked."
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1904.] The Mystery of the White Thorn. 185
Ann Jane's lip quivered. Her poor half^starved soul could
not relinquish lightly her belief in the wonderful story about
the treasure. It was the one ray of sunlight in the short his-
tory of her sordid life. Brought up in the squalor of a lane^
with everything unlovely about her, except the one glimpse of
green hill that towered above the wretched dwellings, and the
gray, still face on its summit that seemed to keep guard over
the city, she had little or nothing to feed her too vivid imagi-
nation. Her mother's story about the treasure was as. fuel to
the fire; the child never tired listening to it, and if her
mother wanted anything specially done, she had only to prom-
ise to repeat the story to get it accomplished. As she grew
older it seemed to have more and more fascination for her.
When the other children were playing hop-scotch and other
childish games, Ann Jane would quietly seat herself outside
the door and gaze on that wonderful glimpse of hill with its
background of blue sky, and God knows what thoughts passed
through the childish brain as she gazed at her little glimpse of
Paradise. Her one ambition was to climb the hill and find the
fairy thorn, — seemingly not an impossible achievement; but in
the lives of the hard-worked poor there is little time for even
simple pleasures. Ann Jane's mother had none to spare for
such vagaries. When she came home in the evenings she was
more in the notion of a rest, and, must I say it, her little
draw of a pipe, than climbing a hill. Even on Sundays — the
poor people's holiday — she would prefer shanaching outside
the evil-smelling lane with some of the neighbors, than all the
delights of a day in the country. So poor Ann Jane's desires
seemed little likely to be gratified. Later on she went to the
board school, and it was there, all unexpectedly, that she
acquired the means to accomplish her end. It was at the
school she also imbibed the fine- lady notions alluded to by
Jim. The teacher, a handsome lass, promoted from a country
district and fond of the chiffons of the town, used to array
herself in dazzling raiment, to the delight of the children, par-
ticularly of Ann Jane, who worshipped her with adoring eyes
and obeyed her slightest wish. The teacher, not displeased
with this open preferment, attached the girl more or less to
herself, and Ann Jane's glory was to run her messages, a smile
being sufficient reward. One day her mistress, delighted with
her aptitude in answering the inspector during the annual
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1 86 THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE THORN. [May,
examinations, presented her with a sixpence as a mark of her
pleasure. When the girl found herself the happy possessor of
this lordly sum her first thought was the realization of her
ambition. " I '11 get Jim to take me to the Hill of the Caves,"
and straightway asked him. And Jim, when he saw her the
heiress of such wealth, willingly agreed.
So Ann Jane, her eyes blazing with excitement, a red spot
burning on either cheek, followed by Jim, who, subdued by the
magnitude of the sum, had scarcely a word to say, went into
several little shops in the neighborhood to make her purchases.
It took them quite a time at the fruiterer's to decide between
the merits of oranges versus apples; but at last they agreed
on the former as being more juicy and taking longer to suck.
Outside the store window quite a crowd of the children of
the lane had assembled, the news of Ann Jane's good fortune
having spread like wildfire; and, green with jealousy, they
pressed their noses against the shop window watching wistfully
the movements of Ann Jane, who, perceiving this, assumed an
air of haughty indifference while waiting on the change. Jim
was fit to bust, as he afterwards graphically observed. '' My,
Ann Jane, you would have thought that you was a lady
with yer pocket full of money." Ann Jane tilted her grimy
nose a trifle higher,, and told him that he would never learn
" perliteness."
Thus it came to pass that Ann Jane attained her ambition.
As she lay on the soft grass, her mind throbbing with the one
idea — how to reach the cave without Jim knowing it, she saw
plainly that he would never countenance a proceeding which he
thought foolish — a bright idea struck her. "Jim!" she cried
suddenly, "let's have a game of Hide and Seek." Jim, no way
loath, complied ; soon the air rang with their merry laughter.
When it came Ann Jane's turn to hide she ran with the speed
of a hare towards a side of the mountain covered with tall
bracken ; diving down, she covered herself with the big green
fronds and waited with palpitating heart the denouement. In
the distance she could hear the merry halloo of Jim gradually
growing fainter and fainter, until finally it ceased.
After what seemed ages she ventured from her covert. Not
a sign of Jim. She gazed with her young, keen vision down
the zigzag path by which they had climbed up, and saw at the
extreme end of it a small blot on the horizon which she rightly
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1904.] THE Mystery of the White Thorn. 187
judged to be Jim going homewards. ''He thinks wot I have
played a trick on him !" she cried gleefully ; ''he'll be mad when
he finds out. Now for the Fairy Thorn."
She turned her eager gaze towards the third cave ; there it
stood watching her like an eye black and threatening. The
ascent to it was perilous, the ground being sandy, with but scant
vegetation. She shut her teeth firmly and commenced to climb«
It was a long way upwards; for a time she almost despaired of
reaching it ; the air was so rare and clear that the cave seemed
much nearer than it was in reality. After walking more than
an hour it appeared as far off as ever. A solitary tear trickled
do¥m her face. Would she have to give up her quest and go
home with the ignominious sense of failure? How Jim would
laugh at her, and be confirmed in the opinion that she was
cracked; the word rankled like a wound. Her tears suddenly
ceased; she would show him of what stuff she was made!
The path in the near precinct of the cave was like a straight
wall of crumbly sand. She had to hold tightly to stray shrubs
to maintain her footing ; for almost every step forward, she
made one backward. Slowly and laboriously she neared her
destination ; at last, with panting breath, she drew herself up to
a ledge of rock within a few feet of the cave. The day was
hot and the sun glaring, and overcome by her exertions she
fell fast asleep.
When she awoke it was midnight; she heard the big lown
clock striking the hour. To her surprise she found herself in
the cave. She knew it was the cave, for the walls were gleam-
ing with diamonds, and there were thousands of little folk
dancing to the s&und of soft music ; and, wonder of wonders,
in the centre of it, growing, was a great white Thorn- bush cov-
ered with snowy blossoms! Guarding it were countless fairies,
armed with tiny swords and uniformed in bright green, with
little caps of four-leaved shamrocks. Ann Jane rubbed her eyes
to assure herself that she was not dreaming ; but no, she was
quite awake, and her heart sank as she looked at the Thorn.
How could she ever venture near it ? At the further end of the
cave, seated on a throne of crystal, was the queen. Ann Jane
knew her at once by the crown of diamonds she wore, that
shone like dewdrops in the sun, and lighted the cave with their
brilliancy.
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1 88 THE MYSTERY OF THE WHITE THORN. [May,
Suddenly the mu6ic ceased and the little folk stopped danc-
ing, and the voice of the fairy queen, tinkling like silver bells,
was heard through the silence. "A mortal has invaded our
kingdom," she cried ; '' what punishment shall it be our royal
pleasure to deal her ?" " Death !" cried a million voices. And
Jane trembled and tried to speak, but not a word would come.
Millioas of fairy eyes glared threateningly at her, and millions
of tiny arms were upraised to deal out the fatal punishment.
Ann Jape thought her last hour had come and held her breath.
Suddenly she heard a familiar bowwow, and a little white dog
rushed into the assembly. Ann Jane looked at him in surprise.
Could it be possible that this white, glossy- coated darling was
the little, half-starved cur she had saved from drowning when
cruel boys were stoning it, but which afterwards died from its
wounds despite all her care ? To her amazement the dog spoke
in human language and implored mercy for her, telling the
queen in words that made Ann Jane's eyes moist of her good-
ness. But the queen was not to be appeased. ''The mortal
must suffer for her temerity in invading fairy ground."
Ann Jane closed her eyes as she saw a million tiny swords
brandished in the air; but again there was an interruption*
" Miow, miow;" and a handsome black cat sprang into the cave
and stood before the queen. Ann Jane recognized him at once
as a starving kitten she had fed, which alas ! had died in her
arms, her kindness coming too late. He, too, spoke in human
language and besought mercy for her; but the queen was in-
exorable ; and again countless swords were upraised. But again
there was an interruption. Ann Jane looked up quickly just
in time to see an immense giant striding towards the queen.
All the pigmies cowered down at his approach ; even the queen
trembled visibly.
Strange to say, Ann Jane felt no fear, though his appear-
ance was terrifying. She stared at him in fascinated bewilder-
ment. He was so immense that his head seemed to touch the
roof of the cave. His face was strangely familiar; where had
she seen it before ? In a flash it came to her : it was the fac-
simile of the face on the hill whose grim profile she had watched
and loved from childhood. Beside him walked a big gray wolf-
dog, whose eyes emitted sparks of fire and who growled men-
acingly at the assembled fairies.
In a voice of thunder the giant spoke : " I, Finn MacCoul,
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1904.] The Mystery of the White Thorn. 189
monarch of Ben Madigan Hill of the Caves, forbid you to injure
one hair of this child's head, under pain of my weighty dis-
pleasure."
The queen bowed humbly. " Your majesty shall be obeyed,"
she cried.
"Let her pluck a blossom from the White Thorn," said the
giant, "that she may possess her heart's desire."
Ann Jane advanced towards the thorn, her heart beating with
joy and excitement The guards made way, and Finn MacCoui
smiled kindly at her. The smile gave her courage ; involuntarily
she thought of the hill on a sunny day, and stretched forth her
hand to grasp the magic blossom ; but alas I ere she touched
it, her foot tripped and she found herself falling, falling into
bottomless space I
When she awoke it was to find Jim bending over her, shout-
ing joyously: " Awake, sleepy head; it's my turn to hide."
**An' you didn't go home?" she stammered.
" Go home ?" echoed Jim curiously ; " wot would I go home
for ?"
Ann Jane held her peace; for it was all a dream — a very
beautiful dream, and so real that even to this day she persists
in thinking that it happened.
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I90 THE FALLS OF MONTMORENCY. [May,
She Falls op (Qonjiimoi^bkgy.
BY JULIAN E. JOHNSTONE.
|IKE pearls untold, like seas of gold
Adown the mountain leaping,
The waters swirl and madly whirl
In floods of splendor sweeping.
In shade and sun your torrents run,
O Falls of Montmorency I
Through shine and gloom, you bound and boom,
Fair Falls of Montmorency !
Adown the height a flood of light,
A sea of gold and glory,
Your waters fall and shake the wall
And rock the boulders hoary.
Now with the sheen of emerald green
You flash, O Montmorency 1
Then sunlight-kissed, in amethyst.
You crash, O Montmorency !
Down from the sky, you know not why.
Your thunders fall for ever;
And from all time your song sublime
And strong has rolled on ever:
You ply your task, nor ever ask
The wherefore, Montmorency !
But on you roll, and fill the soul
With grandeur, MontmorencyJ
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1904.] The Falls of Montmorency. 191
You loudly preach and grandly teach
A lesson full of beauty:
That God above looks down with love
On those that do their duty;
Ye truly say that to obey
And labor, Montmorency,
Is to give praise to God always,
O Falls of Montmorency !
Kind thanks for this, O grand abyss
And floods, your music voicing !
Your roar and roll sublime the soul
And fill it with rejoicing.
E'en humble things the King of Kings
Can praise, O Montmorency !
And lives like mine can be divine,
Fair Falls of Montmorency !
VOL. LXXIX.— 13
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192 The Sea and its Inhabitants, [May,
THE SEA AND ITS INHABITANTS.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
tAM being a terrestrial animal, it is therefore natu-
ral that he should take less interest in the sea
and its inhabitants than in the solid earth, with
its abundant life which is visible to the eye.
Yet we must bear in mind that the sea covers
nearly three-quarters of the globe (70-ico), and physicists tell
us that in the course of time — millions of years in the future —
the small part of the earth's crust which to-day is land will,
through erosion, disappear under the water; the continents will
be washed away, so to speak, by the rains of numberless cen-
turies, and then the whole globe will become one vast ocean
again, as it was in the beginning. But because, as we hav« said,
man's natural habitat is the land, we must not imagine that
lying hid below the surface of the sea, down in its depths three,
four, and even five miles from the sunlight (for probably animal
life has no depth limits), there is nothing to interest us. It
is only within very recent years that an infinitesimal portion
of what lies below the surface of the sea has been revealed to
us, for the area of the great ocean basin covers more than a
hundred millions of square miles. Nor ought we to wonder that
the ancients taught us almost nothing of the phenomena of the
ocean. Their vessels were small, they had no compass to guide
them, and it took brave men in those days to venture out of
sight of land. But even so, trusting to the north star at night,
the Phoenicians, three thousand years ago, did not fear to sail
beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the rocky promontories which
mark both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar) ; they discovered the
Canary Islands, and it is the opinion of Humboldt that they
penetrated into that part of the Atlantic called the Sargasso
Sea, where there is very little wind, and where the vast watery
plain is covered with the gulf weed, which the sailors of Vasco
da Gama, a few centuries ago, took for water- cress, for sargasso
is the Portuguese word for water-cress. We know, too, that the
Phoenicians likewise passed through the Persian Gulf and sailed
along the east coast of Africa far towards the equator. But
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1904.] THE Sea and its inhabitants. 193
whether any of those old-time voyages were undertaken to dis-
cover new facts in nature, we cannot tell. Our knowledge of
what the Phoenicians did comes to us mainly through the Greeks —
their own historical records have been lost — and it may be a
mistake to believe that those enterprising navigators went solely
in quest of pearls ; perhaps they had among them men of learn-
ing who were devoted to the science of the sea, and who as
they skirted the south-west coast of Persia — probably the very
hottest region on earth and rainless — must have marvelled, as
we do to-day, to see a numerous population obtaining good fresh
water from abundant springs which well up from the bottom of
the gulf, and they may have surmised correctly that these fresh-
water springs appearing in the midst of a salt sea were derived
from rain-water which' had penetrated down through a porous
stratum many miles from the coast line.*
But now to come back to the present age and to what we
know of physical geography, we repeat that almost three- quarters
of the globe is covered by water, and it is an interesting fact
that the continental masses, a large portion of which are con-
centrated in the northern hemisphere, terminate in points in-
clining towards the south. Nor would a lowering of the sea as
much as 6,000 feet materially change the general aspect of the
continents. The only important modifications which a lowering
of 6,000 feet would produce, would be to unite Newfoundland
and Labrador to Greenland ; from Greenland, passing through
Iceland, would appear a ridge of land separating the Atlantic
from the North Sea; the British Islands would be joined to the
continent of Europe, and Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea
would form one immense island.
But if the modern world has been somewhat late in explor-
ing the ocean, we are to-day doing good work in this direction,
and in the past ten years more than 10,000 deep-sea soundings
have been taken by the British government alone, and we have
made the interesting discovery that many volcanic cones tower
up thousands of feet from the bed of the sea, and some of these
cones are not very far below the surface. Soundings tell us
also that more than half the sea floor is two miles deep ; eight
soundings show a depth greater than four miles; while one
sounding, off the coast of Japan, gives a depth of 5 30 feet more
*It may be questioned if the same climatic conditions prevailed there three thousand yean
ago.
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194 THE Sea and its inhabitants. [May,
than fiv«j miles. The water on the ocean floor is comparatively
still, and the floor consists, as a rule, of a fine calcareous deposit
called Globigerina ooze, which is mainly composed of broken
or decomposed shells. In the very deepest part, however, there
is a covering of red clay, which is found to be a decomposition
of volcanic materials; and many physicists believe that the
slightly undulating plains covered by the globigerina ooze, and
by materials from submarine volcanoes, have never been elevated
above the sea level, and that a great portion of the globe has
always been covered by water, as it is to-day. This commonly
held opinion, however, has been contested, and in his presiden-
tial address to the Linnaean Society of London, in 1897, Doctor
Giinther, a high authority, maintains that the ocean floor is not
permanent; that it may have changed more than once in the
past, and that every student of terrestrial life should accept this
view. '' I cannot help thinking," he says, " that our knowledge
of the nature of the rocks at the bottom of the sea is, at pres-
ent, to use a mild expression, most imperfect. Is it not possible
that continental rocks at the abyssal sea bottom are so hidden
under the deposit which has been in progress of formation for
untold ages as to prevent us from penetrating them ? Possibly
the day may come when borings or some similar operation will
be successfully carried out in the abysses, entirely upsetting our
present ideas of the geological nature of the sea bottom. Be-
sides, we have no other means of accounting for the distribu-
tion of the terrestrial fauna, more especially in the southern
hemisphere, except by assuming that great changes have taken
place in the extent and position of continental land, and, more-
over, that these changes were still in progress at periods at
which our present fauna, or at least a part of it, was already in
existence." In regard to the low temperature of the ocean floor
it is believed to be largely caused by the surface water from
the north and south polar regions (but mainly from the latter)
sinking to the bottom. The bottom of the ocean is also an
utterly sunless region ; no plant life exists there, and hence the
deep-sea animals must get nourishment from organic material
assimilated by plants living in or near the sunlight. But if the
ocean floor is a sunless region, it does not follow that it is a
region of darkness; there is little doubt that phosphoric light,
which recent discoveries show to be produced by certain deep-
sea animals, takes the place of sunlight.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Sea and its inhabitants. 195
The temperature of the deep sea is obtained by deep-sea
thermometers as well as by the mud brought up by the dredge ;
and let us add that beyond 100 fathoms, or 600 feet, we ob-
serve no seasonal variations of temperature, and the floor of
the ocean has an average temperature somewhat less than 40
degrees Fahrenheit.
Having dwelt thus briefly on the ocean and its great
depths, four and Ave miles from the sunlight, let us observe
that the study of the animal life which exists in the sea is
extremely interesting, especially in the light of the doctrine of
organic evolution. It is generally accepted by naturalists that
the lungs of air-breathing vertebrates are the modified swim-
bladder of flshes, and that the remote ancestors of land ani-
mals were aquatic, the swim-bladder beginning more and more
to discharge the function of a lung as these ancestors became
more and more amphibious in their habits. And this develop-
ment from a lower to a higher form of life may be inferred too
from the fact that we have in the present age certain fishes
called mud-fishes, in Africa, South America, and Australia,
^m^^m
The Ceratodus.
which, besides having gills, are provided with true lungs,
which allow them to obtain the oxygen of the air directly-
This would indicate a kinship between fishes and amphibians;
amphibians, as we know, breathing by gills as well as lungs;
while from the amphibians the link of kinship leads up to a
yet higher form of life, the reptiles, which never breathe by
gills, but always breathe by means of lungs. Of the above-
mentioned fishes which may breathe out of water we have a
good illustration in the Ceratodus of Queensland, South Aus-
tralia. The ceratodus has a three-chambered heart and one
lung, and in place of ventral fins it has two leg-like append-
ages which come pretty close to real legs; and it is thus able
to make its way for a short distance on the land. And when
we speak of the development of organic life from low to higher
forms, we remember what geology teaches; how in the book
of the rocks fishes appear first; then in a higher strata appear
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196
THE Sea and its Inhabitants,
[May,
Monsters of the Ancient Sea.
the amphibians, and these are succeeded in a still higher strata
by the reptiles. And it is believed that in what is called the
reptile age — that is to say, when reptiles predominated — seve-
ral million years ago, a good part of North America was a
shallow inland sea, probably of brackish water, and in this
inland sea, besides fishes, there lived enormous reptiles of dif-
ferent kinds.
And both the reptiles and fishes of that period, as we
know by fossil remains, were covered with uncommonly thick
scales; they might be called armor-clad. But after a time the
land gradually rose up, and this inland, brackish sea became
divided into a number of smaller bodies of water ; and finally
these lakes evaporated and the huge reptiles — sea serpents some
of them looked like — disappeared. But in the past twenty-five
or thirty years our American scientists. Cope, Marsh, and
Leidy, have discovered a number of these strange creatures
embedded in the strata of the Rocky Mountain region, and
there are several of them now on exhibition in our American
Museum of Natural History ; and one of them is a good sixty-
two and one-half feet in length and thirty feet in height.*
Among the fishes which to-day live several miles below the
• This monster — the last one discovered by the American Museum expedition—is not yet
^uite ready to be exhibited.
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I904.]
The Sea and its Inhabitants.
197
surface, a few present interesting archaic characters; and in
several of the fresh- water streams of the continents we also
find remnants of an extremely ancient fauna. Indeed, the cera-
todus of South Australia is a more ancient survival than any
of the fishes discovered thus far in the deep sea; and the
better opinion is that both the archaic fauna existing near the
ocean floor, as well as the very ancient fishes in certain rivers,
have been gradually driven to these places by the more vigor-
ous and newer types; they have been forced to abandon the
regions of greatest competition ; and it has been said that river
life and life far down in the sea has for aquatic animals the
same limitations that island life has for terrestrial animals. It
was asked not so many years ago how deep sea fishes could
Ancient Water-Lizards of the Sea.
see, for direct sunlight penetrates only a short distance below
the surface. Well, the question was answered by the scientific
expedition sent out by the British government in 1872, and
known as the Challenger Expedition. The greatest depth at
which fishes were caught was a little over three miles; and,
curious to relate, in some of these fishes of the abyssal regions
the eyes were absent, while others had very prominent eyes.
The ones with very prominent eyes produced their own light;
and let us observe that phosphorescence is generated by a
chemico- physiological process in the living animal, just as car-
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198 THE SEA AND ITS INHABITANTS. [May,
bonic acid is a product of respiration. The luminous organs
of these lantern fishes, as they may be called, emit distinct
flashes, and it is believed that these fishes may see around
them about as clearly as fishes living near the surface when
there is moonlight. It is also highly probable that the phos-
phoric light is subject to the will of the fish, and that it ceases
when the fish sleeps ; for unless it were under the, animal's
control the fish might too easily fall a prey to an enemy, and
when it is pursued by an enemy it no doubt puts out its lan-
tern, so to speak, and escapes in the darkness. Another re-
markable thing in these abyssal fishes is the distensibility of
their stomachs. In the introduction to vol. xxii., p. 20, of
the Challenger Expedition, we read that a fish brought up
from a depth of several miles "becomes so distended with
gas expanding upon the removal of the vast pressure below,
that it rises to the surface, not indeed entirely dead but
wholly powerless and in a sort of rigid cataleptic spasm; the
stomach is usually inverted and protruded into the mouth; and
the eyes in general are forced so completely from their sockets,
sticking out often like two horns, etc., etc., etc." And how
great the pressure is under which these deep-sea forms exist
may be realized when we reflect that the pressure of the at-
mosphere at the surface is 15 pounds per square inch, while
below the surface the pressure is increased to a ton weight for
every 6,000 feet of depth. It is sometimes asked if there may
not exist in the ocean to-day a descendant of some of the won-
derful animals that lived in the seas of a former geological
period.
We do know that there is living somewhere in the sea a
serpent-like animal about twenty feet in length which has been
taken for a sea serpent. No living specimen of the serpent-
shaped, rapidly swimming Oarfish (Regalecus) has yet been
captured. And may there not be in existence an animal much
larger than the oarfish, a lineal descendant of one of the monsters
of the cretaceous seas ? This is not very probable. Neverthe-
less, the sea serpent may not be wholly a myth.
Few things are more interesting to the student of nature
than to find an animal living in the ocean and looking out-
wardly very like a fish, but which is in reality a mammal, and
which at one time must have lived on the land. The whale
and its cousins, the porpoise and the dolphin, are not fishes;
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Sea and its Inhabitants. 199
they arc warm-blooded, they suckle their young, and in one
species of whale» the right or whalebone whale, we discover
the rudiments of hind limbs. Indeed, the whole anatomy of
the whale's paddles is altogether different from the fins of a
fish; it tells us that the whale's progenitors were terrestrial
Rudiments of Hind Limbs op the Whale.
quadrupeds which gradually became accustomed to a life in the
water; the shape of the body grew more fish- like by the bones
and muscles required for movement on land becoming adapted
for swimming. And to prevent the water from getting into
the animal's nostrils when it dives, the apertures of the nostrils
can be shut at will, and open when the animal rises to breathe.
And it is when it perceives the dim light from above, when its
head is near to the surface, that the whale expires the air
which it has taken in, and this action throws up a column of
water which may be seen from a good distance, and sailors call
it "spouting." The new-born whale — "sucker" — of the whale-
bone species is about one-fourth the length of its mother, and
occasionally twins are born.
The natural term of the whale's life may be prolonged, it is
believed, to a hundred years; although the average age is pro-
bably under fifty years. The right-whale migrates according
to the seasons, and we may easily tell when a flock or school
is making one of its journeys to the north or to the south.
On these occasions they swim steadily onward, keeping the
whole of their huge heads submerged .except the blow- holes.
Then after swimming in this way for about ten minutes the
whales toss up their caudal fins and take a long dive, to come
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200 THE SEA AND ITS INHABITANTS. [May,
up again a mile further on. No obstacles, such as ordinary
field ice, will cause the migrating .flock (often several hundred)
to turn aside. Yet a field of ice of too great breadth and
thickness may prove f^tal to them by preventing them from
getting a fresh supply of air, and it is recorded that in 1750
some whalemen discovered fourteen whales smothered under the
ice.* It is doubtful if whales travelling west from Baffin's Bay
through Lancaster Sound often meet other whales coming cast
from the Pacific through Behring Strait : the danger of suffoca-
tion by the ice would be too great. Yet it is on record that
harpoons have been found in whales killed in the. Pacific which
had belonged to Greenland whalemen. The very largest species
of whale is the Sulphur- bottom. In 1862 one of this species
was killed on the coast of California which measured ninety-
two feet in length; and in that interesting work. The Marine
Mammals of the Norih-western Coast of North America, by
The Dolphin.
Captain Charles M. Scammon, we read, p. 71 : "November 13.
We are witnesses of a very remarkable exhibition of the social
disposition of the (Sulphur— bottom) whale. A. week ago to-day
. . . it was discovered that one of them continued to follow
us and was becoming more familiar, keeping under the ship
and only coming up to breathe. A great deal of uneasiness
was felt lest in his careless gambols he might unship our rudder.
. . . It was said that bilge- water would drive. him away, and
the pumps were started; but to no purpose. . . . He still
continued to swim under us, keeping our exact rate of speed
whether in calm or storm, and rising to blow almost into the
cabin windows. .. . . His length is about eighty feet; his
tail measures about twelve feet across ; and in the calm, as we
• Natural Sciince, June number, 1898, p. 409.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Sea and its Inhabitants. 201
look down into the transparent water, we see him in all his
huge proportions. ... It is now twenty-four days since he
attached himself to us, and during that time he has followed
us as faithfully as a dog, etc. ... As the water grew
shoaler he left us, with regret unfeigned on our part and appar*
cntly so on his."
As we have said, the porpoise and dolphin are also mam-
mals belonging to the whale family; and of the dolphins the
largest is the Orca, commonly called " the killer." It often
measures twenty feet in length ; it is carnivorous, and has a
mouth full of sharp, conical teeth, and from its savage nature
it may be aptly termed the wolf of the sea. Three or four
orcas will attack the biggest whale, aiming at its head, and
when they have seized the clumsy creature's lips they en*
deavor to reach its tongue, which they soon tear into strips*
after which they gradually draw their terrified, bleeding prey
under the water, where it drowns, and then they devour it at
their leisure. And the orcas are as bold as they are fierce ;
they have actually been known to snatch away a dead whale
irom the whalemen who were towing it to their ship. Another
variety of dolphin is the Narwhal, a native of the Polar seas.
It is believed to be a harmless creature; but growing from the
left side of its upper jaw is a spiralf cylindrical tusk sometimes
ten feet long (occasionally the right tusk is also developed),
and this weapon must surely be of some use to it, probably in
fighting its enemies. Yet the narwhal has never been known
to pierce a vessel, as the sword-fish sometimes does with its
sword.
Let us now speak of true fishes, namely, the ones which do
not have to come to the surface to breathe ; and we may add
that the broadest definition of a fish is a cold-blooded vette-
brate whose limbs have developed as^fins for swimming. As we
A. Modern, and B. Ancient Fish's Tail.
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202 THE SEA AND ITS INHABITANTS, [May,
know, the earliest fishes appear in what is called the Devonian
strata (so named because these rocks are well developed in
Devonshire, England), and these primitive types are distinguished
from the fishes of our age by their tails. All the ancient,
Devonian fishes have vertebrated tails — that is to say, the back-
bone runs through the fins ; whereas in modern fishes the back-
bone ends abruptly in a few large joints. True fishes are what
may be termed water- breathers ; that is to say, they introduce
oxygen into the blood from a current of water which enters by
the mouth, bathes the gills, and escapes behind through the
gill openings. But, as we have said, there are a few fishes with
gills whose life is not exclusively confined to the water ; and
Professor Karl Semper in Animal Life as affected by the
Natural Conditions of Existence, page 189, speaks of two
curious fishes which he found in the East Indies, and which could
quit their native element, although not provided with a lung like
The Periophthalmus.
the ceratodus. "(There) are," he says, **two genera, . . .
Periophthalmus and Boleophthalmus ; these skip along close to
the water-line on the sea-shore, where they hunt for mollusks
and insects. In their bronchial cavity, like all fishes, they have
true gills ; but these, though not differing widely from those of
other fishes living constantly in the water, are far from filling
up the cavity, which is rather large ; and this seems to contain
not merely water, but air as well." And we may add that the
above-mentioned fishes, which abound on the coast of Ceylon,
make their forward leaps by means of the large ventral fins.
Professor Moseley, the naturalist of the Challenger Expedition,
also speaks of the Periophthalmus and the Boleophthalmus, and
he makes the interesting observation that when they are pur-
sued they prefer to escape by taking to the land rather than
by swimming. He says : ** I have chased one . . . which
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1904.] THE Sea and its Inhabitants. 203
skipped along before me until it reached a roick, where it sat
on a ledge out of the water in the sun and waited till I came/
up, when it skipped along to another rock."
Another curious fish is the Flying- fish, which uses its ex-
panded pectoral fins as wings. Here we see the actual process
of transition from one function to another; from propelling;
through the water to propelling through the air. Now, we may
reasonably believe that the progressive development of the flying-
fish's pectoral fins has tended to increase its swimming power,
and natural selection coming into play, would then put a pre-
mium, so to speak, on the most widely spread pectoral fins, so
that these, from being used at first only as fins, have come at
length to serve as wings; and this has no doubt aided the fish
to escape from its enemies. During the time that it remains
in the air it is able to traverse as much as an eighth of a mile,
keeping three or four feet above the water, and as it flies along
it resembles nothing so much as a gigantic dragon-fly^ and as
the flying- fish is often fdund in large schools, one is reminded
as the vessel cuts through the school of a mower in summer-
time cutting a swath through a meadow full of grasshoppers.
Let us now speak of a fish, one variety of which many of
us have fished for, namely, the Flat-fish; but the name we
know it by is the Flounder. It is remarkable for resting on
•ne sidej usually the left side, which is colored white, and its
two eyes are on the upper side of the head. Now, in the
young flat-fish the eyes are normally situated, one opposite to
the other, and both sides of the body are of the same color.
But soon the young fish begins to twist its left eye round its
head (at this age the skull is cartilagenous) until by and by,
after much twisting, the left eye gets to the other side. And
this is a wise move on the young fish's part, for since it lies
habitually on its left side and close to the bottom, it is evi-
dent that the left eye would be of little use to it unless it did
travel round to the upper side of the head. This tendency to
distortion of the eyes would, of course, be increased through
inheritance ; and good observers, who have studied the flat-fish,
have seen it in the act of twisting its left eye into a position
next to the right eye.
The Salmon, of which we shall now say a few words, has
been carefully studied by the German professor, Friedricb
Miescher, and he states the almost incredible fact that the sal-
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204
THE SEA AND ITS INHABITANTS.
[May,
Giant Spider-Crab.
mon of the Rhine, during the six months ot their stay in that
river, maintain an absolutely unbroken fast. And the naturalists
of the United States Fish Commission state the same fact of
the salmon of the Pacific Coast, namely, that they take not a
particle of food while they are on the spawning grounds. The
fish that enter the Columbia River first ascend the farthest,
and many of the first- comers swim as far as Idaho, more than
a thousand miles from the sea, leaping many cataracts before
they reach the end of their long journey ; and when they do
arrive at the spawning beds the males begin to fight desperately
with one another. Then, after spawning, both the males and
females die, and the only salmon that descend the Sacramento,
the Columbia, and the rivers of Alaska to the sea are the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Sea and its inhabitants. 205
young salmon. The females may be plainly seen swimming
round and round the spot where their eggs are deposited ; they
keep guard to drive away other fish, and in the end die of
starvation. And if it be asked why these salmon maintain their
unbroken fast, the only answer is, that if they were to feed
during the spawning time there would be nothing left for the
young fish to eat when they were hatched, and then they
too would perish.
We need scarcely say that the three most important food
fishes are the Herring, the Shad, and the Codfish. The herring
goes in immense schools, and a school of herring will often
cover six square miles.
In colonial times the shad abounded in every river along
our Atlantic coast; but it is not unlikely that it would have
disappeared altogether had not the Federal and State govern-
ments come at last to the rescue and established artificial shad
hatcheries. But it is now somewhat increasing in numbers, and
it has recently been introduced on the Pacific coast, where it
was before unknown.
Of the codfish we merely remark that its great importance
was early recognized by our New England forefathers, and the
The Spike-Fish.
Colony of Massachusetts did it the honor to place a codfish
on the Colonial seal.
As we know, there are fishes in which electrical organs have
been developed ; but we do not know by what steps this won-
derful development has come about, nor do we know of what
use it is to the fish. Yet it is not improbable that it serves as
a means of defence.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
^4
Digitized by
Google
1904.] The Sea and its inhabitants. 207
Darwin tells us in The Origin of Species that muscular
contraction is accomp^ied by an electrical discharge, and
that in the electrical apparatus of the Torpedo during rest
there would seem to be a charge of electricity in every re-
spect like that which is met with in muscle and nerve during
rest, and the discharge of the torpedo may be only another
form of the discharge which attends upon the action of
muscle and nerve. It is certainly reasonable to believe that
this singular organ is of some use to the fish, and one of these
days we may know more about it.
Among the many curious animals in the American Museum
of Natural History is a fine specimen of the largest of all
crustaceans, namely, the Giant Spider Crab. This crab is found
at a depth of 2,000 feet off the coast of Japan, and the
one in our museum measures 12 feet from tip to tip of its
outstretched claws. But a much larger giant spider crab has
been captured which measures 22 feet.
Space forbids us to do more than to call the reader's at-
tention — ^and very briefly — to three other fishes and to the
Florida Manatee. The Spike- fish, a native of the West Indies,
grows to a length of six feet, and is an excellent food fish.
But fishing for it is dangerous, for it is armed with a terrible
spear, and it has been known to rush upon a boat and kill the
fishernian; nor will it hesitate to fight a shark. The Sun-fish
is a creature with an enormous head, to which very small fins
are attached. Its length is over eight feet ; it weighs nearly a
ton, and it spends most of its time resting on top of the water ;
and as it floats lazily about in the tropical sunshine, with the
waves rippling over it, it is easily harpooned. Of the Moon fish
we merely say that it is found on both coasts of South America,
and that it is well worth looking at The Florida Manatee, or
sea cow, is a mammal which me&sures about ten feet from the
nose to the end of the tail; it bears only one calf a year, and
was once very common in the rivers of Florida. But through
the persecution of man it will probably soon disappear, and
then it will be found only in museums.
We conclude our article on the sea and its inhabitants by
saying that fishes may play an important part in the distribu-
tion of plants. Observation shows that fish inhabiting ponds
and small streams eat the seeds of certain plants. Now, a fish
with seeds in it may be devoured by a heron, and the heron
VOL. LXXIY.— 14 ^ T
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
2o8
The Sea and its Inhabitants.
[May,
may then fly off to its nest miles away, or perhaps be carried
by a gale of wind to a distant coast, where the seeds which
were contained in the fish may germinate after being rejected
by the bird. On this subject Darwin, in The Origin of Species^
makes some interesting observations, and when we read what he
says we realize as we never did before how many things in
natural history may be made clear to us, if we only go out
under the blue sky and study and observe for ourselves. And
of all the books which man may read, none is so wholesome
for his body and his mind as the book of Nature.
Note. — Books referred to : " Lemons de G^ographie Physique." By Prof. A. de Lappa-
rent, Institut Catholique, Paris. "Animal Life as affected by the Natural Conditions of
Existence." By Karl Semper. " Dai win and after Darwin." By Romaines. "Sum-
mary of Results of the Challenger Expedition." " The Marine Mammals of the North-
western Coast of North America." By Captain Charles M. Scammon, United States Revenue
Marine.
The Moon-Fish.
Courtesy of DoubUday^ Page 6* Co,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von malljnckrodt. 509
HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT,
THE CHIEF FOUNDER AND FIRST LEADER OF THE CENTRE
PARTY.
BY REV. GEORGE F. WEIBEL, S.J.
\IOS no muere / exclaimed in a last effort the mar-
tyr-president of Ecuador, as he felt the cold
steel of the assassin cleave his fearless breast.
" Dios no muere / " — God does not die ! Then
he fell on the threshold of the temple of the'
living God — a fragrant holocaust, sprinkled with his own warm
life-blood, a rich libation to the God who does not die. *' Dios
no muere ! " — God docs not die ! — sublime principle of a life
sublime.
Hardly a twelvemonth before the foul deed struck grief and
woe into the hearts of a faithful people in Latin America old
Europe echoed the undying watchword of another dying
champion of the Cross. " Per Crucem ad Lucem " — Through
the Cross to Joy! Such was the battle-cry of the immortal
Herman von Mallinckrodt, the chief organizer and first leader
of the Centre Party in the German Parliament. Clear and
strong it rang through the halls of the assembled Reichstag — a
pledge of victory to his few followers in the hour of deepest
gloom; a shout of heroic defiance to the Iron Chancellor in
the heyday of his power : " Per Crucem ad Lucem " — Through
the Cross to Joy ! — then the warrior sank exhausted on the
arena.
Many a year has passed since they laid him to rest under
the old linden-trees, near St. Meinulph's Chapel. Catholic
Germany grieved and sorrowed at his tomb, even as Ireland
wept O'Conncll and Juda her Machabee. In the quiet West-
phalian valley sleeps the hero in his modest grave. '' Now and
then a solitary pilgrim may be seen coming through the forest
glades to lay a tribute of love and gratitude on his last rest-
ing-place."
The tidal wave of the " Kulturkampf " came rolling wild
and threatening. It hurled its darkling mass against the buU
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aio Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [May,
wark reared in defence of the sanctuary. The chief builder
and guard squarely faced the storm. He could, and no doubt
would, be swept away; the granite- built dike, his handiwork,
never. The unchecked element came, rushing on. A roar and
a crash; the breastwork shook and quaked to its nethermost
foundation, but broke the onslaught of the tempest.
To-day the storm has abated considerably. The Church in
Germany breathes more freely. Although still harassed in
many ways, the children reap with joy where the fathers
sowed in sorrow. But now France, formerly Catholic par ex-
cellence^ has become the vantage-ground of the enemies of
Christ. In our own States a new spirit is quickening into
life and action the scattered members of the Body Catholic.
Hence the moment may not be ill-suited for a brief study of
the man, the mighty man in word and deed, who taught
Catholics the warfare of the modern crusader.
Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt was born at Minden, in
Westphalia, on the 5 th of February, 1821, of the old stock of
Northwestern Germany. His father, Detmar von Mallinckrodt,
although a Protestant, was a man of singular sincerity and
strength of character. During the ephemeral reign of Jerome
Bonaparte in Westphalia he incurred the displeasure of the
usurper, and barely escaped the forfeit of his head for his
loyalty to the Fatherland. After the expulsion of the Napo-
leons from German territory, Detmar von Mallinckrodt served
the Prussian government with distinction in various civil capaci-
ties. These earned for him promotion to the governmental
vice-presidency of Aix-la-Chapelle. This incorruptible fidelity
in the discharge of civic and official duties found a counter-
part in his scrupulous care to fulfil engagements of a more
private nature. He gave a signal proof of this unswerving
devotion to duty at the death of his Catholic wife, in 1834.
In fulfilment of the promise made at his marriage, to educate
the children in the religion of their mother, he confided their
religious instruction to a distinguished ecclesiastic, the Rev.
A. G. Claessens, later on provost and subsequently Auxiliary
Bishop of Cologne. Herman ever cherished a grateful remem-
brance of his father's earnestness, sincerity, and high sense of
honor.
The greatest blessing, however, of Mallinckrodt's childhood
was the watchful care of a truly Christian mother. If we can
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1904.] Herman Joseph von mallinckrodt. 211
trace to his high-minded father the boy's nobility and strength
of soul, it was to the virtuous mother that he owed his strong
religious convictions. A lady of rank and of fine parts, en-
dowed with rare g^fts of mind and heart, Bernardina von
Mallinckrodt, nee von Hartman, was above all things the type
of a Christian mother. Her husband's honorable station, as
well as her own family connections, forced her to move in the
highest society of the old city of Charlemagne. But her heart
was with her family. She it was who brought to the fireside
that undefinable charm for which the Mallinckrodt home was
so well known. She too it was who instilled into the tender
minds of her children those principles [of faith which gave lo
Catholic Germany its providential defender, and to the church
the saintly foundress of a religious congregation.* Herman
was just beginning to appreciate her enlightened care for him-
self and the other members of the household when a tsaJig-
nant fever undermined her health. Erelong the angel of death
claimed her for his own.
The blow was hard, very hard indeed. Its consequences
might easily have proved fatal to the religious life of the
children. Happily the bereaved family found in its very midst
a member worthy to replace the departed mother. Pauline,
the oldest child, was seventeen. She had just completed her
education at the then famous St. Leonard's Academy, and had
given promise of becoming a leading woman in the great social
world. Just when the future lay invitingly before her in all
its roseate hue, .the maiden vowed in her heart never to taste
of the tempting cup. Christ Jesus was to be her portion for
ever. The death of her mother delayed the execution of her
heroic resolve. It was she who now assumed the direction of
the household. The burden would have been a heavy one,
even for stronger shoulders. On the one hand a Protestant
father; on the other, two brothers and a sister just emerging
from childhood: Pauline's position was of a delicate nature,
and required consummate tact and prudence. The emergency,
however, found her equal to the task. It is true her father,
in admiration for the self-sacrificing spirit of his eldest daugh-
ter, was full of consideration; nor did Bertha, the younger
sister, a child not yet ten, prove a source of trouble. But the
management of the two boys, George and Herman, was by no
* Pauline voo Mallinckrodt was born in 1817.
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212 Herman Joseph von mallinckrodt. [May,
means a sinecure. They were full of fun and juvenile pranks,
and at an age when discretion is conspicuous by its absence.
Herman seems to have been especially known for his boyish
escapades. A close friend of the Mallinckrodts wrote years
ago in the following strain concerning our hero's boyhood:
''Even in those early days he impressed me as a wide* awake
lad. I can easily recall the little boy, rosy-cheeked, flaxen-
curled, and bubbling over with animal spirits. He was full of
pranks and tricks. But no one ever could harbor the slightest
grudge against the little harumscarum; there was in his make-
up something so open, good, and true."
Many a time '' the old woman," as the two youngsters play-
fully dubbed their motherly sister, must have found her gravity
disregarded, perhaps even her authority set at naught. Still
she had but seldom to apply to the father for support. Even the
appeal to this supreme court did not always right matters. Thus,
one day, Pauline, in a flutter of excitement, called on the
authority of Herr Vice-President. The latter rushed from his
office to the scene of the disturbance, determined to use drastic
measures for its speedy suppression. On entering the open
door of the room he surprised the two evil doers vigorously
engaged in bombarding an imaginary foe on the frescoed ceil-
ing with the school-boy's never failing ammunition — spitballs.
The sight proved too much for the nefvous system of the
dignified officer of the state; and, says a family tradition, to
the unbounded delight of the two combatants, he joined in the
attack with hi^ more powerful piece of artillery.
In spite of those occasional serio-comic scenes, the domestic
circle remained what it had been under the regime of Madam
von Mallinckrodt — a model Christian household. '* My spirit
shall ever hover near you," had been the mother's dying words.
The Almighty granted her request. All hearts were strongly
knit together. The union between brothers and sisters became
proverbial among outsiders. In the absence of that universal
receptacle of all childish grief and joy, a mother's loving,
sympathetic heart, it was but natural for the children to rely
on one another for consolation, encouragement, and support.
Detmar von Mallinckrodt was a model gentleman. Second
to none in business capacity, he was the peer of all in high-
bred manners and deportment. His children were to enjoy a
similar distinction. The father spared neither money nor
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1904.] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. 213
trouble in the furtherance of this purpose, Herman and
George, at the completion of their grammar-school course,
attended the gymnasium in their paternal city. Private tutors
of tried ability were specially detailed to insure and supple-
inent the regular class work. The boys' marked success
rewarded their father's earnest efforts. Herman, besides a
knowledge of the ancient classics, tho r o u g hly mastered his own
native German, spoke French fluently, and read English with
ease. The Vicar of Wakefield became his life-long friend. And
even in later years, when oppressed with work, he would at
times unbend his mind in the refreshing company of some
British or American author. Although of good talent, Mallinck-
rodt was not what is properly termed a genius in his college
course. Moreover he had to contend, during those years,
against the obnoxious influence of a naturally weak constitution.
Steady work then, not brilliancy, was the sole secret of his
literary success.
During this laying of a general foundation for the super-
structure of a special course in the learned branches, physicU
and social culture were given due attention. Herman, who
never did things by halves, achieved distinction in both. He
became a swordsman of mark, a skilful horseman, and acquired
fame at the bowling-alley. These invigorating exercises chiefly
formed the cycle of his athletics. Whilst affording him the
necessary relaxation from continuous mental application, they
gradually built up his physique, thus fitting him more and
more for his great life-work. But even more than in athletics,
Herman excelled in social accomplishments. His noble bearing,
happy blending of ease and modesty, along with a scrupulous
care of personal attire and general etiquette, but above all the un«>
definable charm that flows from a pure mind and a cheerful heart,
opened before the young man the door of many a distinguished
household, which the sole influence of his name, great as it
was, could never have unbarred. Well might the press, after his
death, eulogize him on the score of personal appearance : '' In
person Mallinckrodt resembled what we may consider the ideal
portrait of a Spanish nobleman of the sixteenth century. Tall,
spare, ascetic-^looking, yet dressed with extreme care and even
elegance, there was something in his expression that reminded
one alternately of the huoiility of a monk and the ease and
self-possession of a cavalier. His small, classically-shaped head.
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214 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [May,
close-cropped beard, and dark, sparkling eyes, rendered his
appearance striking and remarkable everywhere; while in his
courteous, high-bred manner lay more of Christian kindliness
than the mere polish of a man of the world."
But we anticipate. It was during his college course that
Mallinckrodt, after a thorough preparation for these two great
events of his youth, made his first holy Communion, and re-
ceived the sacrament of the soldiership of Christ at the hands
of the Auxiliary Bishop, Charles Adalbert, of Cologne. Once
admitted to partake of the Eucharistic banquet, the young
collegian made It his duty to avail himself frequently of its
life-giving refreshment. To this salutary use of the sacraments
must be chiefly attributed the firm mastery he kept over pas-
sions just beginning imperiously to assert their unwelcome pre-
sence. Other agents, it is true, were also at work for securing
that same happy result. For while Pauline, the alter ego of
the departed mother, radiated a wholesome religious warmth at
the fireside, the thoroughly Catholic atmosphere of old Aix-la-
Chapelle proved most conducive to strengthen and develop the
moral life of our student.
In the midst of these various influences for good, Herman
von Mallinckrodt spent a youth to which, in later years, his
memory could revert with unmixed feelings of satisfaction and
joy.
In the fall of 1838 Mallinckrodt, then only seventeen,
graduated with honor from the gymnasium. He -determined
to embrace his father's career. Accordingly, we find the
young man, during the next four years, studying jurisprudence
at the universities of Berlin and Bonn. Like most university
students away from home, he was now his own master, account-
able for his actions to none but God and his conscience. This
sudden change from the genial Catholicity of the old Carlovin-
gian city to the chilly Protestant environment in the Prussian
capital, far from proving a stumbling-block to our graduate's
inexperience, only brought out to greater advantage the strong
texture of his character. It is true he was not altogether left
alone to tack against the adverse gale and stem the powerful
current of Berlin's learned infidelity.- On his arrival in the
northern metropolis he was tendered a ' hearty welcome by a
small knot of Catholic students. A few of them were his
intimate personal acquaintances. There was his brother George ;
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1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 215
there was Joseph Lingens, a "chum" from earliest boyhood,
and others — sturdy Westphalians and staunch Catholics, who,
in later years, were to figure prominently among the first recruits
of the Centre Party. Those were days of unrest and anxious
expectation. Religious and political difficulties were in the air
everywhere. The past — if we may so call the few years that
had elapsed since Napoleon's meteoric passage across the politi-
cal horizon, — the past had been anything but consoling ; the
future lay concealed in gloom, and was pregnant with the sad
events that culminated in the revolutionary upheavals of 1848.
Our young university men clung together all the more closely.
The days were spent in attending lectures in their respective
courses and going through the ordinary round of their daily
duties. Of evenings they would meet at their lodgings for
mutual support, encouragement, and relaxation.
The fact that during those friendly gatherings Mallinckrodt
was first introduced to the burning questions of the day, in both
church and state, is ample proof of the tone that prevailed, as
well as of the young men's intellectual and moral standing. It
was there, also, that he learned to know and appreciate the
Historisch'Politische Blatter^ a publication that, since the days of
Goerres, has been the exponent of some of the best Catholic
thought in Germany. Withal our young men were a jolly set,
who knew how to season the useful with the agreeable. Serious
discussions and animated debates were wisely interspersed with
healthful recreations and amusements. The two Mallihckrodts,
par nobile fratrum, were among the most noted for fun and for
work.
From Berlin Herman von Mallinckrodt moved to Bonn, on
the Rhine. The change of place brought on no slackening of
studious habits. Here, ks elsewhere, he was a student in the
best sense of the word — diligent and consistent in his work, in
matters religious dutiful in the extreme.
As far as the writer is able to ascertain, there flitted but
one shadow across the unclouded path of his university life.
Mallinckrodt's conduct was at variance, for a time, with the
strict legislation of the church regarding duels. We have, how-
ever, cogent reasons to believe that, in his case, an error of mind
misguided his sincere heart. Moreover, the illusion was but
short-lived ; his atonement for it, characteristic of the man. In
1847 the Prussian minister of war declared that duelling was a
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
2i6 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [May,
duty incumbent on every army officer ; " a sacrifice " — to use
his own words — "on the altar of patriotism." Mallinckrodt,
then a breveted lieutenant of the "Landwehr," had seen his
error of the past, and was determined to make a public pro-
fession of principles. He wrote in the following terms to a
higher officer of his battalion :''... It is now several
years since I have reached the conviction, based on religious and
ethical principles, and on the unequivocal declarations of my
church, that the practice of duelling is in direct opposition to
religion and morality. Hence arises for me the strict duty in
conscience to decline the acceptance of a duel, under any cir-
cumstances whatever. . . . The above-mentioned expressions
of his excellency the minister forced me to examine whether
reasons of honor oblige me to resign my lieutenancy. I have
reached a negative conclusion. My motives are plain ; I can-
not bring myself to admit that duelling is a law at all ; hence
it is no duty for an army officer; nor is it universally con-
sidered as such." Then refuting one by one the minister's flimsy
arguments for enforcing the practice of duelling, Mallinckrodt
says in conclusion: "... After this public declaration of
the head of the army, I thought it my duty to expose to the
Counsellor of Honor my contrary conviction, as well as my
future line of action."
In penning the above lines Mallinckrodt fully realized that
his action meant most probably dismissal from the '^ Landwehr,"
perhaps ' even ostracism from former companions and friends.
But to temporal advantages and prospects, however bright and
honorable, he could not, and would not, sacrifice his Catholic
principles.
The year 1842 brought Mallinckrodt's university course to
a successful close. He now entered the civil service. It would
be of little interest to our readers to follow him, during the
next ten years, in his official wanderings up and down the coun-
try. At the call of duty he took up his abode successively in
most distant sections of the realm ; sometimes even, whilst sta-
tioned in the same district, he had to exchange one occupation
for another. Thus, for instance, when at Minden, in the course
of seven weeks he was assigned Ave different employments.
These multiplied changes of location and department were
necessarily accompanied by many annoyances and . troubles.
Moreover they implied disregard, if not distrust. Mallinckrodt
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. 217
bore the burden with the calm of a philosopher and the endur-
ance of a Christian, Writing from Minden, he thus expresses
his sentiments on the matter :''... I 've made up my
mind meanwhile simply to ignore all the snubbing. It will be
a test of patience and self-control. Should I fail in this, I am
afraid I '11 be carrying on, a la Herman, words and deeds blunt
and plain."
On the other hand, he knew how to look at the bright side
of his difficulties. He consoled himself with the thought "that
his employment in the various branches, his acquaintance with
the different prescriptions and practices, would be a fine pre-
paration for the future." And indeed to Mallinckrodt's obser-
vant mind they did prove a schooling for a career of which be
himself did not, at the time, even dream. Owing to his ex-
tensive knowledge of the ramifications of the civil service, and
a vast personal experience of men and things, in provinces most
distant, the parliamentarian of later years was able to grapple
with the difficulties of almost any question brought up for de-
bate, and with* surprising quickness and accuracy propose satis-
factory solutions.
The scene of his present activity generally lay among hetero-
dox surroundings. As a consequence, during those many years
of state service he could no longer fall back on the bracing
sympathy and counsel of devoted friends and advisers. This
isolation from centres of Catholic thought and energy was keenly
felt by that strong but withal refined character. It must have
grated all the more harshly on his sensibilities, as it was neither
chance nor necessity, but a latent feeling of Protestant antipa-
thy, that inspired the administration in its studied exclusion
of Catholic officials from congenial environment. Men of Mal-
linckrodt's pronounced type were in an especial degree persona
minus grates to the powers that be.
This same petty spirit of intolerance debarred our function-
ary from promotion to more honorable positions, to which his
talent and previous services entitled him before other competi-
tors. Thus, to cite but one instance out of many, there hap-
pened to be a vacancy in a provincial chancellorship, in the
district of Eichsfeld. Mallinckrodt was proposed to the first
president of that place as a candidate of superior merit. "I
have nothing at all against the man," the latter replied, " and
if there is an opening for similar advancement elsewhere I shall
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2i8 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [May,
willingly support him. But here, in Catholic Eichsfeld, it is
impossible to appoint a Catholic counsellor."
This systematic disregard for Mallinckrodt's talent and merit
found a strong rebuke in his brilliant administration of the first
mayoralty of Erfurt. The influence of a Protestant friend had
secured for him the temporary occupancy of this post of honor.
The city of Luther's predilection with Mallinckrodt, the Jesuit
mayor, as the press styled him, at the helm of her administra-
tion, must indeed have presented a strange sight to the outside
observer. Yet the prudence, tact, and ability of their ultramon-
tane head so completely won the confidence and admiration of
the heterodox burghers, that they conferred upon him in most
flattering terms the freedom of the city.
Meanwhile the spirit of primeval rebellion and anarchy had
breathed his pestilential breath over the face of Europe. At
his baneful " fiat " the nations were seized with revolutionary
vertigo. Peace and justice fled. Abortive forms of government
sprang into existence, only to relapse into their original nothing-
ness. Even the phlegmatic North was seized ^ith the fever.
Mallinckrodt followed the march of events with keenest inter-
est. At the critical moment he entered the lists in behalf of
altar and throne. It was his first appearance in the political
arena.
The storm of 1848 blew over. Mallinckrodt withdrew to the
peaceful solitude of his brother's home at Boeddeken. Shortly
after, in 1849, ^^ was to pass the required state examination
for assessor or assistant in the higher civil administration. By
way of immediate preparation he worked for several months,
spending, some days, as many as fourteen hours in close appli-
cation. The theme he had chosen was indicative of the mental
maturity of the young jurist, and revealed at the same time the
basis of his political views. It read as follows: "Among the
great problems, the solution of which we may well expect from
the near future, the establishment of real religious equality in
Prussia occupies one of the foremost places. It is from the
relations of the state to the church that the true idea of the
jus circa sacra must be derived. They alone can serve as a
standard for gauging the extent of that power in its more im-
portant bearings, as a basis and norm for framing and dis-
cussing, in this connection, laws and their essential clauses."
The juridical works which Mallinckrodt consulted on this sub-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 219
ject did not satisfy his inquiring mind. Hence he determined
to work out his thesis by dint of original investigation. Deci-
sions of the Council of Trent, works of old canonists, were
consulted by turns, in order to obtain sufficient information on
the matter. At length our jurist felt certain that his position
was unassailable. Every stone in the argumentative structure
had been so well hewn and polished and fitted that there was
not left a chink wherein to- insert the wedge of an attack. The
censor pronounced the treatise excellent — remarking, however,
that its whole tenor was too strongly in favor of the church.
The candidate, nevertheless, was at liberty to publish his pro-
duction. Mallinckrodt, as he afterwards told one of his friends,
had never to retract a single one of the principles he then
advocated ; he had only to let them develop . themselves more
fully. In this work the author laid the foundation for the great
part which he was to play in the fierce struggle of the state
against the church.
The examination over, the new assessor was certain of a
permanent position, and capable of promotion to higher digni-
ties. But nothing more was ever accorded him than an appoint-
ment, in i860, as counsellor of the administration. We have
seen that his strong Catholic principles were for the Prussian
government an insurmountable obstacle to his being elevated to
a post corresponding to his eminent ability. Thus was he made
a victim of that high-handed injustice towards Catholic officials,
the abolition of which he had so energetically advocated in his
examination theme. It is true, Mallinckrodt occupied, for a
short time, a prominent position in the ministry of the interior ;
but his call to that high office was, on the part of the president
of the cabinet, rather a move on the parliamentary chess-board
than a desire to honor the great man.
Finally, in 1872, when Might had become Right in the
code of the Iron Chancellor, Mallinckrodt completely severed
his official relations with the state. He was unwilling to see
his stainless name even remotely connected, with an administra-
tion which, for trampling under foot men's most sacred rights,
stern history must brand for ever with the dishonoring stigma
of injustice and tyranny.
Mallinckrodt was twice married. In i860 he led his first
wife, Elizabeth von Bernhard, to God's holy altar, there to
obtain his divine blessing on their nuptial union. No doubt
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220 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [May,
many reasons may be assigned for the long delay which he
allowed to elapse before looking for the comforts and joys of
an independent home. The fundamental cause, however — one
that must increase our esteem for the man an hundredfold — we
learn from a private communication of his to an intimate
friend. The fact of the matter was that Mallinckrodt was
thinking seriously of leading a virginal life. His mind had
been deeply impressed — we have his own testimony for it —
with the word of the Apostle: "For I would that all men
were even as myself; but every one hath his proper gift from
God : one after this manner, and another after that " (I. Cor.
vii. 7). This thought stood habitually and in clear outlines
before his mind, and caused him to procrastinate, petitioning
Heaven for light. Under the influence of that same idea he
wrote, half in joke and half in earnest, to a near relative,
"that he had not yet hired out as a lay-brother among the
friars." "Nothing remains for me," he says elsewhere, "but
to spend the Lenten season devoutly, to commend myself to
the good pleasure of the Highest Court, and to ask Pauline
and the others for recommendations to the same address."
The light so much prayed for finally did shine upon his hesi-
tating spirit. Engaged in the ministry of the interior, at the
same time a representative in the Prussian House, he was
forced, much against his will, to take up his lodgings with Jew
and Gentile. In days of sickness he was entirely at the mercy
of strangers. This state of things could not last. The wiser
course for a man in his circumstances was the establishment
of a place which he could really call his home. Then came
the delicate question of choosing a congenial companion for
life. Providence led her in his way, in the person of Elizabeth
von Bernhard, the descendant of a titled family in Bavaria.
Their married life, entered upon as it was by the will and
with the blessing of the Almighty, proved a most happy one
for our Christian couple. Not indeed that their pathway was
always strewn with roses. Thorns, many and sharp, frequently
obstructed their passage. Sicknesses and deaths of beloved
children, even for a time anxiety about financial affairs, visited
at brief intervals the Mallinckrodt home. But the patience and
fortitude of the parents overcame all obstacles and caused them
to press forward courageously on the royal road of the Cross.
The already strained limits of this study forbid us to venture
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 221
on a more detailed description of the domestic circle. Suffice
it to state that peace and mutual love, based on the Apostle's
teaching for married Christians, reigned there supreme.
In the first months of their union the new couple acquired
by purchase the large property of Mittenhcim, in Upper
Bavaria. This country seat became for several years their sum-
mer residence, until they made it their permanent home, dur-
ing Mallinckrodt's parliamentary recess, from 1863 to 1867.
In the meantime Diisseldorf, and later on Merseburg, the scene
of Mallinckrodt's activity as counsellor of the government, were
chosen as abodes. In 1872 a maternal aunt of his assigned
Herman von Mallinckrodt the landed property of Nordborchen,
in Westphalia, the family seat of his mother. He himself, in
days long gone by, had spent there many a happy hour. The
offer of his aunt was gratefully accepted; and June of the
same year saw the new master with his family installed on the
old maternal homestead.
It was during the first oppressive years of the Kulturkampf
that the happy union was rudely burst asunder. Death, by
snatching his faithful wife from Mallinckrodt's side, added a
domestic cross of untold bitterness to the overwhelming public
grief of the great Catholic champion. Intense was his sorrow
at the loss of his gentle helpmate, who had cheered for him
many an hour when he returned weary and fatigued from his
battles for God and the Church. Still, it could not prevent
him from seeing the absolute necessity of giving a new mother
to his five children, of whom the oldest was only a little over
ten. This was all the more an imperative duty, as he himself
was chained to the far-away capital, where the little phalanx
of Freedom, Truth, and Justice anxiously awaited his command.
In February, 1874, Thecla von Bernhard, the sister of his first
wife, consented to take the place and assume the duties of a
mother in the Nordborchen home. The marriage took place
at Munich. Eight days later the great leader stood again -in
the front of the fray in the Reichstag. Little did he, or any
one else, suspect that within three months his new bride was
to don the widow's weeds ; that his children, orphans for the
second time, were to kneel at the grave of their beloved
father.
(to be continued.)
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222 Brittany and its People. [May,
BRITTANY AND ITS PEOPLE.
BY THOMAS O'HAGAN. Ph.D.
^NE of the most interesting corners of France is
Brittany. I designate it as a corner, since in
its peninsular form it is set away by itself with-
in the embrace of the English Channel and the
Atlantic Ocean. But its individuality is not
alone geographical ; it is as well ethnological and historical.
The Bretons are a people differentiated from the French in
language, customs, and ideals. They hald kinship with the
Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
Brittany, whose ancient name was Armorica {Ar mar, by
the sea), was originally peopled by the race of the Dolmen-
builders, a brown-eyed and dark- haired people who strewed it
with their monuments. Little remains or is known of the
Armoricans. It is supposed that the Bigandens, as they are
called, who occupy the promontory of Sizun and Pont TAbb^,
directly south of Quimper, are descendants of the Armoricans.
From Pliny and Caesar we learn little about the first inhabi-
tants of Brittany, or, as it was then called, Armorica. Pliny
calls Brittany "the looking-on peninsula of the ocean." In the
time of Caesar the country was divided into five distinct tribal
divisions nearly corresponding to the present five departments
of Brittany. It was in the great naval battle before Dariobrigum
that Caesar succeeded finally in subjugating the Armoricans.
But it was in vain that the Romans endeavored to replace
among the Armoricans the cult of druidism with the worship
of the Roman gods. The Armoricans only abandoned the
religion of the druids to embrace Christianity, which was
introduced into Brittany during the fourth century by the
disciples of St. Martin of Tours. The monks who came to
Brittany from England and Ireland during the sixth and seventh
centuries completed the work.
There are two theories as to the causes which impelled the
Bretons to pass over from England to Brittany. The first that
a Breton chief. Con Meriadec, bent on conquest, landed in
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904-] BRITTANY AND ITS PEOPLE. 223
Armorica and made himself master of the country by force of
arms. The second theory, and the more probable, is that the
Bretons, flying from the Anglo-Saxons, sought shelter in
Armorica, and that this emigration continued for two or three
centuries, till at last, little by little, they completely absorbed
the Armoricans and gave their name to the country.
Brittany of to-day has a population of about 3,250,000.
The increase in its population surpasses that of any other part
of France, as may be seen from the fact that against this
3,250,000 inhabitants it had but 2,947,348 in 1872.
The Breton tongue is yet the habitual language of 1,500,000,
of whom about 500,000 know no other language.. The Breton
is not a uniform language, but compri;ses foyr dialects: the
Tregorois, the L^on, the Cornouaillais, and the Vannetais.
It is to be regretted that the French government of to-day
has shown itself so unjust and hostile to the Breton people.
They deserve better of the Republic. While the beautiful Celtic
language, so rich in epithet, so harmonious in its word relation,
may be and is taught in the schools of Wales, Scotland, and
Ireland, it is proscribed in Brittany, and in 1902 an order was
addressed by M. Combes to all the bishops and clergy of
Lower Brittany forbidding them to preach in the language
understood by the people, on pain of withdrawal of their
stipends. It is needless to say that the order has been properly
disregarded.
In speaking of the establishment of Christianity in Brittany
it should be noted that the Irish missionaries bore a prominent
part in the work. When Ireland, through the teachings of St.
Patrick, turned from druidism to the Cross the spirit which
stirred into religious life the Celt of Ireland soon reached the
shores of Brittany, and as a consequence missionary colleges
for the training of young men for the priesthood were established
there almost coeval with their foundation in Ireland. Indeed,
the work of the evangelization of Ireland seems to have sent a
religious thrill through Brittany.
The principal Irish founders in the country were: Fiacc,
Bishop of Sletty, called in Breton Vi'ho; Tighernac, Bishop of
Clogher and Clones, in Breton Thegounec; Eugenius, Bishop
of Ardstraw, in Breton Saint Tugean; Senan, Abbot of Innis-
Cathy, in Breton Seny; Setna his disciple, in Breton Sezni;
Conleath, in Breton Conlitz, Ronan, and Brendan.
VOL. Lxxix. — 15 . ^ T
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224 BRITTANY AND ITS PEOPLE. [May,
The principal British founders were: Cadoc, Brioc, Tugdual,
Lenore, Paulus Aurelianus, Curig, Caradoc, Gildas, Kenneth,
David, Samson, Malo, Arthmael Meven, and Mancen or
Mawgan — the latter closely allied with the Irish mission.
Nonna, mother of St. David, Ninnoc, Noyala, and disciples of
St. Bridget, established in Brittany institutions for the educa-
tion of the daughters of the freemen of the tribe to which the
schools were attached.
Theodore Botrel, the Breton bard, in the title poem of one
of his latest works, Chansons de Chez Nous, makes reference to
and acknowledgment of Irish missionary work in his native
country. Let me quote the first four stanzas of this poem — so
patriotic, so simple, so full of the directness and spirit of the
true minstrel.:
''Chez nous, le 'Chez nous,' de la bas
C*est Toi, cher petit coin de terre
Qui pars d'llle-et-Vilaine et vas
Finir avec le Finistere ;
C'est Toi, Taieulfe aux grands yeux doux .
Des Celtes aux larges epaules,
Au cceur fort, aux long cheveux roux
Premiers fits de premieres Gaules;
C'est Toi, la terre des granit
Et de rimmense et morne lande,
Pieuse Armor au sol b^nit
Par les grands saints venus d'Irlande,
Ou Ton recontre a chaque pas
Des menhirs pres des Christ en pierre,
Ou le ciel est si bas, si bas
Qu'on y voit monten son pri^re ! "
But not only did Irish missionaries carry the torch of faith
into Brittany, large numbers of the Irish from the south of
Ireland — from Wexford and Ossory — passed over and settled in
Brittany during the close of the fifth century, along the west
and north coast. The coast-line of Cornouaille and Ldon was
studded thick with them. It was unfortunate for Brittany (hat
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Brittany and its People. 225
her position made her a prey to invasion early in the centuries.
Now the Huns ravaged her interior, now Saxon, Frisian, and
Dane preyed upon her coasts. Then too, as in Ireland, want
of cohesion among the chieftains or princes weakened her
resistance in battling with an invading foe.
Yet Brittany has marched down the centuries full of honor
— wearing the garb of heroic achievement. Her history is
starred with brilliant deeds on land and sea. It is true she
has at times yielded — as what people or nation has not? — to
the capricious vicissitudes of fortune. But the life of Brittany
and the ideal of the Breton people have been a logical unit
through the centuries.
There are nations that develop, but lose sight of their
ideal. They march rapidly, but blindly. This cannot be said
of Brittany. She has ever held tenaciously to her moral centre.
Other peoples have stained their escutcheons; she has not.
Brittany is an embodiment of Celtic moral life. She is an
embodiment too of Celtic idealism.
What is her history through the centuries? In brief it is
this : Till the middle of the tenth century Brittany was engaged
in continual warfare with Danes and Northmen, who harassed
her shores. These vandals from the north pillaged and de-
, stroyed the churches of Brittany and turned the country into
a waste. At length the Britons in 938, with Alan Barbctorte,
godson of Athelstan, King of England, at their head, suc-
ceeded in driving out the Northmen. The country was then
reorganized. Hitherto the colonists had been divided into
tribes, each of -which was a plou and into which no Gallo-
Roman could enter. But after the victories of Alan Barbetorte
the pious were not reconstructed, and the feudal system suc-
ceeded to that which was tribal.
Brittany was now broken up into a hierarchy of counties
and seigneuries, and the king abandoned the royal title and
contented himself with that of duke. The great counties were
those of L^on, Cornouaille, Coher, Porhoet, Penthi^vre, Rennes,
and Nantes. Five barons defended the eastern frontier, hold-
ing their fiefs under the Count of Rennes; these were Cha-
teaabriant. La Guerche, Vitre, Fongeres, and Combourg.
When William the Conqueror became King of England
Brittany was nipped between France and Normandy, and be-
came an object of ambition to both and a common battlefield.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
226 BRITTANY AND ITS PEOPLE. [May^
It will be remembered that Henry II., King of England,
married his son Geoffrey Plantagenet to Constance, daughter
of Conan IV., the heiress of Brittany, and Geoffrey was
crowned at Rennes in (169. It was Arthur, son of Geoffrey,
and not John Lackland — or, as the French designate him, Jean
Sans Terre — who, on the death of Richard Coeur de Lion, was
the rightful heir to the English throne. To get rid of Arthur,
John had him first itnprisoned in the tower of Rouen and
then cruelly murdered. But Shakspere's story in the play of
" King John " — which, by the way, is a political not an historical
play — of Constance, mother of Arthur, dying broken-hearted
is not true. Constance married Guy de Thouars, and had by
him a daughter and heiress, who was married to Pierre de
Dreux.
In 149 1 the history of Brittany as an independent country
ceases. On December 6 of that year Anne Duchess of Brit-
tany, in the chateau of Langeais in Touraine, married Charles
VIII., King of France. The contract safeguarded the liberties
of Brittany, but alas ! how have not these liberties been vio-
lated, how have not Breton rights been ignored ! To-day the
whole force of the French government is directed towards
crushing the Breton people.
The so-called Reformation — which was rather a rebellion
than a reformation — of the sixteenth century made little head*
way in Brittany. When Henry IV., King of France, came to
the throne, in 1589, he was a Calvinist. There were at this
time in Brittany three parties mutually antagonistic — the
Leaguers, supporters of the house of Guise, the Huguenots,
and the Royalists. Nantes became the headquarters of the
League. The Huguenots from Vitr^ and the castles of the
family of Rohan, who had espoused the new faith, swept the
country, ravaging and burning. Nine years of war ensued be-
tween 1589 and 1598, during which Brittany was almost depop-
ulated. But the attempt to graft Calvinism on the Catholic
tree of faith planted in Brittany by co-laborers of St. Patrick
proved a failure.
When we pass to the French Revolution of 1789 we sec
what a noble stand the Breton peasantry made against the
bloodthirsty ruffians who had grasped the reins of power. As
Baring-Gould, the English author, in his work on Brittany
tells us : " Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in the mouths of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Brittany and its People. 227
these latter meant Tyranny, Robbery, and Massacre. Again
the soil of Brittany was drenched in blood. The cur^s were
hunted like wild beasts, and when caught were hung, guillo-
tined, or shot. Under the Reign of Terror the moderate Bre-
ton deputies, who belonged to the party of the Girondins, had
to fly for their lives. The Convention sent down into Brittany
Carrier and others, the scum of humanity, to ' purify ' the
country. Twenty-eight Girondists were guillotined at Brest.
Any one who was held suspect was at once sent to his death.
The Loire at Nantes was choked with the bodies of inoffensive
men, women, and children drowned in the Noyades."
I have already said that the Bretons have tenaciously held
to their ideals and battled for them. With the deep fervency
of the Celt, whose meaning of life is ever interpreted in terms
of piety and faith, the Bretons live in the world of the spir-
itual, and the beauty of its mansions have entered their souls.
They are linked to heaven by a childlike faith, and seem to
hare ever before them their baptismal and confirmation vows.
Men wiser in sin and vainer in reason charge them with super-
stition, but they are content with their allegiance to God.
Him they will serve despite any mandate of Caesar.
I shall never forget the impression that these honest, sim-
ple, trustful, and pious people made upon me as I journeyed
through their country last summer. It was a beautiful morn-
ing in July as our boat, setting out from Southampton in Eng-
land the evening before, reached St. Malo. This is a good
point to begin a tour of Brittany. You should begin with a
study of the Malouin before you enter <the heart of Brittany.
The Malouin is a sailor — essentially so. Something about
the old walled city of St Malo, with its six gates, its high
tides, its countless sails moving unceasingly hither and thither
— like winged birds upon the deep — its atmosphere of the sea,
together with that fret, social, and jovial character of comrade-
ship which is the dower of marine cities that have been dream-
ing for centuries, now lulled, now awakened by the songs of
the deep— -something about this old, quaint, and historic city
tells you — ^without the memory of history — that here indeed
the great Malouin explorer Jacques Cartier was born.
In the Cathedral of St. Malo, which is partly Gothic and
partly Renaissance, you read within the chancel upon the floor
these words:
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
228 Brittany and its People, [May,
ici
S'EST AGENOUILLfi
JACQUES C ARTIER.
POUR RECEVOIR LA BfiNfiDICTION
A SON DEPART POUR LA DfiCOUVERTE
DU CANADA LE MAI, 1535.
HONORE MERCIER,
PREMIER MINISTRE DE QUEBEC,
SOUVENIR DE LA VISITE
1891.
As I Stood reading this commemorative inscription, full of
patriotic import to every Canadian heart, I thought of the
beautiful lines penned by that gifted Irish balladist, Hon.
Thomas D'Arcy McGee:
'' In the seaport of St. Malo 'twas a smiling morn in May,
When the commodore Jacques Cartier to the westward sailed
away ;
In the crowded old Cathedral all the town were on their
knees,
For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas."
But Cartier was not the only daring soul cradled in St.
Malo. Here was also born, June 10, 1673, Duguay-Trouin, one
of the boldest seamen who ever commanded a privateer. When
but twenty-one years of age Louis XIV. commissioned him as
captain in the royal marine. His great feat was the capture of
Rio de Janeiro the 21st September, 1711.
As with the Norwegian so with the Breton, something in
his nature links him with the mystery and drama of the sea.
Mayhap his childhood has passed where the white sails come
and go, and in time he comes to regard the ocean with a feel-
ing of filial kinship and reverence, not fear.
Look at the great fleet of fishing boats that quit each year
the Breton coasts for Newfoundland and Iceland. The ''Ice-
landers' " fleet starts on February 20, and is absent till the
autumn. Its headquarters is at Paimpol on the northern coast,
in the Bay of St. Brieuc. As many as one hundred and eighty
vessels set out together, and a most interesting ceremony to
witness is the blessing of the fleet, which takes place with
solemnity before its departure. It may be worth noting here
that Paimpol is the scene of Pierre Loti's novel Pecheur d'Irlande.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Brittany and its People. 229
In connection with these strong, daring-hearted — yea, tender-
iiearted — Breton fishermen who annually set out from Paimpol
for the waters of Iceland, leaving their Breton homes — their
mothers and sisters and sweethearts — behind, Theodore Botrel
has written a beautiful poem full of truth, full of sincerity, full
of tenderness. An attempt to translate the poem into even
good English verse would be a desecration. Breton genius has
fashioned it; a Breton soul must interpret. The poem is en-
titled " La Paimpolaise " :
"Quittant ses genets et sa lande,
Quand le Breton se fait Marin,
En allant aux peches dlrlande
Voici quel est le doux refrain
Que le pauvre gas
Fredonne tout bas:
J'aime Paimpol et sa falaise,
Son £glise et son grand Pardon ;
J'aime surtout la Paimpolaise
Qui m'attend au pays breton !
Quand leurs bateaux quittent nos rives,
Le cur^ leur dit : ' Mes bon fieux,
Priez souvent Monsieur Saint Yves
Qui nous voit des cieux toujours bleus,'
Et le pauvre gas
Fredonne tous bas :
' Le ciel est moins bleu, n'en d^plaise
A saint Yvon, notre Patron,
Que les yeux de la Paimpolaise
Qui m'attend au pays breton ! '
Guid^ par la petite fltoile,
Le vieux patron, d'un air tres fin,
Dit souvent que sa blanche voile
Semble Taile d'un Seraphin. . . .
Et le pauvre gas
Fredonne tout bas :
'Ta voiture, mon vieux Jean-Blaise,
Est moins blanche au mat d'artimon.
Que la coiffe a la Paimpolaise
Qui m'attend au pays breton.'
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230 Brittany and its People. [May,
Le brave Irlandais, sans murmure,
Jett6 \k ligne et le harpon ;
Puis, dans an relent de saumure,
II se conche dans Tentrepont. . . .
Et le pauvre gas
Soupire tout bas:
'Je serions ben mieux k mon aise,
Devant un joli feu d'ajonc
A cote de la Paimpolaise
Qui m'attend au pays breton ! '
Mais, souvent, TOc^an qu'il dompte
Se reveille, l&che et cruel ;
Et lorsque, le s6ir, on se coropte,
Bien de noms manquent a Tappel . . .
Et le pauvre gas
Fredonne tout bas:
' Pour combattfe la flotte anglaise
Comme il faut plus d'un moussaillon,
J 'en caus'rons i ma Paimpolaise
En rentrant au pays breton ! '
Puis, quand la vague le d^signe,
L'appelant de sa grosse, voix,
Le brave Irlandais se resigne
En faisant un signe de croix. . . .
Et le pauvre gas,
Quand vient le trepas,
Serrant la m^daille qu'il baise,
Glisse dans TOc^an sans fond
En songeant a la Paimpolaise . . .
Qui I'attend au pays breton ! . . . "
St. Malo was the birth-place also of the initiator of nine-
teenth-century Romanticism in France — Franpois-Ren^ de
Chateaubriand, whose Genius of Christianity and The Martyrs
entitle him to rank with the best French prose writers of the
nineteenth century. Chateaubriand's life and lot were cast in
stormy times. Born in 1768, he was an eye-witness of the
French Revolution and all its attendant horrors. After his
voyage in America in 1791, to which may be attributed some-
what the richness of coloring in his works, he enrolled himself
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1904.] Brittany and its People. 231
in the army of the £migris and entered Paris on the i8th
Brumaire — that is, during the second month of the calendar of
the First French Republic — for at this time Danton and Robes-
pierre were revising civilization and patching up the seamless
garment of Christianity — with, of course, the aid of the God-
dess of Reason.
In connection with the spirit which pervades 'the literary
work of Chiteaubriand at this time it should be noted that
nearly all the writers of this period embody in their work
something of the same unrest, as witness the '' Childe Harold "
of Byron and the "Werther'' of Goethe. It is what the
French call Le mat du SUcle.
His Genius of Christianity was followed by The Martyrs^
already mentioned, and Atala and Reni, which were translated
into nearly all the languages. It is, however, in the Genius of
Christianity that one must seek for the literary theories of
Chateaubriand — theories by which this gifted writer became
chief of the school which he founded.
In the preface written for the edition of the Genius of
Christianity published in 1828 the author recalls to mind, in
the following lines, the conditions under which the work first
appeared :
" Ce fut, pour ainsi dire, au milieu de debris des nos tem-
ples que je publia Le Genie du Christianisme pour rappeler dans
ces temples les pompes du culte et les serviteurs des autels.
On avait alors, apres les dv^nements de la Revolution, un
besoin de foi, une aviditd de consolation religieuses qui venaient
de la privation meme de ces consolations depuis de longues
ann^es."
Another writer Brittany has produced — born at Tr^guier,
the city of St. Tugdual, on the 27th February, 1823; but how
different is the spirit of his work from that of Chateaubriand!
Ernest Renan spent his life throwing literary pebbles at Cal-
vary. His much lauded Vie de Jisus^ in which he feebly
endeavors to rob the Son of God of His divinity, is neither a
profound study nor a work of art. Rousseau and Voltaire,
however vicious their principles, had an individuality of style
which entitles them to rank among French writers; but the
work of Renan has nothing to commend it save that it is a
finger-post pointing to the quicksands of doubt and infidelity
towards which unhappy France with rapid and blind pace is
travelling to-day. Digitized by CiOOglc
232 BRITTANY AND ITS PEOPLE. [May,
But the Catholic heart of Brittany will have none of Renan.
M. Combes and his crew of scoffing infidels may cover Brittany
with statues commemorative of every blasphemer whom the
genius of the French Republic, Maecenas like, has encouraged
and protected ; the noble spirit of the Breton shall ever pro-
test, and fronting the statue of Renan has erected, by way of
reparation, a Calvary inscribed with the words of the chief of
apostates : '' O Galilean, Thou has Conquered I *'
Not only will Brittany have none of M. Combes, but the
Bretons disclaim to be of the France fashioned by M. Combes.
In an address delivered by the president of the council on
January i6, 1903, the chief of the French government, in his
reference to Brittany, said : " When the last circular forbidding
the Breton language had been drawn up I believed that Brittany
was in France." Taking this as the text of a sonnet addressed
to M. Combes, the Breton bard, Theodore Botrel, replies :
'*Non, nous ne sommes pas de votre France a vous:
France anti-libertaire, antir-r^publicaine,
Qui Machonne en sa bonche et roule en ses yeux fous
Des paroles d'argueil et des regards, de haine !
Debout, calmes et fiers, nous attendons vos coups :
Un coeur indompt^ bat sous nos tricots de laine!
Un vrai Celte jamais n'ai pli6 les genoux
Que devant sa ** promise " ou sa Vierge de Chene !
Non, la France, pour qui sont mort tant de nos gas,
O Ministre ! n'est pas Celle des regenats :
C'est la France croyante et pure . . . c'cst la Vraie.
Celle que nous aurons quand viendra Messidor
Et que les gens de Gaule, unis aux gas d'Armor,
Du vieux Champ paternel auront sacrl^ Tivraie!"
A little event took place at Quimper, in Finisterre, in Au-
gust, 1902, which must have satisfied M. Combes that Brittany is
indeed in France. It was on the occasion of the expulsion of
the religious orders from the historic old city where, in the
early centuries, had labored the Breton Saint Corentin.
Such a manifestation against the French government has
been witnessed in no other part of France. The Breton women
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1904.] Brittany and its People. 233
entered into the fight, and, like the Irishwomen of Limerick,
who made it hot for the army of William of Orange, so the
brave wives and daughters of the cathedral city of Quimper
fought M. Combes' little army of guns and bayonets till the
latter almost despaired of being able to accomplish their task.
An amusing complaint issued from the minions of M. Combes
after the battle. It was that the Breton women did not fight
fair — not according to the accepted and approved tactics of the
French military school of St. Cyr. It reminds one of the state-
ment of a French military journal, that the charge of the Light
Brigade at Balaklava was magnificent, but not war. So M.
Combes' doughty brigade when it attacked the defenceless
religieuse of Quimper found themselves with cannon to right of
them and cannon to left of them — the brave Breton women — and
they came very near suffering the same decimation of numbers.
As to the churches of Brittany, the cathedral at Quimper is
by far the finest. It is a very noble structure of the Gothic
style, but of course lacking the massiveness and impressiveness
of such cathedrals as Rouen, Chartres, and Notre Dame de Paris.
The choir dates from the end of the thirteenth century. The
transepts and nave belong to the fifteenth century. The two
spires are modern and are excellent. The erection of these
spires was due to the town folk consenting to a duty of a soil
a pound being charged on all the butter brought into market.
The beautiful chapel of Our Lady is in the purest geometri-
cal style. The choir has an apsidal termination. The clerestory
windows are filled with old glass representing Breton saints.
The cathedral, however, at Rennes, where his Eminence Car-
dinal Labour^ resides, is not worthy of the metropolitan see.
It was constructed during the close of the eighteenth and be-
ginning of the nineteenth centuries, and is a mixture of Gothic
and Renaissance. The church entirely lacks proportion, the
towers being altogether too massive for the body of the church.
The F(te Dieu celebration, which I witnessed last June at Rennes,
was a magnificent manifestation of Catholic faith, and showed
that the Catholic heart of the capital of Brittany beats true.
Everywhere there is the same evidence of faith in Brittany ;
whether among the fishermen of the coast, the toiling peasants
in the fields, or the citizens of the metropolitan towns. Catholic
Brittany certainly is, and Catholic without doubt it will ever
remain.
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234 A VAUDEVILLE ROMANCE. [May,
A VAUDEVILLE ROMANCE.
BY MARY CATHERINE CROWLEY,
Autk9r»f 'M Daughter §f New France,'* " The Heroine efthe Strait,*' and '* Love
Thrives in War,"
f OW, Aunt Felice, you really must let me take you
to the Vaudeville." The tall, round-faced boy
thrust his thumb and forefinger into his waist-
coat pocket, and, toying with his sole remain-
ing dollar, smiled into the eyes of the little
woman in black.
" Take me ? Why, Jack, I never go to the theatre ; I have
not been since — "
The hasty glance she cast at her mourning completed the
sentence more eloquently than words could have done.
"I know," said Jack awkwardly — it is not always easy for
a boy to show his sympathy — '* but this is not a regular thea-
tre; we do not have to stay all during the performance; we
will come out whenever you like ! I'
The little woman stood for a moment irresolute and gazed
across the square. It was the Campus Martins of Detroit, and
the June sun beat down upon it with a midsummer heat; but,
on one side, the grounds before the City Hall were bright with
flowers, and, opposite them, the long, narrow park that extends
down to the new County Building was a beautiful stretch of
green. Around the base of the Soldiers' Monument, too, there
were growing plants, while the bright waters of the fountain,
almost in front of the theatre, plashed with a refreshing sound
into the great marble basin, suggesting the coolness and soli-
tude of the garden of some Roman villa, and causing one to
forget, for a brief space, the noise and dust of the square.
The Campus is rich in historic associations, but of these
traditions Mrs. Felice Barrett knew little and, as the saying
goes, cared less. Her home was in the interior of the State,
and the last time she had seen this place was when it was
thronged with soldiers and cheering citizens; the day when,
with joyous courage, a gallant regiment — the Thirty-fourth
Michigan — marched away to the Cuban war four years before.
And then she had gone back to the small city where her
1904.] A Vaudeville romance, 235
parents lived, back to live with them ; for, a few months earlier,
she and her husband had parted, he going to the south-west.
It was a foolish quarrel, and when they were separated each
was too proud to begin a correspondence. But, soon after that
day when Felice saw the soldiers march down to the train in
Detroit, a letter came saying that John Barrett had joined
the army somewhere out in Kentucky and was going to the war.
Nothing more was heard of him until, in a newspaper
account of a skirmish with the Spanish troops, among the list
of those who died bravely in the cause of a country not their
own, Felice saw his name — in letters that burned themselves
into her brain as with a searing-iron.
All this she thought of as she looked across the square,
and then the boy Jack said again :
"Just come in for half an hour, Aunt Felice. It is the
closing show of the season, and the best, I have been told.
There are the Espada Brothers, the greatest living acrobats;
M'selle Clailie, the world- renowned marks- woman ; Dickson, the
Minstrel King; and the Biograph pictures 1 "
The little woman came back from the past with a start.
She was trying to learn not to obtrude her grief upon others.
Her friends, remembering that she was still young and comely,
had begun to lose patience with her sorrow; she must hide it
in her heart. This manly nephew. Jack, was always her favorite,
and now she loved him the more because he bore the name of
the husband from whom she had been estranged. If she de-
clined Jack's invitation he would be in duty bound to escort
her up-town, yet he longed to see the vaudeville, she knew.
The boy's persistence won. The theatre would be cool and
pleasant and, after an hour's shopping, and a visit to a lawyer,
upon which latter errand Jack had piloted her, she was glad of
an opportunity to rest.
''Well, I will go to please you, dear," she said a trifle
wearily, *' only you must let me provide the tickets."
But in his masculine dignity he would not assent to such an
arrangement, and, asking his way to the box office, he bought
two of the best seats in the house.
The cozy auditorium was a cheerful refuge, gay with crim-
son and gold, and kept at an agreeable temperature by the
electric fans.
The programme was interesting, and if the wit was not of a
very high order, it was invariably clean. The exploits of the
236 A Vaudeville Romance, [May,
acrobats were really marvellous; so were the achievements of
M'selle Clailie, who shot at glass balls and demolished them
with a wonderful aim, that failed now and then, only in proof
that there was no trickery about it. A young, singer, enticed
into vaudeville by the high salary offered, rendered a fine
ballad with charming expression, and was heartily encored.
The stage darky told some of his old stories and sang a new
song; that odious caricature of his race, the stage Irishman,
disported himself as usual, in a manner worthy of a wild man
from Borneo.
At last, just as Mrs. Barrett's patience was giving out, the
biograph pictures were put on. They were of the usual variety :
a garden scene, wherein the gardener turned the watering-hose
on all invaders of his paradise — impish boys who played practical
jokes; and then the patriotic pictures, our soldiers in Cuba.
Now, for the first time, the little woman in black was close-
ly attentive. She leaned forward, and caught her breath in a
sigh. It was among scenes such as this that her husband had
struggled ; he might have been any one among these soldiers.
Shoulder to shoulder with such comrades he had fought; be-
side brave fellows like these he had died.
She was scarcely conscious that she wept, yet amid the
darkness wherein the house was wrapt her tears fell in a misty
rain. Next came the newest pictures — "The Boxer War in
China"; and, last of all, the United States troops evacuating
the city of Pekin. How proudly they stepped, marching on-
ward in solid ranks, moving together as if every muscle were
under the control of a single will. The heart of Felice Barrett
thrilled strangely as she watched them. Surely this was not
merely a picture! These were living men, strong and brave;
men familiar with the dangers and horrors of battle, yet who
knew nothing of defeat. She could see them as plainly as she
saw the soldiers when the Michigan regiment marched through
the square outside. Nearer they came, nearer.
Merciful Heaven! Who was that — there, there? That
private second in the line ? The one who held his head high
and smiled as if at some pleasant thought ?
Felice uttered a low exclamation that caused her young
escort to sharply scrutinize her.
The soldiers marched up, up,, almost to the edge of the
stage. Then, just as, apparently, they were going to march
right on over the heads of the audience, the wholq^^^ev^^n-
1904.] A Vaudeville Romance. 237
ished, the lights went up, and in place of the walls of the
Chinese capital, the quaint street, and the serried ranks of
armed men, there was only the blank white screen of the
biograph. In another moment this too disappeared, the acro-
bats came on again, and the programme began once more.
Many of the audience passed out, but the little woman in
black sat as one dazed. Her face was as white as the bands
of organdie at her neck and wrists.
"Are you ready to go?" inquired Jack; and as she turned
her startled eyes upon him, he added with anxious facetious-
ness, " Why, what is the matter. Aunt Felice ? Have you seen
a ghost?"
Her reply brought him to his feet in amazement.
"Yes," she faltered in a tense undertone. "There in the
ranks of our troops at Pekin I saw my husband ! I am sure
of it. O Jack ! if he was at Pekin, of course he did not lose
his life in Cuba. He must be alive. Think of it, alive, when
I have mourned him for dead during nearly four heart-break-
ing years I Let us stay ; I must see the picture again. No,
let us go; I will ask the manager the name of that regiment.
My husband is alive ; I saw him a moment since ! "
A great fear arose in the mind of the boy. " Was the dear
little woman's mind giving way beneath her troubles ? Was
she going crazy?" he asked himself.
A second glance at her reassured him somewhat. Although
she was greatly excited, her tears were falling fast, and he
remembered to have heard that the insane rarely weep.
The people in the neighboring chairs turned their heads to
look at her in uncomprehending surprise ; but thanks to the
fascinations of the continuous performance, they quickly gave
their attention again to the stage.
"Yes, we will inquire of the manager," whispered Jack, as
he gently led her out of the parquet. " But, dear Aunt Felice,
do not hope too much; your eyes may have deceived you."
In the office of the Vaudeville Theatre, Manager Steele, a
large, smooth-shaven, rosy-faced man, sat at his desk dictating
a letter to his stenographer. Although the words, "No Ad-
mittance," shone in gilt type on the glass panels that separated
him Irom the outer world, when he saw a trembling and agi-
tated little woman, accompanied by a tall youth, seeking to
enter his sanctum, he sprang up and threw open the door,
saying good-naturedly : ^.g,.^^, .^ GoOglc
238 A Vaudeville Romance. [May,
"What has occurred to annoy you, madam? If any of
the employees of the house have beeo lacking in attention or
politeness to you, — "
" Oh no, sir 1 " stammered Mrs. Barrett.
"Pray be seated and tell me what I can do for you," he
continued, shrewdly suspecting that he was confronted with a
situation as dramatic as many portrayed by the stars of " the
profession."
" My husband," she began nervously ; " I thought he was
dead, and I saw him a moment ago. Oh, please repeat that
last biograph picture! We quarrelled, and he went away to
the war. I have always prayed to God and the Blessed Vir-
gin that I might hear something more about him, and now
my prayer is answered. I wanted to cry out to him as he
passed."
" My dear madam, this is indeed an extraordinary story,"
said Mr. Steele kindly. " Be. assured I will do all I can to
help you in the matter. The regiment shown in the biograph
is the Fourteenth United States Infantry. The vaudeville per-
formance must proceed in its regular order, but if you will
stay until the pictures come on the next time — "
" Of course I will stay," she interrupted, in a voice that
shook with emotion. "I would wait all my life for a chance
to see him in this world again."
Provided with a pass from the manager, Mrs. Barrett once
more took her place in the parquet. Jack went out, sent a
telephone message home, and returning, sat beside her. Like
one in a feverish dream she waited, engrossed by her own
hopes and fears, seeing and hearing nothing.
To Jack also the performance lacked interest now, so eager
was he for the expected test at its close.
And now it was come. Before the fascinated eyes of the
audience loomed up once more the pagoda- crowned walls of
Pekin, no longer " The Forbidden City." From its wide-open
gates marched our troops, while upon the charmed ears of the
spectators fell the martial strains of " The Star-Spangled Banner."
One could almost hear the tramp, tramp of the regiment as
it advanced. Mrs. Barrett sat spell-bound.
" There, there he is," she cried out suddenly. " See, he is
smiling at us! Ah, I knew I could not be mistaken 1"
On came the soldiers, up to the footlights as before, and
before, they faded away. Once more the A^eil of dark*
' ^ digitized by V
1904.] A VAUDEVILLE ROMANCE, 239
ness was lifted from the auditorium, the vaudeville began
agaiii, but the little woman in black had fainted in her chair.
It was now evening, and no further inquiries could be made
until the following day. Between anxiety and joy Mrs. Barrett
was in a state of collapse. The next morning, however,
gathering her energies, she visited Fort Wayne and obtained
the information that the "Fourteenth Infantry" was at this
time in the Philippines. The commander of the fort was inter-
ested and kind, yet he could not forbear a word of warning.
" Do not let your hopes mount too high, my dear madam,"
said he. " Your hlisband may, indeed, have been in the ranks
of his company at Pekin, but, remember, our troops have had
many skirmishes in the Philippines, and, I am loath to say it, —
but, although he was living then, he may not be living at
present."
With the wish to avert the crushing force of a possible
blow later, the officer had been cruel.
"You might cable though," he added, with more of encour-
agement in his tone. " Thus, to-morrow you ought to have
definite news."
The cable message was sent before noon. Young and pretty
though Mrs. Barrett was, she felt that upon the answer depended
her future happiness or misery in this world. If word came
that John Barrett was dead, she would in heart be widowed anew.
But she did not admit the possibility of such news. Several
of the hours of suspense were spent in remodelling a gown her
husband had liked, and when it was finished she arrayed her-
self in it. The neighbors, seeing that she had laid aside her
mourning, smiled knowingly, and inquired of one another who
was to be pretty Mrs. Barrett's second husband.
Fortunately, Felice knew nothing of their comments. She
haunted the church. Although even prayer cannot bring back
the past, what a tower of strength it is against the armed for-
ces of the sorrows of the future ! If bitter disappointment was
to be her portion now, a menacing phantom from which she
could not escape made her realize that only God could save
her reason.
Amid the weariness of doubt she had another occupation, too,
a childish one, perhaps, yet it brought distraction from her fears.
That day, and the day following, during every performance
of the vaudeville, just before the biograph pictures came on,
VOL. LXXIX.— 16 ^ T
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240 A Vaudeville romance. [May,
a quiet little woman with a white, anxious face hurried to a
place in the parquet and watched the pictures with an interest
pathetic in its very delight.
When the troops and the illusion passed she stole away as
silently, only to return when there was an opportunity to see
them once more.
At last, after two days of waiting, two days that seemed an
eternity, there came an answer to the cablegram. The message
had been delayed.
What stories of joy and grief are often comprised in a
sentence, sometimes even in a single word! Every name on
the roll of those who fall in battle or succumb to the diseases
of war tells not only of a life sacrificed but of other lives
saddened, often until their end. The sight of her husband's
name in a printed list of those who had fallen on a Cuban
morass had all but broken the heart of young Mrs. Barrett;
so now, four words brought her happiness.
In a tumult of emotion she tore open the envelope of the
message and read:
"John Barrett, Company K., Fourteenth Infantry, alive
and well."
Fort Wayne, the military post of Detroit, in its name
commemorates not only the hero of Stony Point, but the valiant
deeds of '' Mad Anthony '' in this neighborhood during the
Revolution, and later, in the war with the Indians.
Never did the ground of the post appear more attractive
than en a certain day late in the summer of 1902. The forti-
fications, and the beautiful stretch of sward along the river
that constitutes the parade, were green as in the spring-time.
The old barracks, the quaint verandas and overarching trees
of Officers' Row, the blue waters flowing majestically past this
point of land that forms the narrowest part of the lower Strait ;
the white sails of pleasure craft, and the red or white smoke-
stacks of the great freight steamers of the Lakes ; the cannon
of the fort pointed, though not now in enmity, at the groves of
the Canadian shore ; all these made up a scene of varied pictur-
esqueness.
It was visiting day at the Fort, and a gala occasion. The
previous morning a new regiment, "the Fighting Fourteenth,"
bad arrived from the Philippines, having been sent home to the
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1904.] A VAUDEVILLE ROMANCE, 24 1
United States to recuperate after its long period of active
service.
On Thursday afternoons at the Fort the band always plays,
and there is a dress parade which the public may witness at
will. Sometimes the visitors are few, but to-day the walks
and terrace were crowded with spectators, so many of them
being women in gay attire that from a little distance the throng .
presented the appearance of a garden plot abloom with blossoms
of all the colors of the rainbow.
One does not see a whole regiment of heroes every day,
and " the Fighting Fourteenth," with its record in Cuba, China,
and our oriental possessions, had well earned its title.
Since all things, even the most brilliant, must come to an
end, so did the drill at last. In a quick march up the hill the
regiment, with martial immobility, charged upon the animated
flower-garden, as if bent upon trampling out of existence all
obstacles in its own path. With exclamations of dismay the
crowd skurried to right and left.
A word of command arrested the troops on the edge of the
walk; another rang out clear and curt, and they disbanded.
With the exception of the officers of the guard and the
sentries, officers and men were off duty and free to wander
about the grounds as they chose.
Now was the opportunity of the civilians. A bevy of the fair
sex charged upon the soldiers in dauntless retaliation, made cap-
tures here and there, and strolled away with their willing prisoners.
The entire regiment was welcomed with enthusiasm ; the few
men who hailed from Michigan were greeted by many friends.
But, of all the happy couples who sauntered over the
green parade of Fort Wayne that day, none were so happy as
a girlish little woman and a stalwart soldier who walked together
down by the river, far away from the more frequented promenade.
For the woman's eyes shone with an ecstatic. expression, and
the soldier smiled radiantly down at her as he said :
" Yes, Felice, before the winter comes my term of enlistment
will be over, and I shall have my discharge from the army.
Then I will try to get a mercantile position, and before long
we shall be able to have our little home again."
His arm stole around her, he kissed her fondly, and as she
hid her face upon his breast she murmured joyfully :
" O Jack, Jack 1 I can only say. Thank God ! thank God ! "
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242 ''In the Land of Gath:' [May,
" IN THE LAND OF GATH."
A SOCIAL STUDY OF LONDON'S EAST END.
BY M. F. QUINLAN.
[he Land of Gath stood apart.
Not that it was distant, for by stretching
out one of the arms the parish could just touch
the hem of Society's skirt. But for all that
Society knew or cared, we might have been at
the North Pole.
In the Land of Gath we took in washing, and there is no
social barrier like a mangle. Therefore it was behind this
mangle that we thought our own thoughts and lived our own
lives, and what lay beyond it we knew not. How to make ends
meet was the fiscal problem of Gath. And with an absence of
sentiment we wedged our pawn-tickets behind the remaining
picture frame and hoped against hope to redeem our household
gods.
So, week in, week out, we stood at the washtub and scrubbed
Society's linen, while the friendly mangle creaked in sympathy^
and the district stretched itself out in utter languor until it
ended as all human things must — in the cemetery. The Land
of Gath reeked of rags and of squalor; yet above it all floated
the smell of triumphant soap-suds. Viewed individually, we
looked dishevelled. Some of us did our hair once a week.
This was in the "season" when the curling- pins became per-
manent. Our bared arms were usually in the washtub — up to
the elbow. There ended the jurisdiction of the soap and water ;
and on every arm a black ridge marked the boundary. It was
as though the elbows had said to the suds "Thus far and no
farther," and the cleansing element receded. It was our high-
water mark.
There was a spirit of sociability in Gath, together with an
absence of ceremony ; one was invited impartially to the view-
ing of a corpse, or the christening of an infant — refreshment
being offered in either case. I remember once acting as sponsor
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ''In the Land of Gath:' 243
to some wee human atom. It was my first experience and I
found it difficult Beside me stood a burly blue-jacket ; he was
the godfather and quite invaluable, for he undid all the knots
incidental to baby attire. He also gave me timely advice.
The ceremony proceeded ; and the catechumen screamed lustily.
My ignorance of child-nature being profound, I held the infant
very tight, in case of developments. And as the baby writhed
and wriggled a weird vision rose up in my mind's eye of " Pepper "
and the " Duchess " in Alice in Wonderland, So, fearful of shak-
ing the child lest perchance it should become metamorphosed
into something else, I turned to the blue-jacket for instruction,
"Anything the matter with it?" I asked anxiously.
"W'y, miss!" and he viewed me commiseratingly, " yer ain't
got into the swing of 'olding it. Turn it on its front," said
the sailor-man of Gath, which I did in a spirit of gratitude.
At the conclusion of the ceremony the christening party
were met at the church door by a deputation of fellow- guests;
and, escorted by factory hands and " ironers," and a coal-heaver
and a soldier in a red coat, we threaded our way down muddy,
dreary streets until we reached the tenement house.
Inside the street door, suspended on strings from the ceil-
ing, damp garments hung limply — like so many kippers in
process of curing; so that the successful dodging of wet
pajama legs became quite an art in this wilderness of linen.
Instead of the " Cave Canem " inscribed in the tesselated por-
ticoes of Pompeii, " 'Ware Washing " might have been scrawled
on the grimy walls of Gath. In the upstair room the bed had
been unlimbed; and its dislocated joints piled outside on the
landing. This arrangement seemingly precluded an entry,
though it facilitated hospitality within.
The table groaned under vast supplies of tea and cake.
And tenement chairs, with a varying number of legs — some in
splints — were hastily pressed into the service. My chair had a
back to it; but then I was the godmother. Next me sat the
blue-jacket, and opposite was the soldier. According to local
etiquette, every man had his coat off — a christening tea being
regarded as a setious affair. Therefore did Mike Dooley divest
himself of his red coat and hang it carefully on a rusty nail.
It was during the war, and his regiment was under orders for
active service. T^ierefore Mike was downcast, for his young
wife was being left behind in the slum tenement. They had
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
244 ''IN THE LAND OF GATHr [May,
been married "off the strength"; so the newly made bride
had to work as a ''piece-hand" in a neighboring laundry.
In Gath, as elsewhere, there were all sorts and conditions.
Some of us were honest by heredity ; some by instinct. Other
some were short-sentence men. The latter we ignored, reserv-
ing our admiration for the deeper dyed. To be acquainted
with a murderer was a distinction in Gath. To be able to
point to the gallows and say : " Behold, that man was my
friend ! " was to share public honors with the deceased. How
many of us had been suspended from our country's gibbet I
know not, but most of the population knew to a unit. One
day I ventured to ask the question, and the small street arabs,
who were my friends, visibly recoiled before such ignorance.
" W'y ! yer dunno ? " They were petrified.
One little chap tugged at his solitary brace and murmured,
" Cricky I " Then the other two put their hands in their
pockets and gave themselves up to my enlightenment.
" Theer was five of 'em aht o' North Street — round be the
corner theer ! " I nodded.
" Murderers they was," said the second, with pardonable
pride, while his eyes grew round with awe.
"An'," interrupted the third little figure, — "an' they was
'anged. All of 'em," he added with emphasis, and he hitched
up his small trousers complacently.
But let it not be thought that we all aspired to the gallows,
for many were the good men of Gath. It was during the
South African War that one of our number gained the Vic-
toria Cross, and the public press rang with his praise. The
news was not known locally, so a philanthropist hastened to a
certain tenement. " Your husband," said he to a dishevelled
young woman, "has won the Victoria Cross ! " There was a pause.
" 'Ow much do 'e get ? " asked the wife stolidly.
The philanthropist knew not, so the subject dropped. Noto-
riety we understood, but fame was beyond our ken.
We had our own code of morals too. But they were not
quite up to the Sunday-school standard. One day a man
went to the clergy-house in sore distress.
" What is the trouble ? " asked the padre.
"The wife," replied the man.
" Gone ? "
" Yuss." A pause ensued. " 'E were a 'andsomer man,"
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ''In the Land of Gath:' 245
sighed the bereaved husband. This was the local formula.
Incompatibility of temper would have sounded less crude, but
the Land of Gath was neither fashionable nor God-fearing.
We always dealt with the naked truth.
Under a neighboring arch stood Billy Stubbs. In his ordi-
nary capacity he turned the handle of a mangle. But just now
he was the victim of an unrequited affection. He used to
make me his confidant.
"Well, Billy," I said sympathetically, "have you found
some one else ? " Billy maintained a gloomy silence.
" Tell you wot it is, miss I " he said after some considera-
tion ; " the * young ladies ' ain't wot they was / "
So Billy shook off the dust of feminine attractions and
gazed at me in hopeless apathy.
There was another local swain who used to discuss his
prospects with me. " I suppose, Tom," I said on one occasion,
" yours will be the next wedding ? "
Tom shook his head. " I 'ave to bury me mother fust,"
be said comprehensively.
One morning I saw a small child cleaning a window. The
practice was uncommon, so I watched her. By standing on
the window-ledge she could just smear the lower panes. Her
little dress hung in ribbons and the ends of her boots curled
up and yawned.
A shrill voice came from within. " Polly ! I 'opes yer a
cleanin' them winders prop'ly."
The diminutive window-cleaner paused — the wet cloth in
hand. Instructions to her ! Did her small ears deceive her ?
She craned her wee neck in the direction of the voice. " Who
are yer gettin' at ? " inquired Polly, with cold irony.
" If yer don't do them corners," reiterated the maternal
voice, " I'll pay yer ! "
Polly quivered with indignation. " Shut up ! " she retorted
sharply. *" Hi don't want no tellin' ! " And in a lofty manner
she disregarded the counsel.
Thus did the spirit of the age breathe from the window-ledge
of the tenement.
It was Saturday afternoon — half day. From force of habit
Gath rolled up its sleeves, and wiped off the soap-suds; after'
which the "sorters and packers," and the "wringers" and the
" hangers," and the " piece-hands " and the " manglers," enjoyed
social intercourse. Digitized by GoOglc
246 ''IN THE LAND OF GATH:' [May,
There was a babel of tongues and a lingering smell of
starched linen. Twenty women sat in the laundry with arms
akimbo, and talked. In the far corner, looking unobtrusive, a
solitary man in his shirt-sleeves smoked the pipe of peace.
" O' course yer knows Mr. 'Obbs ? " said my hostess. " Not
know Mr. *Obbs ! " she ejaculated — and forthwith an introduction
was shouted over the heads of the entire laundry, whereupon
the bald-headed man with the pipe got on his legs and elbowed
his way to the front.
"How do you do?" I said, conventionally, as Mr. Hobbs
grasped my hand.
" 'Earty ! " responded Mr. Hobbs with unexpected vigor.
" 'Ow's yerself ?" and my arm barely escaped dislocation. The
greeting over, my friend subsided into his original obscurity,
and the softly curling rings of smoke were the only proof of
his continued existence. I admired the philosophy of Mr. Hobbs.
In a neighboring church a youthful woman was being married
to an ancient mati. Some years must have elapsed since he
had been through the ceremony, for he had forgotten his part.
" I, William," prompted the officiating minister. Silence
reigned —
" Lor' now ! " ejaculated the old man, surprised out of him-
self. •* Blest ef that ain't my name too ! "
"Take her hand," came the next instruction. Here the
elderly swain needed no second bidding. He grasped the
bride's hand — and squeezed it; and the ritual was interpolated
with an audible "You duck!"
At this point I beat a hasty retreat, and was about to quit
the sacred edifice when one of the parishioners waylaid me.
" Fine Herodotus, ain't it ? "
" Fine what ? " I asked.
" W'y ! that painted Herodotus be'ind the altar." And forth-
with I gazed on the new teredos with added interest.
On regaining the street I collided with a woman. Her eye
was bandaged up. "What is the matter?" I inquired.
" Sure, and it is only a catafalque in my eye," was the
Hibernian rejoinder. And she plunged into the medical treat-
ment thereof.
Further along three tiny children sat on a doorstep exchang-
ing confidences.
"Yu3s," said the eldest, aged seven, "an' you'd think my
father was a good man — cos 'e looks nice. Q|^ed^y (iM^^k^^
I904.1 ''IN THE Land of Gath:' 247
said sorrowfully, **fur 'e 's that wicked . . ." The little
heads got nearer and the childish voices dropped to a whisper.
. . . " And that 's wot my father is," said the little one in
conclusion. She laid her curly head against the doorway and
sobbed softly to herself.
A laundry girl stood by the street corner with her back to
the wall. She looked overworked and listless. A hectic spot
burned on either cheek. She had consumption of the throat
and the doctor had prescribed " rest." But the girl's mother
took a different view, so the dying laundry hand worked
overtime and her mother sat in the public house and drank
deeper.
In the next street there was a feeling of expectancy. Wo-
men stood on the doorsteps, and every now and then they
looked up the street.
Presently a soldier in khaki turned the corner. He was
bronzed by the African sun, and on his breast was a Victoria
Cross. With a joyous step he came along whistling gaily. The
women watched him in silence; then some of them crept in-
doors. But he heeded them not. His eyes were fixed on the
tenement window. It was eighteen months since he had seen
his young wife, so he rushed upstairs two steps at a time.
Suddenly there was a strained silence.
" What is the trouble ? " I asked.
'' She is gone ! " said a woman tersely, and she turned
away; for beneath the gruffness lay womanly tears.
"Gawd 'elp the laundry 'ands!" said a touzled figure sym-
pathetically, while in the tenement room above a Victoria Cross
was trampled under foot, and a man cursed in fragments.
In the Book of Jeremias we read that on account of the
sins of Israel the prophet was commanded to stand by the
Earthen Gate with the potter's bottle in his hand. This he was
to break in the sight of the ancients and to prophesy: "Thus
saith the Lord of Hosts : Even so will I break this people and
this city as the potter's vessel is broken . . . because they
have forsaken me and profaned this place."
But Jeremias is dead and the Earthen Gate has crumbled.
Therefore the chosen ones in Gath have "forsaken the God of
their fathers, and have gone astray after the « gods of the people
of the land."
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248 Notes on the Educational Question. [May,
FURTHER NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION.
^OUTH AFRICA also is involved in the educa-
tional struggle, although in several of its divisions,
there being no parliamentary government, the
settlement has been made or will be made more
easily and more fairly.
It is a remarkable thing that a man so characteristically
modern in thought and achievement as was the late Mr. Cecil
Rhodes should yet have seen clearly the unsatisfactory character
of the modern notions of education, in so far as they either ex-
clude religion from public teaching or emasculate the religious
teaching given. Yet such was the case ; not t>nly did he choose
Oxford, that home of lost causes, yet permeated with religious
tradition, as the best place for higher education, but for primary
education also he insisted on the inclusion of definite denomi-
national teaching as a part of the every- day course of study. In
Rhodesia, where his influence was supreme, he offered facilities
in school hours in every school for each denomination, making
thereby religious teaching a necessary part of every- day in-
struction. On the reconstruction of the Transvaal and Orange
River Colonies after the war the respective governments have
made a similar arrangement, enabling the representatives of the
various denominations to enter the schools in the usual hours
for the purpose of giving their own definite teaching. In the
Colony of Cape Town, where constitutional government exists,
and where the majority of the indifferent as to religion have
the rule over the minority who are in earnest about religious
instruction, things are not so easily managed. The Protestant
Episcopal Church of the colony, where High-Churchmen have
the dominating influence, is making a good fight for the main-
tenance of religious instruction in the schools, and the Dutch
are more in earnest on behalf of definite religious teaching than
are .their English fellow- Protestants. In South Africa, as in
England and in this country, the Protestant sects are the ene-
mies who have to be fought. It is a hard thing to say, but it
is true, that the run of orthodox Protestants have just enough of
religion to render them its worst enemies — they are traitors
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1904.] Notes on the educational Question. 249
within the citadel, more dangerous than open foes. They
have already in this country, by their divisions, made education
secular; and wherever they have influence they are doing the
same thing, while professing a great zeal for conscience and
religion.
Every one who watches with attention the struggle now
being carried on in England cannot help seeing how true this is.
It is becoming so clear that some even of those who rank them-
selves as passive resisters recognize the trend of events. At
the annual meeting of the Free Church Council held at New-
castle, in March, the following resolution in support of Unde-
nominationalism was passed : " That no distinctively denomi-
national teaching or formulary be given or used in public
schools in school hours ; but simple Biblical instruction may be
given according to a syllabus, as is general at present in pro-
vided schools; attendance at such instruction shall be subject
to a conscience clause." The official members who control those
meetings so managed the business as to prevent real discussion ;
all the time at the disposal of the meeting was given to the
supporters of the resolution. Dr. H. S. Lunn, himself a pas-
sive resister, tried to speak against the resolution, but was
stopped after three minutes. He had time, however, to point
out that it was an absurd position for those who had banded
themselves together against an Established Church for adults,
to support an Established Church for children. ^' As a Liberal,"
he said, " I see nothing to choose between ecclesiastical despotism
dictated from Lambeth and an ecclesiastical despotism dictated
from the memorial hall of Nonconformists." If he had not been
a Nonconformist himself he would have seen a great deal to
choose, because of all tyranny that of the sects is the most
intolerable. For this reason the outcome of the efforts on behalf
of undenominationalism must result in purely secular teaching,
for people who will not stand the lesser tyranny will not stand
the greater. Expression has been given to this determination
by such well-known expounders of secularism as Mr. Frederic
Harrison and Professor E. S. Beesly — although they themselves
aspireto the establishment over the human race of a still more
intolerable despotism. Mr. Harrison says: ''The only possible
solution of tbe education problem is to be found in two plain
principles, namely, (i) Public control of all schools maintained
by public funds; (2) Secular teaching in all state schools, with
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2SO NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. [May,
liberty for all religious bodies to teach their own doctrines at
their oyrn cost in their own time. We protest against any taxa-
tion in support of any religious sect or doctrine whatever."
Professor Beesly says : " I would not stir a finger to relieve Non-
conformists from the necessity of paying for Anglican teaching
in the schools unless they are ready to exclude theological
teaching of every kind. Until they are prepared to go that
length I hope they will continue to suffer under Anglican
tyranny." The efforts of Nonconformists are tending, therefore,
towards the establishment of purely secular teaching, although
they profess supreme abhorrence of this result. In fact the
Trade Unions, at their annual congress held last year at Leicester,
passed a resolution declaring that there should be secular educa-
tion and popular control of all state-supported schools. The
Trade- Unionists represent a large proportion of the working
classes, and they openly avow their opposition to all religious
bodies, and particulatly to the Nonconformists; for the latter,
although averse to Anglican teaching, are yet inconsistent enough
— the Trade-Unionists think — themselves to seek to impose upon
those who are either atheists or secularists teaching to which the
latter object quite as much as Nonconformists themselves object
to the teaching of the Church of England. As recent investi-
gations have shown, a very small proportion of the people in
London attend any service whatsoever. It is not to be supposed
that all non-attendants at church or chapel service are irreligious
at heart, still less anti-religious; but it is certain that they will
be unwilling, when the issue is once raised and clearly placed
before them, to tax themselves for the support of a religion
recently manufactured by the churches which they will not take
the trouble even to attend. Pure secular teaching, therefore,
is the goal to which Nonconformists, out of a parsimonious
unwillingness to make any sacrifice to teach to their own
children their own doctrines, are driving the country, and are
proving themselves a main agency in the dechristianizing of its
people.
Nor are they doing this without warning of the impending
dangers. There are within their own ranks those who clearly
see the outcome of the adopted Nonconformist policy. Dr.
Lunn, whom we quoted above, paid last year a visit to this
country, lecturing in New York, Brooklyn, and St Louis.
He testifies in a letter to the Times that ''minister after min-
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1904.] Notes on the Educational Question. 251
ister of all communions came to me, and said that the disputes
between the churches in the matter of education had led in
America to a result which they all deplored — i.e., the absolute
secularization of the schools ; ' and that they greatly feared lest
such a catastrophe might occur in England."
Other Nonconformist ministers, officials of the Free Church
Council, admit that the policy which they are pursuing is not
just, yet are prepared to support it because, as they say, " We
must all stand together." On the other hand, the notorious
Dr. Clifford, the chairman, perhaps he may be called the
founder, of the National Passive Resistance Committee, sur-
renders to secularists all they want and establishes the domin-
ion of the state over the homes and consciences of men, by
declaring that " parents as such " have nothing to do with the
religious education given to their children in the public schools.
Of this, therefore, the state is to take sole control and is the
absolute judge. It is only fair to say that the great bulk of
even the Passive Resisters have not given express adhesion
to this position; but acts speak more effectually than words,
and it is to pure secularism that they all tend.
And now we hear that even the Anglican allies of the Catho-
lics are talking of compromise; at least some of them. Unfor-
tunately the political theories generally adopted all tend to the
support of the position taken up by the Nonconformists. Those
who pay the taxes have a right to control the expenditure,
and therefore all schools supported by public money ought to
be completely under popular control. The teachers are civil
servants, and therefore no religious test of any kind ought to
be imposed upon the teachers. Anglicans as well as Dissenters
have to a large extent adopted these maxims, and are there-
fore placed in a false position. The outcry, too, of persecution,
raised by the Nonconformists, has affected the imagination of
large numbers of the electors. Some churchmen even, in mak-
ing appeals to the electors, declare that they are in favor of
the abolition of what they style sectarian tests for teachers,
and for giving complete control of the schools to the rate-
payers. Important members of the government, it is said, are
admitting that Nonconformists have grievances. In return for
the abandonment of these safeguards of religious educations-
religious teachers and religious control — it is proposed to offer
to all religious denominations what are called ''facilities." This
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252 Notes on the Educational Question. [May,
is the right of entry into all schools; so that the representa-
tives of every denomination may enter to teach their own
children. This would involve the loss of the religious atmos-
phere, which does as much to form the character of the children
as the religious teaching itself; on the other hand, it would
give access to some three millions of children who are now
in the provided schools, and are getting nothing better than
undenominational instruction. It would abolish the dual con-
trol which now exists ; would make all the schools of one type.
For England it would be a step downward ; for this country
it would be a step upward, and is worth striving for. Catholics
in England, however, will iight against it; for they will not
recognize the principle of popular control, and it is thought
that they .will by their firmness secure special privileges. The
strong position which the Catholic schools hold is due to the
Irish members, who are proving themselves staunch defenders
of religious education; and the Nonconformists are dependent
upon them for the success of their own schemes. How true to
religious education Anglicans will prove a few months will
show, for the question will come to the front at the impending
general elections. The Liberal party is united in demanding
complete popular control of the schools and the abolition of all
religious tests for the teachers.
Meanwhile the eyes of many are being turned to Germany.
There a system of instruction under state control exists which
is just both to Catholics and to Protestants. The progress of
the United States in commercial prosperity is perhaps greater
than that of any other country, but Germany is not far behind.
There are those who attribute this country's prosperity to its
schools. To others this seems a confusion of cause and effect;
the schools of the country are but an outcome of the energetic
character of its people — a people determined to succeed in
whatever they undertake. At all events the German and the
American systems are diametrically opposed, and yet material
success has been attained by both. The Germans have thought
out their whole system, and they have deliberately included as
an essential part what has been as deliberately omitted by
the formers of the American system. The elementary school
of Germany includes, as one of its necessary functions, the
religious training of the young. The primary objects kept in
view are to form the character and conduct of the children.
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1904.] Notes on the Educational Question. 253
It is as strange as it is gratifying to see that Germany, the
home of the Reformation, has yet not so far reformed itself as
to have got rid of all religion. In fact, the organizers of
education there have practically recognized that of conduct and
of morality religion is the indispensable foundation ; and further,
that if religious education is to be effective it must be dogma-
tic. They have not, therefore, attempted to lop off parts of the
Christian religion in order to please the parents, but have
established separate schools for the Catholics and for the
Protestants, except where there are not enough children for a
separate school. In this case, where the schools are mixed, the
children receive religious instructions from teachers of their
own faith. So far from forbidding definite religious teaching,
so far from enacting conscience-clauses and Mount-Temple
clauses, the law ordains that instruction should be definitely
religious; the state pays for it, and leaves the choice of the
religion i to the parents, providing even for Jews also separate
schools. The German system as a whole deserves careful study.
The ninth volume of the Special Report on Educational
Subjects, published by the English Education Department, is
devoted to this system and contains the best account yet
published.
Of course the circumstances of our country differ so much
from those of every other, that a servile adoption or advocacy
of other systems is neither feasible nor desirable. But the
study of these systems is a good, in fact a necessary, means
for the improvement of our own; of the truth of this the
Mosely Commissions on Labor and on Education are the recog-
nition. And when it is seen that worldly success is associated
with, not to say consequent upon, a system of education which
recognizes the supremacy of higher interests, and when the
more thoughtful minds in this country are coming to recognize
that political corruption and the many other evils which are
rife have not been eradicated, to say the least, by the secular
education given in our public schools, it seems to be a duty
to look for a remedy wherever it may be found.
Within the last few weeks Germany has taken a further step
in recognition of the claims of religious education, albeit a
small one. This consists in the repeal of a part of the legis-
lation which goes under the name of the Kulturkampf. Even
yet, however, the repeal is far from being complete. It is only
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254 NOTES ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. [May.
the second clause of the law passed on the 4th of July, i872|
to the abrogation of which the Federal Council has consented.
This clause enacted that individual members of the Society of
Jesus and kindred orders might, if they were foreigners, be
expelled from the territory of the German Empire, and might,
if they were Germans, be compelled to reside in certain dis-
tricts or prevented from residing in others. The first clause
remains still in full force. The Jesuits and other religious com-
munities as corporate bodies are still excluded from the German
Empire.
The second clause has never been enforced, and powers still
remain to expel foreigners of every sort, and consequently of all
the religious orders independently of this law. So the conces-
sion amounts to very little. Small as it is, however, a great
outcry has been raised, not only by extreme Protestants but
also by those who inconsistently call themselves Liberals. The
latter discern, in the step taken, a tendency on the part of the
government to allow orthodoxy, whether Catholic or Protestant,
a wider influence than is consistent with the speculative
freedom characteristic of most of the German universities. We
welcome it as an evidence of how little power these German
universities possess at home, and as a proof, however small, of
the power of the church for good. It is a concession far less
than the Catholics of the Empire are entitled to, for the Centre
is by far the most numerous and the best disciplined of all the
parties in the Reichstag, and has leaders of great ability. If
Germany were ruled consistently on constitutional lines, giving
to Parliament its due supremacy, the Catholics would have it
in their power to obtain more complete justice.
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i9( i> Zbc Xateet Boohs, if if
A thousand years before Moses
THE CODE OP HAMMURABI. Babylonia* was the seat of a great
By Robert Francis Harper, Ph.D. empire and a marvellously devel-
oped civilization. While still the
Beni-Israel were a little group of nomads picking their way
north-westward from Ur, the Babylonians possessed populous
cities, an extensive commerce, a complex legislation, an immense
literature, and in general all the interior resources and external
splendor of a mighty state. We can readily imagine the won-
der of the Hebrew clan on its way to the land of the Chanaan-
ite, as with its goats and sheep and asses it passed one after
another of the busy Assyrian towns, Ur, Erech, Babel, Tello.
These Hebrews themselves had no cities, and in our modern
sense of the word no definite civilization. They were pastoral
in habit and patriarchal in government. They detested the
artificial constraints of an organized state. Their ideal was the
sheikh sitting before his tent looking out upon fertile fields and
prosperous flocks, and surrounded with men-servants and maid-
servants, and gladdened by the sight of many children, the rich-
est blessing of all that God could give. The tribe, not the state,
represented their social conceptions ; the grave, calm freedom
of wide pastures, not the nervous delight of urban highways,
answered to their ideas of the value of the individual life. Not
till centuries later did the Beni-Israel become a state, when,
having escaped from Egypt, they were fashioned into strict con-
stitutional form by Moses and the law, and became fixed therein
when Saul began to rule them as king.
But Babylon was old when Israel was young. Babylon was
a nation of huge power when the nomadic Semites were a
shepherd-clan. Babylon was learned, having arithmetic, geom-
etry, astronomy, a scientific calendar, and codified law, when
the children of Abraham were still without rabbis, scribes, or
doctors. Greater in age than Israel, and vastly superior in civil-
ization, Babylon lacked one spiritual possession cherished im-
memorially in the little tribe, and because of this possession,
• The Cod* of Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Text, Transliteration, Translation, Glossary,
Index of Subjects, etc. By Robert Francis Harper, Ph.D. ^.Chicago : University of Chicago
Press.
VOL. LXXIY.-17 Digi,,ed by Google
256 THE Latest BOOKS. [May,
belief in the one true God, namely, the simple bedouins live to-
day in posterity, while the empire which overshadowed them is
only a reminiscence of antiquity. And certainly it is curious
that now we are eagerly, almost frantically, studying the remains
of that empire for the predominant purpose of discovering its
relations to and influence upon the Hebrew herdsmen. These
latter stand in the forefront of history, and other ancient na-
tions derive their chief importance for us from their dealings
with them. A reversal of historical expectation this is, which
has its cause in a providential and divine disposition of the
affairs of men.
The search into the extant records of Babylonia, a search
chiefly interesting, as we have said, from the light it is expected
to throw on the early history of Israel, has led to some of the
most brilliant achievements of modern scholarship. The deci-
phering of the cuneiform alphabet is equally glorious with the
solving of the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. And the
patient labor since bestowed upon the buried treasures of Baby-
lonian antiquity, the labor of excavation, of translation, of com-
mentary and compilation ; a labor which has put before us a
detailed history of tihe Chaldeo- Babylonian states, accurate gram-
mars and lexicons, even profound monographs upon Assyrian
coins, weights, and measures, has been carried on with an ardor,
a disinterestedness, and a disregard of difficulties at first sight
insuperable, which will shed immortal lustre upon the intellec-
tual history of our time. The names of Rawlinson, Smith,
De Morgan, and of the great Dominican Assyriologist, Father
Scheil, will live for ever among the great pioneers of this new
continent of learning, and will be an inspiration and a comfort
to future scholars who may have in their turn to cut hard and
lonely paths through unexplored provinces of science.
Two years ago the devoted expedition under M. De Morgan,
while excavating at Susa, made the greatest single discovery
that has yet rewarded Assyriologists. This consisted of a block
of black diorite, somewhat over two metres high and about one
and a half metres broad, on which was chiselled the code of
laws of King Hammurabi. Hammurabi, who lived about 2250
B. c, reigned for fifty-five years, and deserves certainly to be
called one of the world's greatest men. He led his armies to
successful wars, established peace within his empire, and devoted
an extraordinary political genius to the safeguarding of his
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1904.] The Latest Books. 257
people's welfare by wise and equitable laws. The prologue to
these decrees of his declares that the gods Anu and Bel called
him "to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the
wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the
weak, to enlighten the land, and to further the welfare of the
people/' These exalted aims appear predominant in the two
hundred and eighty-two regulations which comprise his code.
There is, naturally, much in them also which is utterly shocking
to our Christian sense, and some of the enactments are far be-
neath the morality of the Levitical legislation. But taken as a
whole these laws are wonderfully just, prudent, and practical
The people are protected against corrupt or tyrannical judges;
children are given legal recourse if their parents are inhuman ;
women are accorded rights and privileges which are. liberal al-
most beyond belief. Not only their property -rights are recog-
nized, but their reputation comes under the severest sanctions
of law. 'One of the ordinances reads : " If a man point the finger
at a priestess or the wife of another, and cannot justify it, they
shall drag that man before the judges, and shall brand his fore-
head." On the other hand, the housewife must behave circum-
spectly herself, for "if she have not been a careful mistress,
have gadded about, have neglected her house, and have belittled
her husband, they shall throw that woman into the water. '^
Children too, in that ancient state, had to keep their proper
place : " If a son strike his father, they shall cut off his fingers."
And as for physicians, their arm certainly was shortened in old
Babylon : " If a physician operate on a man for a severe wound
with a bronze lancet, and cause the man's death, they shall cut
off his fingers." Other laws forbid the oppression of inferior
officers by those in higher authority; others secure the small
tradesman from the greed of his wealthy competitor ; still others
lay down the legal rate for the hire of wagons or boats; and
so on throughout the various interests, great and small, of social
and political life. Wonderful it is to read this document of
remote antiquity and to see in it so evident a preoccupation to
promote justice, good order, and religion. It is a striking proof
of the great age of the race, and of the persistence of our race-
ideals. It makes a fascinating chapter in the history of civil-
ization, and almost a religious study in the nature of man.
The edition of the code of Hammurabi which lies before us
is from the pen of Dr. Harper, of Chicago. It is done in a
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258 ^ The Latest Books. [May,
manner that will bring distinction to American scholarship. We
have in this volume the cuneiform text, a transliteration and
translation into English, a glossary and an exhaustive index,
which is simply priceless. We cordially congratulate the editor
upon his fine scientific achievement. It must have cost him
long and painstaking labor, and much of that acute anxiety
which only a conscientious scholar can feel. He promises a
second volume, which we shall await with eager expectation.
This will deal with the delicate question now agitating many
of the learned, as to how far the laws of Hammurabi have in-
fluenced the laws of Moses. Between the two codes there are
assuredly striking resemblances. Possibly, just as the Hebrew
cosmogony seems to have selected certain features from the
religious sagas of Babylon, the children of Israel may have
profited in the matter of legislation also by the wisdom and
experience of the same mighty state. This would be perfectly
according to the natural course of things, and would not in
the slightest degree set aside God's special guidance of the
Hebrew people. The ordinary law of cause and effect holds
in sacred as well as in profane history, and in the end the
divine activity which works through secondary agencies and
normal occurrences is just as clearly seen as' that much more
rare activity which breaks out into isolated prodigies and leaves
behind a miracle as the vestige of Deity. But of this ques-
tion — an exceedingly difficult one, as we have said, both from
a religious and a critical point of view — we trust we shall have
something further to say when Dr. Harper's second volume
appears. So far as this edition of the laws is concerned, we
repeat that Dr. Harper has done a great service to American
Biblical and Oriental students, and has notably added to the
fame of himself, his university, and his country.
In reading Mr. Bispham's account
ST. COLUMBANUS. of St. Columbanus • we found our-
By Bispham. selves constantly wondering why
an author apparently so familiar
with the sources of his subject did not give us a complete
biography. These "notes" — to use the word of the title-
page — are in themselves valuable, but they are exasperatingly
meagre. If only the matter hinted at in sixty pages were ex-
^Columban: Saint, Monk, and Missionary. Notes concerniDg His Life and Times. By
Clarence W. Bispham, M.A. New York: Edwin S. Gorbam.
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1904.] The Latest Books. 2^9
panded to five times the length, we think that we should have
an excellent biography of the gteat Irish saint. Columbaniis'
life covers a momentous period of church history, and is the
centre of many an acrimonious controversy. For a long time
the monastic rule, brought from Ireland to Bobbio by Colum-
banus, contested for the primacy of Western monasticism with
the rule of St. Benedict. It yielded to the great patriarch's
code at last, chiefly because of the fierce austerity of the Irish
legislation. Cohimbanus was of opinion that the backs of
monks were made not only for burdens but for lashes, and his
disciplinary regulations are pitiless in their disregard for such
infirmities as sickness and old age. They were mep of iron
those ancient Irishmen, who flocked to Europe as missionaries
and cenobites, and their history, so well typified in Colum-
banus, reads like a romance of valor. Naturally, they were
outspoken as well as austere. Columbanus asked pardon of a
pope, to whom he wrote, assigning as an apology, for his blunt
speech the natural freedom and fearlessness of his race.
Would that some of that apostolic intrepidity would come
again ! Would that their detestation of servility had not
diminished with lapse of time! And naturally, too, non-
Catholics, in studying men like Columbanus, mistake the
motives and reasons for this liberty of speaking. Mr. Bispham
concludes from it that the Irish monk had no knowledge of
Papal Supremacy. But in this he is entirely in error. In the
celebrated letter to Pope Boniface, Columbanus, in the first
place, is more than merely bold; he is rash, impulsive, and,
to use his own phrase, writes like " a foolish Scot." For,
according to his own admission, he knew' hardly anything of
the theological question on which he pretended to give advice.
And, in the second place, he is thoroughly loyal to his alle-
giance to the chief see of Christendom. He says : '* We are
bound to the Chair of Peter ; for however great and glorious
Rome may be, it is this chair which makes her great and
glorious among us. . . . Rome is the head of the churches
of the whole world." He calls the Pope the pastor of pastors,
and the chief of the chiefs of the church, whose duty it is to
march at the head of the army of God. No, it is as impossi-
ble to make Columbanus anti- Papal as to pretend that St.
Bernard was anti- Papal because he wrote De Consideratione,
A glorious hero of Catholic sanctity is what just history recog-
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26o The Latest Books. [May,
nizes Columbanus to be; and as such his biography should be
written for this age. We need the example of his dauntless
courage, all-conquering faith, and magnificent manliness. But
a Catholic pen should do the work; for even so fair-minded
and scholarly a non- Catholic as Mr. Bispham would find it all
but impossible to take a just and adequate view of the great
Irishman, and of the theological interests that cluster about his
life.
Dr. MacDonald's two volumes* of
SERMONS. sermons will be very useful works*
By Dr. MacDonald. each in its own field. The dogma*
tic sermons on the Creed will be
acceptable to many priests who would preach a series on the
chief articles of the faith ; and the twelve discourses on the
Sacred Heart will be fit spiritual reading for fervent members
of the League. Possibly some critics would resent an occasional
suggestion contained in these latter sermons; for example, that
devotion to the Holy Trinity or to the Holy Spirit is an impracti-
cal luxury ; that the spiritual intercommunion of the faithful
on earth was in a rather imperfect condition before the estab-
lishment of the League; and that the morning offering com-
pensates for the old-fashioned saying of daily prayers, and is
thus a timely adjunct to salvation in these days of hurry when
devotion must make the best terms it can with business. But
such criticisms, should they be made, will avail nothing with
most League-members, and will rather augment than diminish
in their judgment the value of Dr. MacDonald's production.
The revelations concerning our
THE SUFFERINGS OF JESUS. Lord's Passion, written by that
By Catherine Emmerich. remarkable mystic Catherine Em-
merich, have been brought out in
a much abridged and very convenient form.f They furnish good
matter for meditation on a subject which will always touch
Christian hearts most deeply. To read them in a prayerful
spirit is to be brought near to Christ, to be inspired with
loyalty to Him, and to have the whole religious nature elevated
• The Symbol in Sermons, Twenty-five Short Sermons on the Articles of the Creed. By
Very Rev. Alexander MacDonald, D.D. New York: Christian Press Association. The
l^ercies of the Sacred Heart. Twelve Sermons for the First Fridays. By the Very Rev. Alex-
ander MacDonald, D.D. New York; Joseph F. Wagner.
t The Sufferings of Jesus. By Catherine Emmerich. Translated by a Sister of Mercy.
New York: O'Shca & Co. r^ \
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 261
and chastened. And this effect is quite independent of what-
ever view we take as to the objective reality of these visions
of a holy soul. Whether they are only the interior processes
of Catherine's piety, or whether they actually contain some-
thing miraculously vouchsafed to her, we are perfectly free to
regard as we will. But even though we choose to see in these
spiritual experiences nothing more than a subjective state of a
soul powerfully acted on by God's grace, we still must feel
their winning and subduing influence, and must share in a
degree their author's vehement and gentle affection for Him
who was bruised for our iniquities.
Bishop Hedley is so well known
A BISHOP AND HIS FLOCK, to all that keep in touch with
By Bishop Hedley. Catholic literature, that no exten-
sive comment is needed upon this
collection* of his pastoral letters. His familiar style and spirit,
the one so clear and simple, the other so zealous and devo-
tional, which have given him an eminent place in spiritual
literature, are especially apparent in these earnest admonitions
to his flock. However homely the counsel he imparts, his
way of putting it arrests attention; however ordinary the sub-
ject he treats, his exposition adds to it fresh interest and new
light. And so we read these thirty- two letters, which cover
practically the entire matter, both dogmatic and moral, of the
Christian life, letters on Baptism, Penance, the Holy Eucharist,
the Priesthood, Zeal for Souls, the Christian Home, Kindness,
Intemperance, and other timely subjects, and feel that we have
scanned the mind of a thinker who can lead us to wisdom and
a pontiff who can conduct us to God. We rejoice that the
right reverend author was persuaded to publish this work,
which, in its field, is as fit to become a model as ''Bishop
Hedley's Retreat " in a somewhat different department is uni-
versally recognized to be.
Bishop Spalding's clear, keen vis-
GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. ions of spiritual truth, and the in-
By Bishop Spalding. cisive i^yle in which his intuitions
are expressed, have made him emi-
nent among the writers of the present day who aim at illumi-
nating minds and stimulating wills. He is an inspirer, a giver
of courage, a guide upon Alpine peaks calling vigorously to the
^ A Bishop and His Flock. By John Cuthbert j^Hedley, O.S.B., Bishop of Newport.
New York : Benziger Brothers. ^^^^^ by GoOglc
262 The Latest BOOKS. [May,
climbers . below. His principles are deep and true: We are
made for God; life is infinitely beautiful, and infinitely ajble to
grow ; whatever makes the heart more purely love, and the
mind more truly know, is good and god- like — hold it fast ; what-
ever feeds the merely animal and fleshly is base — beware of it.
This is the substance of the bishop's message, a message which
he clothes in new 4nd attractive raiment in his latest book of
aphorisms.* And a message it is which the age needs and for
which, therefore, the world stands in his debt. Not the least
attractive feature of these wise and forcible sayings is their
catholicity of spirit. Wherever the bishop sees an admirable
thing he admires it, though sometimes it be not found in
familiar places ; and whenever he has an opinion to express
which accords ill with conventional modes of thought or quasi-
official formulas, he is not the man to fear expressing it. As a
result his writing breaks into originality often, and is charged
with the spirit of true culture. No other essayist that we know
seems to us so capable a teacher of a sturdy, sane, and hope-
ful life»-philosophy.
This time Margaret Fletcher has
THE SCHOOL OF THE HEART, given us a still more unusual book
By Margaret Fletcher. than her preceding Light for New
Times, The volume, entitled School
of the Heart ;\ is composed — think of it ! — of plain, sensible, sym-
pathetic discussion for Catholic girls of love and marriage.
It does seem as though the little volume enters upon a very
considerable task, for we might run over a long, long list of
Catholic books without coming upon many that even attempt to
discuss these subjects in a clear, thoughtful, serious way, and
yet not a few Catholic girls would be interested in and pro-
fited by some such reading.
" We tell girls how to behave decorously and gracefully
during life's game ; we exhort them to win, to remain on the
side of virtue and of God, but we wholly omit to explain the
rules of the game. Can we continue to shirk this responsibility ?
. . . In the hearts of some there may linger a fondness
for the point of view that has regarded ignorance as the hand-
maid of innocence; a point of view which is a legacy from
the eighteenth century, and which had no place in the earlier
days. I would ask these to turn their thoughts to the Virgin
• Glimpses of Truth. By Bishop Spalding. Chicago : A. C. McClurg & Co.
t The School of the Heart, By Margaret Fletcher. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
Digitizer
1904.] The Latest Books. 263
Mother of God Iticarnate and reflect that she» although a maiden
dedicated to the service of the temple, showed in the gentle
dignity of her answer to the angelical salutation that she had
meditated upon the real issues of life, as God intended they
should be meditated, in the light of prayer."
Hence the writer goes on to speak of the emotions and
attractions experienced at the period when childhood is passing
away, to point out the divine and Christian interpretation of
marriage and family life, to warn and counsel and instruct in
a way that is as pure and delicate as a nun could wish, and to
stimulate endeavor after nobility and unselfishness by words
and in manner which should be all the more efficacious because
they are referred to no distant or impossible ideal, but rather
to what the ordinary Christian of serious mind must at once
regard as the proper aim of a well-ordered and happy life.
The story of the Catholic Church
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH in New Jersey • from the close of
IN NEW JERSEY. the seventeenth century, when the
By V. Rev. Joseph M. Flynn. heroic Jesuit, Father Farmer, and
a few other missionaries pursued
their journeys through roads that were little better than Indian
trails, travelling *' sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot,
with their sack strapped across their back containing the altar-
stone, vestments, chalice, and wine for the Sacrifice — trudging
through the forest, over mountains, crossing streams and rivers
in the rude dugouts, picking their way through the swamps, at
times wet to the skin by the tempests which overtook them,
again almost prostrated by the intolerable heats, resting under
the shelter of the trees or in some rude cabin," without even
the rudest chapel or the meanest home that they might call
their own — to the present day, when the State is marked with
innumerable churches and rectories and schools and institutions,
with two episcopal sees, many priests, and thousands of faith-
ful — is wonderful indeed, and forms not only a glorious tribute
"to the dumbly brave who did their deed and scorned to
blot it with a name," and to the ever*living power of the
church that dies not, but also the most efHcacious sort of an
inspiration to the living who share both the enjoyment and the
care of the inheritance of the past. This history of the church
• Tht Catholu Churth in New Jersey, By the Very Rev. Joseph M. Flynn, M,R., V.F.,
Rector of the Church of the Aisumption of the B. V. M., Morrtatown, N,|L|^g^ . GoOqIc
264 The La test Books. [May,
in New Jersey, written by the Very Reverend Dean Flynn, has
been for the author, as he tells us, a work of love ; and well
it may have been, for with all the research and care and patience
and burden of innumerable details which it required, his heart
must have been thrilled with enthusiasm more than once in the
chronicling, as he followed the pioneers in their days of suffer-
ing and doubt, their few successors in trial and sacrifice and
persecution, and then saw the glorious permanent fruit in the
thriving prosperity of the church to-day. One lesson more than
all else may we derive from such works as this, and it is a
lesson as broad as is the church herself — the lesson of hope, of
confidence, of optimism. For who reading such a book will
give ear to the cheap complaints of the modern Cassandras or
the ill-boding lamentations of some would-be prophets whose
only office seems that of destruction and adverse criticism.
This same story of New Jersey might be repeated of many
dioceses in the country, and it warrants us in the assurance that
the Catholic Church not only has a glorious present but a still
more glorious and triumphant future in this land of America.
Here we will read of the days of utter destitution, of the
poor handful worshipping in some farmer's hut, of the uncared-
for immigrants, of the persecution of the government, of the
press, of public opinion, of the outrages of Know-Nothingism,
of bitter and malicious calumnies ; over these the church tri-
umphed ; how, the story itself will tell. And while before
that same church there are many grave difficulties now, and
more to come, still the same missionary spirit and zeal and
prudence and tact and sacrifice which characterized our fore-
fathers, will bring a still fuller and stronger chorus of victory
and of progress to our Mother the Church.
Space would not permit us to enter into the details of this
extensive history of New Jersey. That the work was begun
and completed to such a perfect state in the time mentioned
by the author, is almost incredible. He has covered the Catho-
lic history of his State from the beginnings to the present day;
given the history of every church ; obtained personal contribu-
tions from many priestts; much important matter from the
Bishop of Rochester; oftentimes entered rather deeply and
learnedly into secular history to make his setting more com-
plete; and, with many evidences of literary taste and classical
reading, presented the whole in a style that is entertaining and
refreshing. ^.g,.^^, .^ GoOglc
1904] The Latest Books. 265
While, as a true historian, he had to speak of many who
are still living, and touch upon controversies the memories of
which are by no means dead, the author, to our mind, does
justice to all, and handles mooted subjects with an honesty
commendable in him as an historian, and a delicacy that is
the first attribute of an unprejudiced critic. Many are the
excellent and instructive incidents and conclusions in the vol-
ume to which we would call attention. But our space forbids.
We cannot but trust that the volume will be the inspiration
which it ought to be, not only to the priests of New Jersey
but to those of the entire country.
Professor Willoughby's volume •
POLITICAL STUDIES. deserves high commendation. It
By W. W. Willoughby. is the work of a specialist and
scholar, who has at ready com-
mand all the resources of political science, and possesses as
well the ability, not too common among university professors,
of clothing a deep and dry subject in clear and popular style.
In the compass of less than three hundred pages our author
gives an outline of the theories of a state as these theories
prevailed in the Greek and Roman world. There are excellent
chapters on the social philosophy of Socrates, on Plato's Re-
public^ on Aristotle's Politics^ and on Greek and Roman civic
ideals and national characteristics. Brief as these studies are,
they are eminently useful for the student of history, politics,
or law, and even for the general reader. One feels in reading
them that a great work of condensation has been done by an
expert, and that one is getting in convenient shape the domi-
nant ideas of mighty epochs and vast literatures. This sen-
tence of the preface could have been more acceptably put, it
strikes us: "Doctrines of papal supremacy, of religious perse-
cution, and of natural rights have each had their summer of
prosperity, only to be blasted as the general intellectual cli-
mate has assumed toward them a wintry aspect."
When William Hickling Prescott
LIFE OF PRESCOTT. wrote his life of Charles Brockden
By Ogden. Brown, for the collection of Ameri-
can biographies edited by Jared
Sparks, Mr. Sparks' comment on it was : " As a literary criti-
"Poliiical Theories of tht Ancient World. By W. W. Willoughby, Ph-D./^-Ne^-Yorfc:
Ix)ngmans. Green & Co. gitized by V^OOg IC
266 THE LATEST BOOKS. [May,
cism upon Brown's genius and writings it is beautiful, spirited,
and graphic. There is nothing wanting but more biographical
incidents and personal traits." What Sparks said of Frescott's
work can be as truly said of RoUo Ogden's William Hickling
Prescotty^ without the limitation. It is " beautiful, spirited, and
graphic," but it also abounds in biographical incidents and
personal traits. And Mr. Ogden's biography excels the his-
torian's earliest piece of biographical writing in its lack of
exaggeration.
Few American scholars have had a more winning per-
sonality than Frescott. The affliction of almost total blindness,
under which he suffered from his youth, gained for him the
greatest sympathy and affection, because of its powerful influ-
ence upon his character. As Mr. Ogden says: "No one can
read the remarkable record, in his journals, of the way in which
he turned from a dim world without to a radiant world within,
took himself in hand, and forged laboriously in the dark the
tempered weapon of his mind and heart, without becoming
persuaded that his strength was plucked from his very dis-
abling." Numerous quotations are given from Frescott's journal
during the period when he was endeavoring to find a rule of
life that would benefit his health and husband his strength.
The systematic study which he made of his diet, required
amount of sleep, exercise, recreation, all for the purpose of
gaining by plain living the strength to do a man's work, is a
practical lesson in self-denial. Nor, as his biographer remarks,
does one hint of a dismal consciousness appear in the whole
record.
Frescott's journal testifies to the true historical instinct
which guided his writing. "Your manuscripts," he noted, "is
the only staple for the historic web — at least the only one to
make the stuff which will stand the wear and tear of old
Father Time." Consequently, the libraries and archives of
Europe were searched for material for. his books, and only
after every available authority had been consulted did he
feel prepared to write. Mistakes of judgment in the collating
and criticising of his material were not the result of conscious
prejudice, for his biography shows him just, tolerant, and
charitable.
While Mr. Ogden claims that his book is merely a supple-
ment to Ticknor's Life of Prescoit, it is a very complete study
^ William Hickling Prescott, By Rollo Ogden. Cambridge : Houghton j@ig|n^l^.
1904.] The Latest Books. 267
in itself. As the latest addition to the "American Men of
Letters" series it maintains the high standard set in previous
biographies.
In the preface to this book,* writ-
RBLIGIOnS FREEDOM ten by Samuel A. Eliot, its ori-
IN EDUCATION. gin is traced to the annual meet-
By Crooker. ing (1901) of the American Uni-
tarian Association, when a vote
was taken to request the appointment of a committee for the
purpose of preparing a report upon the progress of unsec-
tarian education in American schools. After much discussion
the Rev. Dr. Crooker, well known for his work in the college
towns of Madison, Wis., and Ann Arbor, Mich., was authorized
to collate and edit statements from various sub- committees.
This preliminary report, thus made, is now enlarged into the
present volume, for which the members of the original com-
mittee " are not individually or collectively responsible." The
conclusions of this book '' represent Dr. Crooker's own obser-
vation, experience, and judgment."
We regret that Dr. Ctooker felt obliged to force so many
of his own conclusions upon the reader, while admitting that
he has gathered much useful information on the question at
issue. He admits that in the United States "our Revolution-
ary fathers established, not simply universal toleration but per-
fect religious equality " ; yet he contends that the " American
Idea" requires us to submit to the intolerant claims of non-
sectarianism in our schools supported by public taxation. No
endorsement for such an opinion can be found in the writings
of George Washington, or Charles Carroll of CarroUton,
who were prominent representatives of distinctive American
teaching.
Dr. Crooker shows, unfortunately, a strange lack of judicial
equity (page 31) in his attempt to state the Catholic demand
in educational matters, though he fails to give any authorities.
To correct the false statements he has made, it would be well
for him to get a copy of the pamphlet published by the
Columbus Press — 120 West 60th Street, New York City — en-
titled Catholic Citizens and Public Education. Again, on page.
I9S> h^ gives in quotation marks a very important statement
from "the president of one of our great universities," without
^Religious Freedom in American Education. By Joseph Henry Crooker. Boston : Ameri-
cam Unitarian Association. 1903,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
268 THE LATEST BOOKS. [May.
mentioning his name. Other specimens of unfair statement
might be given, did space permit, to show that Dr. Crooker is
a most unreliable historian of the religious people in their
efforts to assist the work of public education in the United
States.
Although John Ruskin will never
JOHN RUSKIN be recognized as a great student
on the Divina Commedia. of Dante, his critical appreciations
of the Divina Commedia^ are
valuable and suggestive. For many years Ruskin was an
industrious reader of the great poem, and he had some traits
of character and certain intellectual sympathies which would
lead him far toward a right understanding of its spirit. Fatal
limitations too beset him, of course, and stood between him and
an adequate vision of the mighty Catholic creation of the
middle age. But Ruskin was of a nature spiritual enough, and
of a critical acuteness keen enough, to acquire a comprehension
of Dante rarely to be found in a nineteenth century British
Protestant. Students, therefore, of Dante will welcome Mr.
Huntington's compilation as a stimulating and illuminating
book. And the general reader whose eyes are open for thoughts
that go beyond the subject on the title-page will find enough
in this volume to repay perusal. Ruskin's richly- adorned mind
strikes fire in a score of directions in these pages, and sheds
light upon many a matter wider even than the Divina Commedia,
For example : " Depend upon it, the first universal characteris-
tic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I
find this more and more every day : an infinitude of tenderness
is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It
is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base
things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the
eyes of all hard, stupid, vulgar people — quite terrific to such if
they are capable of terror, and hateful to them if they are
capable of nothing higher than hatred. I say the first inheri-
tance is Tenderness — the second Truth, because the Tenderness
is in the make of the creature, the Truth in his acquired habits
and knowledge; besides, the love comes first in dignity as well
as in time, and that is always pure and complete ; the truth, at
best, imperfect."
♦ Comments of John Ruskin on the ** Divina Commedia." Compiled by George P. Hunting-
ton. With an Introduction by Charles Eliot Norton. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
ai ai 9^ Xtbtar^ TTable* m m m
The Tablet (12 Mar.): Fr. Thurston, S.J., reviewing the volume
of the Cambridge Modern History which deals with the
Reformation, finds in it a confirmation of the positions
taken on the same period by Dr. Lingard in his History
of England^ and another blow to the Anglican "conti-
nuity " theory. A translation of the Apostolic Letter
of the Pope is given in which are laid down the condi-
tions under which the degrees of Licentiate and Doctor
in the faculty of Sacred Scripture may be obtained from
the Biblical Commission appointed by the late Pope.
The Roman Correspondent advises publishers not to be
in haste to get out editions of Plain Chant, as there is
at present no authorized version of it He also reports
the promise of another reform — that of separating the
office of Secretary of the Consistorial from that of the
Secretary of the Conclave, of the Sacred College, and of
Acting Secretary of State to which it has hitherto been
joined during the interregnums.
(19 Mar.): In a leader on the ''Last Phase of the Kul-
turkampf " the abrogation of the anti- Jesuit Law by the
German Reichstag is discussed. The Roman Corre-
spondent chronicles another reform in the Papal house-
hold: the abolition of the office of major-domo and the
transfer of its functions to the Prefect of the Apostolic
Palaces, which will go into effect when the present in-
cumbent is raised to the Sacred College at the next
consistory. He also reports that another condemnation
of the Abb^ Loisy will shortly be pronounced by the
Holy Office, as the abbe has shown no disposition to
submit fully to the censures passed upon his writings.
A description of the Centenary celebration of St Gregory
at Westminster is given, with the text of the Bishop of
Newport's sermon delivered on that occasion.
(26 Mar.) : Under the heading " Illiberal Liberalism in
Germany " comment is made upon the adverse criti-
cism of the Liberals on the partial repeal of the anti-
Jesuit law by the Reichstag. Rev. H. Thurston, S.J.,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
270 Library Table. [May,
contributes an article entitled "That Wonderful Ameri-
can Scholar/' which is a quotation from Dr. Jessopp
approving the scholarship of Dr. H. C. Lea. Father
Thurston traces the influence of Dr. Lea in Principal
Lindsay's eulogy of Luther in the Cambridge Modern
History^ denies the justness of the appreciation, and inci-
dentally shows how unscholarly Dr. Lea really is.
The Roman Correspondent gives the substance of the
Pope's outspoken censure of the French government's
policy towards Religious Orders and Bishops, a^ given
in an allocution to the cardinals assembled to congratu-
late the Holy Father on his feast-day. The Corre-
spondent announces that Mgr. Cavallari and not, as was
expected, Mgr. Scalabrini, has been selected for the Pa-
triarchate of Venice,
(2 April) : The Roman Correspondent, commenting upon
the French government's protest to the Holy See on
the subject of the Holy Father's recent allocution, says
that 'Mt was not of the fire-eating kind that M. Combes
would like people to imagine." The Correspondent goes
on to say that the Holy Father's policy towards France
is that of his predecessor, and that " he wishes French
Catholics to support and purify the French Republic;
but he wishes also that French Catholics, to whatever
political party they belong, should cease all recrimination
among themselves and unite their forces for the interests
of religion." ^The Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father
on the thirteenth Centenary of St. Gregory is given in
full. ^The Newman Memorial Church, the corner-stone
of which was laid Jast week at Birmingham, is to be of
the style of San Martino in Rome, according to the
wishes of Cardinal Newman. Satisfaction is expressed
over the appointment of Mgr. Fenton to be Bishop Aux-
iliary to the Archbishop of Westminster.
The Month (April) : In his second paper on " Present-Day
Protestantism," James Britten, K.S.G., treats of the spirit
and method of Protestant controversy. He remarks the
unwillingness of the non-Catholic controversialist to see
Catholics cleared of charges which are without founda-
tion, and he gives " an illustration of the kind of evidence
adduced in support of the Protestant thesis" that Rome
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Library Table. 271
hates the Bible and does her best to suppress it.
** A Tale of Mexican Horrors," by Rev. Herbert Thurs-
ton, deals with the alleged walling- up of living persons
by the Mexican Inquisitors. Fr. Thurston considers in
detail the accounts given of these horrors by Drs. Rule
and Butler. Though both accounts purport to relate the
same story, Fr. Thurston finds that they differ in " almost
every essential particular." The reverend writer, further-
more, produces ** really valuable testimonies " which show
that persons were not immured alive, and " that the whole
story of Inquisition horrors hopelessly breaks down."
^ Critical Review (Mar.) : Rev. James Iverach in this num-
ber begins an article on Herbert Spencer. Though the
noted philosopher, he says, has, in the minds of many,
failed to "bring all human thought into unity" and has
put grave obstacles against the theory of evolution by
his agnosticism, still he has lived a "great, strenuous,
heroic life, worthy of admiration." Henry Hay man, in
reviewing Creighton's Historical Lectures and Addresses^
considers the volume lively and interesting, and places
the addresses on the English character as samples of the
author's ability. ^The third volume of The Expositor's
Greek Testamenty on the Epistles of St. Paul, in the opinion
of David Furves, is deserving of the highest prai&e "as
conservative in the best sense and scientific in method."
^^^^national Journal of Ethics (April) : Writing on the problem
of Teleology, Dr. Felix Adler attempts to prove that there
can be no such thing as a single end. The notion of
TeloSf according to his view, is a bond which ties together
several parallel causes ; an end is a term in a causal se-
ries whose existence as an end depends on corresponding
or complementary terms. Mr. J. G. James writes on the
ethics of what is known as " passive resistance," namely,
the refusal to pay the taxes required by the English
Education Act of 1902. The writer holds that the " re-
sisters " can find no ethical justification for their posi-
tion. Mr. Du Bois, of Atlanta University, presents an
interesting paper on the social development of the col-
ored race in the United States.-^-- — Mr. James H. Leuba
discusses Prof. James' book on religious experiences and
offers proof that the author gives an unfair interpretation
▼OL. LXXIX. — 18 r^ T
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
272 Library Table, [May,
to the manifestations of religion.— — John H. Muirhead
advocates a study of Wordsworth's ideal of education;
this he believes to be the true way to reform the edu-
cation systems of the present day. J. Clark Murray
objects to the theory put forth by Prof. Royce in regard
to the attitude of the. teachers of philosophy toward re-
ligion. Mr. Murray holds that it is the duty of a phi-
losopher as such to take an interest in religious work.
The International Quarterly (Mar. -June) : Professor Bernard
Moses, of California University, discusses the problem of
the " Education of the Stranger." The racial ideas and
instincts of the Eastern and Western peoples are pointed
out, and our educational policy in the Philippine Islands
is treated in particular. We are indebted to Robert
Y. Tyrrell, of Dublin University, for a brief but very
accurate biography and an estimate of the works of
Plutarch. Paul Elmer More, of New York, notices at
length Lady Gregory's novel, Cuchulain of Muirthemne.
It is the reviewer's, desire to make more widely known
what Mr. Yeats calls " the best book that has ever come
out of Ireland." "From Leo XIII. to Pius X." is the
title of a paper contributed by Marquis Filippo Crispolti,
of Rome. The author shows that in the last three con-
claves the popes have been selected not because of their
politics but for their character; that the courses of action
followed by Pius IX. and Leo XIII. were chosen for
personal reasons ; that the existing state of affairs in
Italy has its good and its evil aspects ; that the present
temporary tranquillity is but superficial, and that the
endless contest, now invisible, may break forth at any
time. Finally, it is predicted by the writer that the
reign of Pius X. will be a pontificate undisturbed by
politics, permitting the faithful to move unchecked in
their own spheres of action and turning its energies to
the reorganization and encouragement of all ecclesiasti-
cal life. Other interesting articles are: "The Future
of China," by F. W. Williams, of Yale University;
" Nationality and Militarism," by J. H. Rose, of London ;
'* Our Government's Course in Panama," by Joseph B.
Bishop, of New York, etc. The last mentioned is a state-
ment of the reasons of our government's action in the
Digitized by
Google
1904.] Library Table. 273
recognition of the Panama republic, together with a
citation of, and an answer to, the main points of criticism
against the procedure of the administration.
Dublin Review (April) : Dr. Aveling writing on Herbert Spencer
says we can hardly fail to recognize in his philosophy
a phase of decay rather than growth, of dissolution rather
than evolution. Miss J. M. Stone, after considering
recent studies on Luther by P. Denifle, O.P., and P.
Grisar, S.J., suggests that the true inwardness of the
great heresiarch's psychological complexities may best
be found in the theory of his mental aberration.
Summarizing and criticising Dr. Wendt's work on the
Fourth Gospel, Dom Howlett says he does not know
whether or not the theory that the book in its present
form comes from the pen of a disciple of St John, will
commend itself to the Catholic theologian ; but ** at any
rate, when so many not only deny the apostolic author-
ship but the historical value of the Fourth Gospel, it is
satisfactory to find a critic of high standing who main-
tains that the Gospel is based upon a source written by
the Apostle John, that it contains the genuine discourses
of our Lord, and that a large proportion of the narrative
is based on Apostolic tradition and thoroughly trust-
worthy." Montgomery Carmichael sketches the origin
of the Rule of St. Francis, and says: '^I do not here
and now attempt to show whether the Rule really was of
divine revelation or not, but I do claim to demonstrate
that St. Francis himself thought so, that his friars thought
so, and that the church at large thought so."
Hibbert Journal (April) : In a very thoughtful article on what
he considers, no doubt rightly, an almost wholly neglected,
though vitally important, feature of the fiscal question
now agitating English politics — its moral aspect — Pro-
fessor Henry Jones contends that every act of statesman-
ship has a moral meaning, that ''every law inscribed
upon the statute-book alters the conditions under which
some one lives; it establishes rights, defines duties, and
creates opportunities of a better life, or places obstacles
in its way." This is all the more true of great and far-
reaching public policies in the settlement of which moral
considerations should receive a most thorough attention
Digitized by (^OOQ IC
274 Library Table. [May;
and play a most decisive part, for true and lasting
material prosperity springs from the character of - a
people more than from legislative devices. — : — Rev. Canon
Hensley Henson, in an article entitled " The Resurrection
of Jesus Christ/' discredits the old belief in the physical
resuscitation of our Lord. He maintains, however, very
earnestly, that Christ survived death not in an "impov-
erished ghostly state, but in the fulness of personal life.'^
This belief he in nowise finds inconsistent with doubt
as to the historical accuracy of the details given in St.
Luke's Gospel — the emptiness of the tomb, the eating of
the broiled fish and honeycomb by our Lord, and other
similar tangible evidences of his resurrection.-^— The
Bishop of Ripon writes with great praise of Mr. Morley's
execution of his task in writing Mr. Gladstone's life*
" Mr. Morley lifts the veil with as worshipful a regard
for his great chief as though he were the priest of the
shrine whose treasures he guarded with gladness and
displayed with reverent delight . • . When I read
the story of the careful self-vigilance with which Mr*
Gladstone watched over the movements and develop-
ment of the inward life, I see whence he derived the
inspiration to believe in life as a great and noble calling.''
Professor W. Jethro contributes a sort of jeremiad
on the losing of those convictions which teach the soul
reverence and g^ve life the sense of a purpose and a
mission — e. g.^ rank, the family, the mysteries of nature,
the sovereignty of God, the divinity of Christ, the exist-
ence of Hell. Mr. Andrew Lang attempts to elucidate
(though not to uphold) Mr. Myer's theory of the Sub-
liminal Self, being convinced that there are the seeds of
fire in the smoke of testimonies drawn from historical
and anthropological witnesses in all lands, as well as from
modern instances. Dr. Hugo Winckler, writing on
North Arabia and the Bible, concludes with these words :
'' It is, however, much to be wished that those who now
hinder research should learn to cherish and support it,
so that investigators may not be continually called upon
to explain historical results which ought by this time to
have become the common property of all intelligent
men."
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JRjtvue de Lille (Mar.) : ** The Catholic Church in the United
States/' by the Vicomte de Meaux, is an article of more
than ordinary interest. The vicomte laments the sad
state of religion in his own country, and says that the
only hope for France is to follow the example of America.
He then reviews the conditions under which the colonial
Catholic Church of 1789, with one bishop and thirty
priests, developed into the magnificent organization of
to-day, with nearly a hundred bishops and thirteen
thousand priests. He shows that, although many of the
causes which contributed to this marvellous growth have
sprung from circumstances peculiar to the country, yet
there are principles underlying all which, if applied in
France, would awaken religious sentiment and insure
freedom from political persecution. To the objection
that many Catholic immigrants have lost their faith in
America, he replies by pointing out two great difficulties
with which, in the past, American Catholics have had to
contend, namely, the barrier of inherited prejudice, and
the scarcity of churches and priests. The fact that these
obstacles have been removed and that the Catholic Church
to-day is in a most hopeful condition is due, he says,
on the one hand, to the efforts of broad-minded, ener-
getic Catholic leaders, and on the other, to the protection
of a government founded on the principle of religious
liberty,
Annalis de Philosophie Chritienne (Mar.): The clever author of
the Lettres Romaines has another instalment of his com-
mentary upon the Abbd Loisy, in which he endeavors to
give a correct idea of doctrinal development We must,
he says, avoid two misleading conceptions which are
prevalent in modern theology. We must abandon the
notion that dogmatic development is simply drawing the
explicit out of the implicit in the manner in which a
theorem of geometry is drawn out of the elementary
axioms of that science. For religion is not an intellec-
tual abstraction but a life, and its development is accord-
ing to the laws, not of mathematics but of organisms
that grow. St. Thomas and St. Bernard certainly had
examined pretty thoroughly the content of revelation, yet
neither of them was able to discover in it the truth of
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276 Library Table. [May^
the Immaculate Conception. And in the second place^
we must beware of thinking thjit the formulas which now
express dogma to us are finally and irreformably fixed.
The truth they contain is certainly fixed, but truth exists
not in itself and unrelated, but related to human minds.
And to penetrate human minds it must be adapted to
our ideas. And as ideas and ways of thinking change,,
the formula, the verbal expression, the vehicle of abid-
ing truth, must also change. Thus, the Jews could un-
derstand Christ's divinity only by thinking of him as
Messias. The Greeks could grasp the same truth only by
the thought-form of the Logos. We are neither Jews
nor Greeks, and it is both rational and thoroughly Catho-
lic to hold diat the doctrine of Christ's divinity may be
expressed in still another formula in order to reach the
intellect of our age. To say that the church cannot
change her formulas is, first, to deny the plain facts of
history, and, secondly, to side with those heretics who
cling to the first six or seven councils, and declare that
no later dogmatic decree can possibly be needful or true.
M. Girerd keenly criticises the theories of inspiration
maintained by the Jesuit Fathers Prat and Durand.
Revue d^Histoire et de Littirature Religieuse (Mar. -April) : Paul
Fournier concludes his series of studies on the early peni-
tential books. In opposition to Mgr. Schmitz he holds
that the prevalence of a Roman penance- code is mythi-
cal. In fact there was no such document, strictly speak-
ing ; for we find the Roman texts only in French col-
lections. P. Richard's second article on the diplomacy of
Leo X. discusses the opposition of the humanist Bibbiena
to Francis I. P. Turmel treats of the post-Augustinian
theology on the question of the condition of infants dying
without baptism. Augustine, Fulgentius, Gregory the
Great, and Isidore of Seville condemned these infants to
positive suffering. Anselm of Canterbury and Abelard
led the revolt from this position, and their efforts were
crowned by Thomas Aquinas, who held that not only
are unbaptized children exempted from suffering in the
hereafter, but that they enjoy complete natural happiness.
Bellarmine, Petavius, and Bossuet took alarm at these
mitigated views and strove to reintroduce the old Augus-
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tinian severity. They failed, however, and to-day every
Catholic theologian follows Anselm and Aquinas.
Le Correspondant (25 Feb.): Among the interesting articles of
this number are two which merit special attention be-
cause of the light they throw on the religious persecu-
tion at present going on in France. One article is by
M. G. de Lamarzelle, " Pourquoi la troisi&me R^publique
n*a pas d^nonc^ le Concordat " ; the other is " TAssemblde
g^nerale du Grand Orient de France en 1903," by M.
Paul Nourrisson. The first shows us that the self-regard-
ing thought which brought about the Concordat under
Napoleon was also the cause of the fear which prevented
its revocation in 1888, and that the dechristianizing of
France, to prepare for the separation of church and state,
is a work taken in hand by the ministers of Paul Bert
and passed along to Combes. ^The second aftidr lets
us into the secret of the force which gave the order for
the expulsion of the religious congregations engaged in
teaching. To expel them from France was the quickest
and surest means of dechristianizing the country.
La Democratie Chritienne (Mar.) : To prove that the princi-
ples of Social Democracy are practical, the writer of an
article entitled "The Parish of Vieillc-Loye" describes
a community in which, he claims, they are actually car-
ried out. A paper on the " Social Movement " tells
of what is being done by the advocates of social reform
in the region where the great textile strikes occurred
last year. ^The correspondent from Germany demon-
strates the fact that the Volksvercin is receiving favor-
able recognition, not only by the Centre leaders in the
Reichstag, but also by prominent non-Catholics through-
out the empire.
Science Catholique (Mar.) : The Abb^ Fontaine takes occasion
from the recent well-known work of M. Sabatier, Les
religions d*autoritd et la religion de I * Esprit ^ to contri-
bute an article on an interesting subject, to which he
gives the title "Ex^gese Catholico-Protestante." After
reviewing the position of "Liberal Protestantism," as
set forth by its latest exponent, and contrasting it with
the Catholic position, the writer goes on to trace the
successive stages in the progressive dissolution of Prot-
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278 Library Table. [May,
edtantism (the latest of which he regards as the natural
and necessary outcome of the first), concluding finally
with a severe but characteristic arraignment of those
" Novateurs Catholiques " who in the field of Biblical
Science are, in the writer's judgment, at least, endan-
gering the stability of the Catholic position by the in-
troduction of these very principles, which have so far
wrought the dissolution of Orthodox Protestantism.
M. Paul Gaucher continues his interesting article on
" Saint Jerome and the Inspiration of the Deutero-
Canonical Books," bringing forward strong arguments to
prove that learned doctor's personal and practical belief
in the canonical and sacred character of these writings.
Revue du Monde Catholique : The article on M. Vincent Davin
is concluded with a discussion of M. Davin's considera-
tions on Bossuet. ''The Clerical Reform in the Elev-
enth and Twelfth Centuries" forms one of the principal
discussions in this issue. The writer declares that the
work of Charlemagne was ephemeral, and that the real
renaissance began in the eleventh century. The essen-
tial part played by the clerical reform in this great
renaissance is demonstrated, and the persons and methods
employed are delineated.
/V l/i^^^«^ Apologetique (i6 Mar.): Dr. A. Knoch, in an article
on " Modern Protestantism," points out the destructive
effects of historical and Scriptural criticism upon Prot-
estant dogma. The article is chiefly concerned with
Harnack — his methods, his work, and his influence.
The first article on "The Catholic Renascence in Eng-
land " is given in this number by A. De Ridder. It
deals with the period from 1 833-1 836, and gives a good
account of the influence produced on the church by the
Tractarian movement.
La Revue Genirale (Man): In writing on the organization of
labor unions in Germany, M. V. Brants states that the
movement received a great impetus from the Frankfort
Congress of last October. He predicts that in the near
future it will go forward with even greater rapidity, for
it is now being supported by many great political
leaders, such as Dr. Hitze, of the Centre party. At
a time when the newspapers are daily informing us of
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new methods employed to drive religion from France,
it is refreshing to read an article describing the opposite
condition of affairs in a neighboring country. Such is
the paper on "Catholicism in Norway," by M. P. Hal-
flants. The writer testifies to the liberal policy of the
Norwegian government; it is welcoming those oppressed
for conscience' sake, and is repealing its own long-stand-
ing laws against liberty of worship. M. Guillaume
Verspeyen argues against the proposed law to compel
. the teaching of the Flemish language in the public and
private schools of some sections of Belgium.^r — lAn arti-
cle by M. Gollier Ruelle gives an interesting sketch of
the history and the character of the inhabitants of
Corea.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Mar.) : In an article on " Artis-
tic Freedom " Fr. Bcisscl, S.J., shows how the structure
and history of the great Cathedral of Freiburg indicate
and justify the growing tendency to grant to sculptors
and painters great liberty in executing the designs of
architects and builders.-^— Fr. . Cathrein points out the
absolute necessity of basing all just criminal legislation
on the doctrine of human free will, and shows that it is
impossible to reconcile the theoretical principles of de-
terminism with the notions of moral obligation and re-
sponsibility which enter so largely into the every- day
conduct aad dealings of the determinist himself. Fr.
Plotzer, S.J.y continues his discussion of the question,
" Is Anglicanism on its Way to Rorfie ? " devoting the
present paper principally to a consideration of the ac-
counts, given by noted converts of the causes which are
leading many to abandon Protestantism and embrace the
Catholic faith.
Rassegna Nasionale (16 Mar.) : E. di P. quotes at length from
the recent pastoral of Mgr. Bonomelli, insisting that the
conditions of salvation are more generous and the num-
ber of the saved far greater than some would have us
believe.
(i April): Senatore Tancredi Canonico publishes his
eulogy of Silvio Pellico, pronounced on the fiftieth an-
niversary celebration in Rome. A. Ciacherri notices a
remarkable volume on the trial of our Lord ("II Pro-
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28o Library Table. [May,
cesso di Gesii"), written by a liberal, and calculated to
emphasize the great influence of the Cross of Christ
on the elevation of humanity.
Gvilth Cattolica (5 Mar.): Argues against Loisy that if the
Resurrection of Christ is historically indemonstrable it is
nothing whatever. ^Comments on the evil results of
students learning to rely upon the authority of great
scientists, who will occasionally step out of their own
province and pronounce upon revelation and Christian
philosophy, of which they are profoundly ignorant.
(2 April) : Indicates the reasons for rejecting Loisy 's
teaching on the sources of Christian doctrine, and ap-
peals not only to scientific but also to super-scientific
proofs, namely, the miraculous incidents in Christian
history.
RazSn y Fe (Mar.): P. Murillo writes against the critical
school's contention, that the present text of the Penta-
teuch is not a primitive but a restored text, and rebukes
the levity, superficiality, and irreverence of the critics
towards the sacred books and the inspired writers.
(April) : P. Murillo writes on the date of the Pentateuch,
condemning Catholics like Schell, who, in the belief
that they are rendering a service to the church, approxi-
mate to rationalism, and pretend to establish such prin-
ciples as this, that the date of the Pentateuch is an in-
different, matter so long as its inspired character is main-
tained. The writer further goes on to prove that Cor-
nelius a Lapide, Pereira, and Tirius were not precursors
of the critical positions of our own day about the origin,
history, and composition of the Pentateuch.
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I904-] The Columbian READING UNION. 281
THE tOLUMBIAN READING UNION.
IN a redsnt number of the National -Review Miss Godley invokes protection
for Shakspere, the supreme dramatist, from^e persistent assaults of a
rabid army of Baconians on his reputation. The writer assumes that Shak-
spere wrote Shakspere ; she does not waste a word or thought on the fan-
tastic doctrine which, centuries after the death of the poet and philosopher,
ill-directed ingenuity has endeavored to foist on the literary world. For the
Baconians, notice is encouragement. When they are pushed from one pre-
posterous argument they settle into another. The only chance is to ignore
them altogether. It is from actors and managers that Miss Godley desires to
aflford Shakspere protection. Shakspere is the victim of the star system. In
modem times it is too often the custom to write a play round one actor or
actress, and fit on the character and incidents as you would fit on a suit of
clothes. The rest are lay figures. It were easy to show — if there were time
and space to show it — ^that to this custom is largely due the decadence of the
modem stage. It is for the author to create ; the actor to interpret. The one-
character play is bound to be a failure. This vicious system has reacted on
Shakspere. There are no one-character plays amid the works of the great
master. There are no lay figures. Every character, every incident, every
line has a power and beauty of its own, and is essential to the purpose of the
play. Custom does not require the manager of a Shaksperean company to
give more than the most cursory reflection to the original arrangement of the
scenes, or the true nature of the persons in the play. No doubt during the
last few years we have seen a certain number of Shakspere's characters exceed-
ingly well represented ; Mr. Forbes Robertson's Hamlet and Mr. Lewis Waller's
Hotspur are two of the first to suggest themselves. Still, in almost every in-
stance, we find the same order of things prevailing ; one or two of the prin-
cipal parts more or less ably played, and a crowd of lesser personages, all
reduced to one dead level of monotony ; sometimes by the fault of the actors,
and sometimes because their speeches have been carefully shorn of individual-
ity by other hands.
Miss Godley does not expect to have Shakspere's plays in full upon the
stage. No rational person will raise objections if certain speeches, and even
certain scenes, are bodily omitted. What is neither just nor allowable is the
prevailing fashion of cutting lines from the very heart of a speech, on no
grounds whatever except to gain more time for the arrangement of tableaux
and pieces of cheap business. Custom does not as yet allow actor or manager to
provide new lines in a Shaksperean play. But, short of that, there is an un-
limited license .of curtailAent and-interpolation. Miss Godley rightly asserts
that the subordinate characters still have their distinctive features; each one
is intended to have his influence on the action of the play, not merely to help
towards filling the stage. A speech in Shakspere belongs to the character for
whom it was written and intended. It is part of the character. By shifting
speeches about anomalies and absurdities are created, and all the distinctive
individuality which the master gave to each character is lost.
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282 THE Columbian Reading Union. [May,
But worst of all, perhaps, is the way in which Shaksperean revivals,
as they are somewhat inaptly termed, are weighed down with the gorge-
ousness of stage accessories. Dress, scenery, and pageantry are all
carried to the very extreme of realistic splendor. The drama plays second
figure to costume. The tableau, with its dumb show, is tagged on, a mere
dead excrescence to the live body of the play. It is impossible that the action
should move briskly with such impediments interposed. Through the whole
progress of the piece the spectator's attention is diverted by the splendor of
the stage accessories from the most glorious poetry of passion and feeling the
world has ever known. Let these glories of brilliant scenery be reserved for
many plays of the modern times. To the right interpretation of Shakspere
the simple and plainer is the costume and scenery the better.
It seems that the origin of the form Shakspere is not to be attributed to
the venerable Dr. Furnivall. The editor of Bell's Shakspere (London, 1793)
in his advertisement has the following :
The present editor hath presumed to deviate from the usual mode of
printing the Author^ 5 name by the omission of the letter A in the last syllable,
viz. : Shakspere for Shakespeare^ but he thinks himself warranted in this alter-
ation by the fac-simiU of the Author's subscription to his Will, as well as by
the invariable custom of entering the names of his family in the Register-Book
of the Parish of Stratford-upon-Avon, The ancient method of spelling the
partial derivation of the name will equally justify the present adoption, if primi-
tive accuracy be preferable to modern variations — as in Spencer, where it is
written, and explained in the Glossary y spere, a spear.
• » ' •
A rare and curious book published by Calkin & Budd, London, 1848, is
entitled Religious and Moral Sentences culled from the Works of Shak-
spere, compared with passages drawn from Holy Writ by a member of the
Shakspere Society. The compiler observed while visiting Stratford-upon-
Avon a large written paper in a gilt frame, termed a copy of Shakspere's will
drawn in the Roman Catholic form ; purporting to be a faithful copy of the
real will deposited at Doctors' Commons. In this will, dated 1616, after in-
voking the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the most holy and blessed Virgin
Mary, Mother of God, the archangels, angels, patriarchs, prophets, etc., this
declaration follows :
I, William Shakespear, an unworthy member of the Holy Catholic Religion,
being at this my present writing in perfect health of body, sound mind, mem*
ory, and understanding, but calling to mind the uncertainty of life, and the
certainty of death, and that I may be possibly cut off in the blossom of my
sins, and called to render an account of all my transgressions, external and
internal, and that I may be unprepared for the dreadful trial either by sacra-
ment, penance, fasting or prayer, or any other purgation whatever, do in the
holy presence above specified, of my own free and voluntary accord, make and
ordain this my last Spiritual Will, Testament, Confession, Protestation, and
Confession of Faith, etc.
The compiler declares his avowed purpose to show presumptive
evidence by the passages from Shakspere that the tenets of the religion which
he professed '< wcire not of the Roman Catholic persuasion."
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He that of greatest works is finisher,
Oft does them by the weakest minister ;
So Holy Writ in babes hath judgment shewn, *;
When judges have been babes.
--Airs Well that Ends Well
And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over
them. — Isaias,
Many good judges agree in regard to Shakspere that the internal evidence
of his writings is very strong in favor of his Catholic tendencies and apprecia-
tion of Catholic teaching, which includes a knowledge of the Bible.
• • •
Mr. Alexis Iren^e du Pont Coleman, the translator of Maeterlinck's J/it^^iMtf
Vannaf is a son of the Bishop of Delaware. He is of French descent on his
mother's side, and is an accomplished French scholar. During the last year
of Augustin Daly's life he was officisil translator at Daly's Theatre, and since
that time he has done all the play- translating for the chief agent in this coun-
try for German dramatists. Mr. Coleman is also the author of numerous
articles in the magazines, and for the past three years has been an instructor
in the English department of the College of the City of New York. He is a
graduate of Oxford.
• • •
Mr. E. J. Dillon, the author of the recently published biography of Maxim
Gorky, a native of Ireland, born of an Irish father and an English mother,
began his life-work in Russia, and did his first writing in Russian. His first,
published articles appeared in the Petershurgskia Viedemosti in 1886. The
articles were an attack upon the Russian professors who were then bringing
out a history of universal literature. For the next few years Dr. Dillon held
the position of docent of Kharkoff University. In 1894 he was made doctor
of comparative philology and elected professor. Soon after he was elected a
member of the Armenian Academy of Venice. He is the only non-Armenian
who enjoys this distinction. It was some years later that he began to write
in English, his first article being published in the American Review of Reviews,
• • •
It was a memorable occasion when the check was presented to the Catho-
lic University, by order of the Knights of Columbus, for the endowment of a
chair of American history. The check was drawn on the Union Trust Com-
pany of Providence, R. I., for $$0,000.
Among the church dignitaries in attendance were his Eminence Cardinal
Gibbons, chancellor of the University ; Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia,
Archbishop Keane of Dubuque, Archbishop Farley of New York, Bishop Maes
of Covington, Bishop Foley of Detroit, Bishop Garrigan of Sioux City, and
the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Connell, rector of the University.
The presentation of the check was made by Edward L. Hearn, Supreme
Knight of the order, and Cardinal Gibbons delivered the acceptance and
response. Mr. John J. Delaney, Corporation Counsel of Greater New York
and a member of the Knights of Columbus, who initiated the movement
which resulted in the endowment of the chair of American history, delivered
the principal address of the day.
When Archbishop Ryan rose to open the ceremonies with prayer fully
three thousand persons were gathered on the broad lawn in front of McMahon
Hall, where a grand stand had been erected. The big check, in an immense
frame, decorated with yellow and white bunting, the colors of the University,
occupied a prominent place to the left of the speaker's stand. The wide stone
front of the hall was gay with American flags and yellow and white bunting,
and the stand, a short distance cway, occupied by the Marine Band, was hid-
den beneath drapery of the same colors.
Mr. Hearn explained in his presentation speech that the Knights of Colum-
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384 THE Columbian Reading UNipN. [May, 1904.]
bus had selected the chair of American history as the most fitting one to en-
dow, as it was considered high time that loyal Catholics shouM make some
effort to protect the Church in history, thus far written chiefly by non-Catholics.
The laity of the church had been too long apathetic in this respect, he
said, and as a; consequence biSt Ifttle wis to be found iii'the histories Of to-day
about the part that the Catholic Church had pccupied in the upbuilding of the
institutions of the North American continent, from the time of its discovery by
Columbus up to the present time.
In his speech of acceptance, Cardinal Gibbons said :
I beg to assure you in my own name and in the name of my colleagues of
the extremely deep sense of gratitude with which this gift is received. You
have presented to the Catholic University of America the munificent sum of
$50,000 for endowing a chair in American history. You may rest assured that
this amount will be safely invested and devoted to the exact purposes intended.
An able professor will be selected to preserve and teach the truth of
American history. To him it will be a glorious and congenial pursuit, and
will present the truth to the world and show to all the leading part the Catho-
lic Church has taken in upbuilding this country, developing its resources, and
spreading civilization and Christianity among its inhabitants. It is a sacred
duty to repel false charges brought against our religion and to vindicate the
charges against our church before the tribunal of the American people.
The present year has proved to be one of the most prosperous and aus-
picious years that have yet dawned on the Catholic University of America.
We are cheered by the contemplation of a unit<^d^ episcopate in the United
States, marching hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder in the desire to ad-
vance the interests of this great institute and cheered by the generous Catholic
laity of the United States, who in individual contributions from Alaska to the
Rio Grande and from the Atlantic to the Pacific nobly responded to the appeals
of their bishops.
During the last few days, in addition to this munificent sum presented by
the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic laity have collected and presented to
the Catholic University more than $100,000. And we are also cheered by the
generosity of the laity in organized contributions, such as were presented a
few years ago by the Ancient Order of Hibernians of America, and as pre-
sented here to-day by the Knights of Columbus.
Gentlemen, you. have done more than present $50,000. You have signal-
ized your interest in a great institution by your presence before me in such
vast numbers. We are cheered by the action of Pope Pius X., who recently
sent to the Catholic University a letter of sympathy, and who in this respecl
has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor. Pope Leo XIII. The whole
episcopate manifests its cordial support of the Catholic University.
Gentlemen, Knights of Columbus, you do not bear royal titles nor royal
purses, but you have shown by your actions that you have loyal Catholic
hearts. What may we not hope to see ? With the Pope and the Bishops and
the laity united, we know no such word as failure, and therefore this University
must succeed, and with God's blessing shall succeed. God bless you all.
You will have in the future, as you have had in the past, the confidence of the
Hierarchy of the United States.
Mr. Delaney apologized for the fact that the Knights of Columbus took
occasion to present the big check in such a public manner. He said that it
was done in order to set an example to others, and for that reason only, and
insisted that if the organization had had its way the treasurer would have
sneaked in the back door of the University with the check under his arm, and
after dropping it in care of the authorized custodian of the funds would have
made his way out the same way he came.
But he hoped the example set by the Knights of Columbus would be
speedily followed, and that the good work of endowing the University by con-
tributions from loyal Catholics would proceed without interruption.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. LXXIX. JUNE, 1904. No. 471.
IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS.
BY J. C. MONAGHAN.
[URING the year ending June 30, 1903, 857,046
immigrants entered the United States. Of these
26,219 came from England, 6,153 fro^i Scot-
land, 35,300 from Ireland, 5,578 from France,
40,086 from Germany, 24,461 from Norway,
46,028 from Sweden; 136,093 from Russia, exclusive of Poles;
Austria and Hungary, exclusive of Austrian Poland, sent us
206,01 1 ; Italy, 230,622. The number of aliens, immigrants
and travellers, that came into the United States in 1820, the
first year in which a satisfactory official record was made of
those entering, was 8,385 ; in 1828 it was 27,382. In 1828
England's contribution to the tide of immigration was 2,735.
From Scotland came 1,041; from Ireland, 12,488; from France,
2,843; from Germany, 1,851; Norway sent 10; Sweden none;
Russia, exclusive of Poland, 7 ; Austria and Hungary none ;
Italy, 34.
The population of the United States in 1 820, white and
black, was 9,633,822; in 1900 it was 76,303,387, not counting
Porto Rico and the Philippines, but including Alaska and
Hawaii.
ASSIMILATION.
Grave doubts are entertained by writers on immigration
problems as to the country's, ability to absorb and assimilate
the hundreds of thousands that are pouring into our ports
Tbb Missionary Socibty of St. Paul tmb Apostlb iv tkb Statb
or Nbw York, 1904,
you LXXIY. — 19
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286 IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS. [June,
from places hitherto unrepresented. A glance at the figures
will reveal the causes for the alarm. Of the 857,046 that
entered in 1903, England, Scotland, Ireland. France, Germany,
Norway and Sweden combined, contributed only 183,825.
Italy alone sent us 230,622, and Italy, Austria-Hungary, and
Russia together 572,726. Were the 9,633,822 of 1820 better
able to assimilate the 27,382 immigrants who came to us in
that year, from the countries of northern Europe, than the
76,303,387 of 1900, or the 8o.odd millions of 1903, the 857,-
046 immigrants who came to us in 1903, largely from Latin
and Slavic races? For every 1,000 of the population in 1828
there came in 2.8 immigrants; in 1903 the ratio was a trifle
more than 10.7 to the 1,000. Is there danger in this differ-
ence? Would the danger be greater or less in case the
entire immigration contingency came, as in the early years,
from northern Europe, rather than, as now, in such large part
from southern Europe ?
Alarmed at the enormous increase ot the Latin and Slavic
elements in the immigration returns, economic and sociologic
writers have been asking the country tb investigate the immi-
gration problem, with a view to devising means to direct
the stream into channels where assimilation will be easier and
the. results better than those at present in evidence. Careless
and inconsiderate denunciations of the present system of regu-
lating immigration have been heard on all sides. Perils equal
to those thought to lurk in what some call the "yellow peril"
are predicted, unless Congress devises means for correcting
existing evils. Luckily, the country has not lost confidence in
Congress. It is time, perhaps, to take up the immigration
problem. It is time, too, to find out the actual facts in con-
nection therewith, and to ask the alarmists to show cause for
the claims they are making. In order to help Congress and
the country at large to reach safe conclusions, the Department
of Commerce and Labor sent a circular letter to the United
States consuls stationed in foreign ports, asking for detailed
information regarding emigration from their districts. In this
circular letter the consuls were asked all manner of questions.
Many of the replies to this circular letter have appeared in the
Daily Consular reports, published by the Department of Com-
merce and Labor, and are well worth careful reading. (They
will appear later in a volume of Special Consul Reports.)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems. 287
According to the first number of these reports, already
published, Germany and the United Kingdom furnished, from
182 1 to 1903, 56 per cent, of all the immigrants recorded in
the United States returns. Germany's share was 24 per cent.,
Ireland's 19, and that of England, Scotland, and Wales 13 per
cent. During the same period Austria-Hungary, Italy, and
Russia, including Poland, furnished 21 per cent. Of these
Austria- Hungary furnished 7 per cent, Italy 8 per cent., and
Russia, including Poland, 6 per cent. Of those coming in
1903 Germany and the United Kingdom furnished only 12
per cent Austria- Hungary, Italy, Russia, including Poland,
68 per cent By the census of 1900 the number of foreign-
bom persons in the United States was 10,356,644, or 13.54
per cent, of the total population.
Is it well for us to get so many immigrants in a single
year and to have them settle in great numbers in the large
cities of the North Atlantic States ? Is it good for them ? Is
what is good for us good for them ? If so, would it not be
wiser, much wiser, for us to regulate the stream up near its
sources ? Is not the best place to direct and filter it the point
at which it begins to emerge from the Austrian, Hungarian,
Russian, and Italian hills ? Can the consuls do much or any-
thing to control the stream ? May not the new elements become
a menace? There are those who look upon them as a danger.
For my own part, I do not ; I am willing to trust to time, equal
laws, liberty, and education. Lincoln's aphorism about fooling
part of the people all of the time, all of the people part of
the time, "but you cannot fool all of the people all of the
time," is as applicable to Italians, Russians, etc., as it is to native
Americans. There are those who seem to think that the mil-
lions of foreign bprn and their descendants are the part that
can be fooled all of the time. They cannot. Moreover, boast-
ing until we prove ourselves better than the people who have
given the world Tolstoi, Turgenefl, Gogol, Sienkiewicz, et al.,
is out of place. What Italy was we are not now, never have
been, and may never be. The countrymen of Dante and
Petrarch, Angelo and Raphael may contribute much to keep
the commercial spirit subordinate to the higher, holier, and
nobler lines of life. Anyway, it is best to be sure that one is
right before he arraigns a whole race or people; such an
arraignment has never been done successfully.
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288: Immigration Problems, [June,
CHARACTER OF IMMIGRANTS.
Most of the immigrants who enter our gates are honest,
thrifty, sober, industrious, law-abiding and peaceful. At one
time, and for a long time, the people coming to us in the
steerage were the pick of the class to which they belonged.
It was largely because of this fact, says our consul, that the
newly established industries of the United States came to' the
front almost at a leap ; they had the cream of the expert labor
of Great Britain and Europe.
There are several reasons to account for what is generally
admitted to be the fact as to the lowering of the standard.
Formerly it required great strength of character, and almost
courage, for a man (especially if poor) to travel to the United
States in search of employment and to found a new home. It
was generally only the best class who made the venture; the
weaklings, as a rule, were afraid. But the conditions of travel
have been made so easy and the prospects in the United States
are now so attractive, with all conditions more comfortable than
formerly — and then so many prospective emigrants have friends
auid relatives already established across the water to smooth
the way — that a greater number of inferior men join the never-
ceasing procession of those who abandon the old for the new
land. This latter class is probably yearly proportionately
increasing, and thus it is that the general standard is being
lowered. Still, the United States continues to drain Great
Britain and the Continent of much of the very best of its farm-
ing and artisan population. ' A great many Scandinavians go
to the United States via Liverpool. They cross the North Sea
to Hull, and thence go by rail to Liverpool. As a rule, they
are a fine, sturdy people — healthy and thrifty-looking. The
wonder is frequently expressed how their fatherland can stand
this constant drain of depopulation.
Of the 305,236 immigrants coming in via French ports in
the years 1893-1903 (first ten months) 83,791 were skilled
workmen, 168,794 farmers, 1,680 professional men, 18,419
servants, 32,557 of no occupation, including women and children.
Expressed in another way, 55.4 per cent, are farmers ; 27.4 skilled
workmen, men who have learned trades; 10.7 per cent, including
women and children, persons who have no occupation ; 6 per
cent, domestic servants, 5 per cent, professional people, actors.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS. 289
doctors, dentists, etc. It would be well worth our while to
encourage immigration could we count on any such average of
value as is indicated by the foregoing figures. Still, the average
of intelligence is not so very low. As a rule it is above the
average of the classes out of which the immigrants come. Of
those coming to us from Italy, Austria- Hungary^ Bohemia, and
Poland a great many — in fact, by far the larger part — are
farmers. To travel to this country is easier now than it was in
the days of sailing ships and long voyages ; still, it requires con-
siderable courage to come even now, and the class that does
come consists in great measure of eager, earnest, courageous
workers, people who are willing to take the bad with the good,
to undergo hardships if only they and theirs may better their
fortunes. As a rule they do, and this is one of the very gratify-
ing features connected with immigration.
REASONS FOR EMIGRATING.
While many reasons are given for emigration, all writers,
consuls as well as independent - correspondents, are agreed that
chief among them is the desire of the emigrants to better
their social and financial conditions. Facts ard figures prove
that the United States is still the Eldorado of the emigrant's
dreams. Neither Canada nor Australia, South Africa nor
South America, can compare with this country in attracting
immigrants. The Outlook says: "The quickness with which
working people in this country (United States) inform their
foreign relations whether work here is plentiful or scarce is
clearly portrayed in the following immigration records of tkc
fat and lean years of the past quarter of a century: 1878,
138,000; 1882, 788,000; 1886, 334,060; 1892, 623,000; 1895,
279,000; 1903, 857,000."
Here are the real reasons. The chief cause of this attrac-
tion are the wages paid to workingmen and working-women.
It matters not that the wages will not always equal Europe's;
measured by the amounts produced per capita, the laborer here
can earn large amounts, live on much less than he is paid
abroad, and be able to put by a fairly large . percentage for the
rainy day that inevitably overtakes him.
All this is urged upon those at home by those who emi-
grate. The thousands who go back to visit the old lands carry
letters of credit or hundreds of dollars, often in gold, in their
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290 Immigration problems. [!"»«»
pockets. A hundred times I have seen the Americanized Ger-
man watched by his former associates as he would pull out
and "plunk" down twenty-dollar gold pieces on the beer-
saloon tables in Germany, when boasting about the United
States and its infinite possibilities.
CONTRACT LABOR.
Most consuls agree in exonerating American manufacturers
from making labor contracts beforehand with parties about to
emigrate. The history of our industries offers instructive data to
those interested in the problems presented by our population.
In the old days the work of the country was done by the
natives, the men of New England and the North. In the
South it was done by negroes. Then came the English, Irish,
Scotch, and Welsh. Later there was an invasion of French
Canadians. Into the West came the Chinese. As the English,
Irish, Scotch, and~ Welsh worked upwards newer lamina were
added to the heterogeneous mass. The peoples of Italy, Bohe-
mia, Armenia, Greece, Poland; Austria- Hungary, and Russia
began to pour in, and are pouring in every day. The splendid
thing about it all is the generous way in which American
labor meets it. American labor asked for protection, it is
true, of a certain kind; but never, except in the case of the
Chinese, for prohibition.
It is easy to understand that an economic argument might
be advanced against the indiscriminate admission of Europe's
masses — certainly against Asia's. The millions that came and
the millions coming must certainly affect labor, even in its
strongest citadels and entrenchments. The labor history of
New England, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana will show this.
Is there a danger line, and are we anywhere near it ? When
I had the honor to serve as United States consul I came in
contact with cases in which the agents of American concerns
were contracting with European labor to come here. I remem-
ber a large hosiery company securing and bringing over a
large number of expert knitters, dyers, and finishers. It was
held that this was not the kind of contract labor that came
within the exclusion clauses of the contract labor law. It was
expert labor, the labor that was needed to organize and intro-
duce the knitting industry into the United States. That the
decision was wise, even if not exactly right, according to the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems. 291
strict letter of the law, no one who has watched the develop-
ment of America's knitting industries will deny. What is true
of the knitting mills is just as true of the silk mills. Not only
laborers come to us but capital, engineers and expert managers
came and still come. Whether families under contract from
Chemnitz or Lyons, now that the knitting and silk-weaving in-
dustries are fairly well established, ought to be excluded, is a
question. Of course there are thousands coming to whom some
kind of a promise of work has been made. Perhaps after all
it is best that it is so.
Some say a danger lurks in the discontent due to the in-
troduction of alien labor that is ignorant of our institutions
and the spirit of our people. The industrial history of our
coal mines is full of significance along these lines. There are
those who think that the Russian, Lithuanian, or Pole, who
was paid sixty dollars for a year's work at home, will not find
it hard to work for less than would tempt a Welshman, Irish-
man, or Scotchman. It would certainly seem so if the men
who have been used to living and working on a diet of pota-
toes, bread, and a little milk, who never or seldom tasted meat
at home, will come dangerously near ousting the meat- eating
miners of Pennsylvania, if they have not done it already.
Wages in Russia, Austria, and other parts of Europe run from
15 cents to a trifle over one dollar a day. After one has se-
cured such facts as these, one gives up wondering at the ability
of Austrian and Hungarian immigrants to send back $10,000,-
000 every twelve months to those left at home. It is here
that the immigration problem presents its most interesting and
dangerous phases. If the Pennsylvania, Cripple Creek, or other
Colorado miners assume an attitude of defiance, it may be due
to misdirected doubts about the real meaning of what we call
American democracy. If Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio
have had hours of doubt and danger, the causes may lie adja-
cent to those operating in Colorado. Day after day discon-
tent seems to increase among the miners. What is the cause ?
The walking delegate is not to be held responsible for anything
but a very small part of it. May not a large part of it be
due to the lies under which thousands of immigrants are made
to labor — the lie under which they are paid a pittance com-
pared with what they soon learn to think their work is worth.
Is a dollar or two dollars a day a fair wage for miners ?
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
292 Immigration Problems. [June,
In regard to protection against unlawful and undesirable
immigration Consul- General Howe concludes his report in the
following words:
" Under the existing regulations of our government, and as
far as any surveillance exercised by the Belgian authorities is
concerned, there is absolutely nothing to prevent any discharged
convict, anarchist, or other disreputable character from any
other country of Europe, 'on being provided with a ticket,'
embarking at Antwerp for the United States. Of what sur-
veillance is exercised by the authorities on arrival at New
York, I, of course, can have no knowledge ; but I do have
knowledge of the fact that the failure of our government to
examine and discriminate at the port of embarkation is very
satisfactory to the steamship companies and that no change is
desired on their part."
Of the thousands embarking at Antwerp only a very small
percentage — less than three per cent. — are Belgians.
The attitude of the Belgian government would seem to be
indifferent, neither encouraging nor discouraging emigration,
and I know of no discrimination as regards classes. The gov-
ernment of Belgium assumes the right to military duty of those
living in the country.
It would be hard to find a good reason why Belgium
should oppose emigration, particularly the kind that puts it in
the power of Antwerp, her chief port, to compete with Bremen,
Hamburg, Liverpool, and Havre. The 178,350 that embarked
on the Antwerp boats left from $5 to $25 each in Belgium
before sailing. This did not include their passage money. But
it is easy to understand the efforts of others to restrict emi-
gration, for the countries in which the emigrants begin their
journey have a right to find fault. It is hard for them to view
with equanimity a movement that takes from their ranks bone
and sinew and brawn needed at home. Although the arable
land of the German Empire is limited, that empire views with
pain the emigration of its children. If they would 'go to the
empire's colonies rather than to the United States or to the
colonies of Great Britain, the pain would not be so intense.
If Italy is ever tempted to put obstacles in the way of the
thousands that now wander down from Lombardy, Piedmont,
and Tuscany to Genoa, or up from Sicily and Calabria to
Naples, who will blame her ? Sicily is beginning to suffer as
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 Immigration Problems. 293
Ireland suffered. Yet there are many sides to the problem.
Could the people of the old world not come; were laws
enacted to restrain or restrict emigration, what a cry would
go up from the *' lovers of liberty/* who are now offering
opposition to the tide of immigration that has set hitherward t
No one will deny the right to a nation to keep out objection-
able immigrants. Self-preservation is as much a law of nations
as it is the law of nature. The bill to limit the number of
immigrants to be admitted in any one year to 80,000, may
make for as much or even for more evil than for good. What-
ever is done should be done with the greatest care and only
after all the facts have been examined.
POLITICAL EVILS ASSOCIATED WITH IMMIGRATION.
The political evils associated with immigration are innu-
merable, and apparently irremediable; at least it looks as if
they might be for. a long time. The greatest evil is the build-
ing up of political factions named after the nationalities to
which the members belong. Every large city of the country
has its foreign vote : its German vote, Irish vote, Scandinavian,
Italian, Polish, French, and other foreign votes. This is un-
American. The men who take advantage of the opportunity
to make the foreigners vote in bunches are enemies to progress,
traitors to all the country's traditions and ideals. So deep-
rooted is the evil that it is hard to see just how it is to be
avoided. It was with us away back in the early years of the
nineteenth century, and it looks as if it would be with us when
we will say good-by to the twentieth century. The lack of
anything like complete success in our institutions is largely due
to the presence of this political parasite. If we are the laugh-
ing stock, at times, as we are, of the old world, even of the
Orient, it is because of the way the foreign-born voters were
bought and are bought to defeat progressive legislation. No
one is willing to oppose a- man because he is a foreigner. On
election day there should be no question of nationality. The
only tests should be ability, patriotism, and character. A.-P.-
Aism is the worst ism that was ever introduced into the coun-
try, but bad as that is it is only a little more vicious than the
habit of voting foreigners in bunches.
A few years ago — not twenty — the Lutherans of the West
were organized into a compact political body. After election
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294 Immigration Problems, [June,
they laid claim to a large number of offices due to their efforts.
The claim was allowed. Several Lutheran clergymen were re-
warded by being sent abroad as representatives of the United
States government. I cite this for no such thing as captious
criticism, but to show that even very good men are not above
using their political power to secure political patronage. The
one great evil in this connection, one to which the attention
of all patriotic citizens ought to be called, is the fact that a
very large number of those who corrupt the foreign vote, who
seek to control it, are native-born Americans, graduates of our
high-schools and colleges. They come from Yale, Harvard,
Brown, Columbia, Cornell, etc., etc. The humblest artisan that
comes in at our gates is in favor of what is highest, noblest,
and best in politics. It is only after he lands that he learns
the monetary value of a vote. The vicious voter, the man
who does violence to the principle of liberty, is innocent com-
pared with the college graduate, the intelligent citizen, who
buys or pays for his vote. Until society sets its hand and
face against the so-called ** successful " politicians, the bribers
of voters, the iniquity will continue. The evil is as wide as
from the far East to the far West. Connecticut is as corrupt
as California. It is in the North and it is in the South. Min-
nesota has as much of it as has Mississippi. It is the one
great, inexplicable evil. It is a poisoning of the wells, a tear-
ing down of the dikes.
RELIGION OF THE IMMIGRANTS.
The religious element is accorded very considerable space
in conversations, lectures, and articles concerning questions of
emigration. Perhaps it ought to be accorded more. The cir-
cular letter sent to consuls calls for a statement of the religious
convictions of the different emigrants. The Irish, Italians,
Bohemians, Belgians, and French are almost all Roman Catho-
lics. Of the Germans who come to us quite a large number
are Lutherans, a large part Roman Catholics, a few Jews, some
agnostics or " non-religious." Nearly all of the Scandinavians
who come are Lutherans.
If it were possible to put the peasant into the hands of
priests and ministers educated in this country, it might not go
so hard as it does now with hundreds of these poor people.
Many of them hunger on Sundays in the first years of their
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems. 295
exile for the familiar accents of their home language. Few if
any clergymen ever come to us in company with the immigrants.
The result for some is often a long period of religious drought.
Luckily the old people are, as a rule, well grounded in the
doctrines of their faith. They follow it as they were wont to
follow it at home, fondly, faithfully, and sincerely. At times
there is a sad falling off from religious life and communion.
Opinions differ as to just what this falling off should be at-
tributed. Its presence and its progress are certain. The pro-
blem of its cure is one well worth the most careful consideration.
Not infrequently clergymen are found who warn their people
against the loss of their language. '' Lose your language," I
have heard them say, ** and you lose your faith." This may be
heard from the pulpits of Catholics and Protestants. These are
men, however, who seem to look upon religion as a national or
lingual institution rather than as a universal message alike to Jew
and Gentile. Some go so far as to say that a marriage between
the members of their flocks and persons of another nationality
is no better than ''mixed marriages," that danger lurks in a love
that leads to such unions. The fact is that such marriages
are, as a rule, eminently successful. Fewer failures are recorded
among them than a general average would warrant. Physiolo-
gically such marriages are considered favorably. Assimilation
under existing circumstances is slow. If the marked tendency
of turning the immigrants into localities already crowded
with their countrymen is continued, assimilation will be very
slow indeed. One has only to go carefully over the facts
and figures to see whither the streams tend and where, like
a mighty river, they ravage the land, and where they make
the land blossom as the rose. To return again to the religious
part of the problem, it might be better for us all if a little
greater leeway or liberty were left to Americans in the matter
of religious legislation and discipline. European church organ-
izations that have branch organizations here should recognize
the great need of church legislation designed and fitted for
American institutions and environments. The environments
and institutions under which people live for a long time are
mighty influences in their lives.
Whatever Rome may have been in the days of Paul and
Peter, or London in the days of Elizabeth, the one is now
temporally, only the capital of Italy, and Italy is hardly to
Digitized by VjOOQIC
296 Immigration Problems, [June,
be compared as a world force with one or two other countries ;
the other is far from what it was even fifty or one hundred
years ago. A little less fondness for the non-essentials and
greater fondness for the things that are essential would work
wonders.
Some consuls urge that parties preparing tg emigrate should
be compelled to furnish a certificate of morals or good character
to the consuls or emigration inspectors. This might mean
something were we to set up a standard of morals to which
foreigners would have to conform or subscribe. It is to be
hoped that we will do so. Such a substitute ought not to be
hard to find. That it is needed is well known. Confucius,
Buddha, Plato, Marc Aurelius, even Christ, might be improved
upon by an American standard. Perhaps, some day, the moral
substitute will be set up. We are leading the world in so
many ways^at least we think so — that a little thing like a moral
standard should not disturb us. In connection with the moral
character of emigrants from Italy the United States consul at
Naples says :
" It can be said that the average emigrant from this port is
a fair representative of the Italian peasant. Intellectually he is
willing and quick to learn, but is deplorably ignorant. In 1867
the proportion of Italians who could not read was 78 per cent;
and in 1881, when the census was made, it was 67 per cent.
This shows an increase in education which is in all probability
due to increased educational advantages in cities, a condition which
does not concern in any important degree the Italian emigrant.
"The improvement is much more marked in the north of
Italy than in the south. The great majority of the emigrants
are Roman Catholics. It is believed that there are very few
paupers or beggars among the Naples emigrants. They are
generally poor people, who earnestly desire an opportunity to
earn an honest living. As to their morality, it is that of the
ignorant and emotional lower classes- of their race. It is, how-
ever, difficult for any criminal to leave Naples for the United
States. The Italian emigration commission exercises a rigid
control of this matter. The proportion of married persons
among Italian emigrants is very large."
In writing about Norwegian emigrants. Consul Bordewich
writes from Christiania to say that " Many Norwegian emigrants
are Mormons. Mormon priests have during a number of years
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems. 297
— as far back as the sixties, and probably earlier — made regu-
lar visits to Norway in efforts to stimulate emigration to Utah,
at the same time making proselytes for their religion. The
Mormons have their own church in Christiania. This is toler-
ated, as Norway enjoys religious liberty, but polygamy is pro-
hibited by law. Mormon emissaries still make visits to this
country."
Between the Sicilian's ignorance and the Norwegian emigrant's
proneness to Mormonism, with its predilection towards polygamy,
lies a moral morass. Besides, the moral measurements of the East,
Boston and Bangor, are very different from those of Seattle and
San Francisco. The morals of Michigan and Minnesota may not
be the same as those of Texas and Tennessee ; indeed we are
often told that they are not. The less we look into the so-called
moral make- up of our immigrants, say some, the better — for us.
There are so many sociologic, economic, hygienic, and other pro-
blems connected with immigration pressing for solution, that the
moral questions, as affected by religious beliefs, may well be
left to the sanctimonious societies that are constantly finding
motes in the eyes of Europe's millions, but fail to take any
notice of the beams in their own and in the eyes of those about
them. There is too much cant in our efforts to convert people
already Christian, and too little Christianity in trying to keep
the flocks to which we have been called by — the church trus-
tees. In passing, it is well worth while to call attention to the
stupid efforts to " rescue " the Italian and Bohemian immigrants
from Rome. The systematic and studied method of insulting
such a very large number of Christians is stupid, degrading, and
dangerous. The " convert " who gives of the golden armor of
Glaucus for the brazen armor of Diomede is soon sick of his
bargain. What is the result? Agnosticism, indifference to all
religion resulting in downright atheism. As wave after wave
of irreligion washes over the lafid the dull-witted bigots will
wish they had been wiser in their day and generation.
The economist and sociologist who seeks safety in religion
from the dangers of socialism turns invariably to the Church of
Rome. A day is to come when here, as elsewhere for the
throne, the best bulwark for the republic's safety will be the
brave breasts of the men brought up in her doctrines. The
fastest runner may read even now the need of just such security
as she, and she alone, offers.
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298 Immigration Problems. [June,
If it be true, as it undoubtedly is, that races have distinct
racial characteristics, it may be the very best thing in the
world for us and for our future that the tide of immigration
is no longer from the northern parts of Europe, only from the
so-called Anglo-Saxon lands, but also from the Slav and Latin
races. If Greece gave the world the arts, aesthetics, literature,
and philosophy ; Rome, law, ideas of government, administra-
tive and other models, may not their descendants give us a
renaissance in the arts, literature, philosophy, law, and govern-
ment? The assertions made against the Italian or Slav immi-
grant — arguments they cannot be called — are pitiful. They
remind one of the pettifogging lawyer who was taught to
abuse the opposing counsel just as soon as his case took a
doubtful turn. Now, this does not mean that efforts to im-
prove the lot of those coming in at our gates should be given
up or neglected. Nor does it mean that steps are not neces-
sary for self-protection. It simply means that the danger is
not only not very great, but that there is very little real dan-
ger until the emigrant has entered our gates.
The mean-spirited attacks upon the Italians and Slavs is
akin to the kind of rubbish that we used to hear about the
Irish away back in the forties and fifties. A time has come
when the stone that the builders wanted to reject is become a
strong part of the arch upon which the republic rests. Before
the war of '70-71, Hans, standing for his German Fatherland,
had to apologize for being here. To-day the nation rejoices
in the millions that came to it from the banks of the Liffey
and Shannon, the Danube and the Rhine. Fifty years from
now we will be saying the same of those who come to us
from the batiks of the Volga and the Bay of Naples. If the
Celtic element has done half as much as Sir Edwin Arnold
says it did for England, and English art, life, and literature,
surely the Latins and the Slavs, virile and artistic, can hardly
fail to contribute much towards making us what we ought to
be, strong in all that the world has ever had. Surely the
seeds of Athenian and Roman greatness were never lost. The
potentialities are only dormant. A renaissance is bound to
come. The conservation of energy calls for it. The Calabrian,
Sicilian, and Neapolitan, the countrymen of Tolstoi and Sienkie-
wicz, will teach us to love the flowers and the fruits, the True
and the Beautiful. Behind these the Good will follow.
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1904.] ''Down the Court:' 299
•*DOWN THE COURT."
BY M. F. QUINLAN.
JT lay deep down — this East End Court — and it
smelt of the earth earthy. A row of tiny, damp
hovels crouched together below the level of the
adjacent street, and seemed to hide from the
eye of Heaven.
Sometimes a nursing sister flitted through the court on
some errand of mercy ; or a priest hurried down to shrive a
stricken soul. The police found it prudent to go in a body;
for this was Mark's Place. I remember my first visit there.
It was in the morning, when the men were at the docks, and
the girls away at the factory and the women out "char"-ing
for the Jews, and the alley looked forsaken of God and man.
Half way down a solitary woman emerged from a hovel.
A brown shawl was drawn over her head, which partly con-
cealed a black eye — mute witness to last night's fray. Actu-
ated by socialistic principles, I accosted her as an equal; after
which we had some desultory conversation. Then she paused.
** This ain't no place for you, miss," said the shawled figure
fragmentarily. "Yer oughter go 'pme."
From this I judged that my appearance was against me,
and I anticipated instant dismissal, for the alley did not stand
on ceremony — neither did it do anything by halves. At least,
I reflected) I can make a bid for tolerance.
** What is the matter with me ? " I asked in all humility.
'* W'y," said the woman, " it ain't in yer line no 'ow, as
any one kin see ! Besides," and she gazed at me pityingly,
"yer looks too young fur it."
"Being young is bad enough," I admitted; "but would
you have me a deserter as well ? "
My critic scanned me with her available eye. " A de-
serter ? " she queried.
"I am under orders from Westminster," I explained; "so
you had better write to the Cardinal." And I laughed.
" Glory be ! " was the awe-struck reply. " Then the Cardi-
nal 'a6 'eard o' the alley ; an' Gawd 'elp us ! " said she, " for
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300 ''Down the Court:' [June,
the wickedness of it is beyond tellin'. Did yer never 'ear o'
the priest's curse ? " she asked.
I shook my head.
**Idunno' ef 'tis true or not," she began; "but they sez
so. 'Twas of a Saturd'y night, years ago, when the alley 'ad
'ad a drop an' the divil was in 'em. An' wot with the singin'
an' the dancin', an' every one rushin' up an' dahn the court
yellin' — w'y, yer wouldn't b'lieve the row! Then they begins
a-cursin' an' a-fightin', till the neighbors was afeered o' mur-
der an' some one run fur a priest.
" An* the priest 'e come an' 'e talks to 'em solemn-like.
But the drink was in 'em an' they wouldn't 'eed. So 'e walks
the length o' the alley callin' to 'em all to remember the judg-
ments o' the Almighty. But the alley on'y laughed an' swore
the 'arder. So the priest — Gawd 'elp us ! — w'en 'e'd got ter the
top o' the court, 'e turns round an' 'e looks down the alley.
An' 'e 'ears the men an' the women — yuss ! an' the little
childer — all blasphemin' an' a-cursin' " — the woman paused —
" an' 't was like listenin' outside o' the gates o' Hell ! Then
the priest o' Gawd, 'e stretches out 'is 'and; an', sez 'c: 'May
the curse o' the Almighty be upon this alley ! for 't is the
wickedest place on the earth.' "
The dishevelled figure drew her shawl closer and glanced
over her shoulder in fear, while the wind sobbed through the
eerie court as though chanting a requiem over lost hopes.
" An' the priest's curse," she whispered, " is still on it, fur
theer ain't no, more luck in the alley." And the woman
shivered.
'' So this is the worst place in the neighborhood ? " I said
tentatively.
" Well," was the cautious reply, " I don't go so fur as
that, fur they do say these times as Tin Fot Alley is a bit
roughish."
I nodded comprehensively.
"Wot? yer knows it?" she asked.
"I ought to," I said diffidently, "after three months."
This time she surveyed me with more approval.
"Yer 'II do," she said with finality, and opening the door
of her hovel, she invited me in.
Thus did I obtain a footing in the " devil's alley " — the
foul court that lay under Heaven's ban.
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1904.]
''DOWN THE Court:'
301
tvia-
'*An' 'twas like listenin* outside o* the gates o* Hell."
In time we became friends — Mark's Place and I ; and its
denizens would sometimes confide in me.
I was in the depths of the court one day, sitting by the
Brannigans' fire, when suddenly a woman passed by the half-
open door.
"Theer she goes!" said the rough factory-hand fiercely as
she called the attention of the other — a rope-walk girl, who
stood by the fireplace.
"An' if she ain't a wicked old woman," said the factory-
girl with vehemence, " thin may the Lord forgive me fur sayin'
it!" I looked up casually, and was only just in time to see
the flutter of an old skirt as it went by. But that fluttering
bit of skirt told me that the wearer was Mrs. Mullins, and my
heart sank. For Mrs. Mullins had done time already. " Seven
years hard " was her last sentence, and it was in the prison
VOL. Lxxix.^20 ^ T
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302 ''Down the Court:' [June,
that little Henry was born. According to the code of the
alley there was nothing detrimental in this, but it was con-
sidered etiquette to ignore such incidents.
To have the entree to the house of Brannigan was a
privilege to be appreciated, for the Brannigans could love as
they could hate; and the alley being wise in its generation,
had the fear of the Brannigans ever before its eyes. So I
accepted their friendship in a grateful spirit, and Mr. Brannigan
taught me Irish. He was not enthusiastic as to my intellectual
capacity; but once, in a sanguine moment, he said that if I
were to come sufficiently often, he thought in the end I might
learn something. The prospect of acquiring knowledge being
so dim, I used to digress from pure faint-heartedness into the
English tongue and common topics.
Mark's Place might have been in the Sahara — except for
the neighboring sign-post of the "Bubble and Squeak" and
other like marks of British civilization, which proclaimed that
we were in the vanguard of progress and dwelt in the centre
of the universe. In the East End we lived a life apart; a life
of toil and of dreariness. Of this world's wealth, or of the
glories of nature ; of the beauty of life or of the mystery of suf-
fering, we knew nothing. Each day brought its own struggle,
which was more than enough to fill each mind, until we forgot
that there was anything else in the universe -but sickness and
death, sorrow and crime. For that was all we saw. In the
alley we knew nothing of time — neither of days nor of dates;
nor of politics, nor of passing events, for we lived outside the
lines of the daily newspapers and beyond the border-land of
knowledge. An occasional poster would sometimes attract the
eye, though it rarely instructed the mind — because the local
tragedies were already known to us. News from the outer
world penetrated with difficulty, and travellers* tales were some-
times told in the courts and alleys of the East End of what
was happening to the nation in Westminster.
It was about the time of the Protestant demonstrations, I
remember, when Mr. Kensit led the party riots. There had
been a disorderly scene in a certain High Church which had
terminated in the rout of the Low- Church party. The news-
papers were full of it. But the alley always mistook the atti-
tude of the press.
" Be jabers ! " said Mr. Brannigan from his stool by the
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I904-)
^'^
'Down the Court."
303
H3A
"My Moggie was a-reai5in' it out o* Lloyd's."
fire, " an' did yer be rcadin' in the paper about the great
shindy ? "
"What was it about?" I asked.
"W'yl 'twas about the Cath'lics an' the Protestants."
" Never heard of it," I replied. " Who told you ? "
" My Moggie was a-readin' it out o* Lloyd's," said he.
I knew Moggie's reading. Like the Scotchman's joking, it
was done with difficulty.
** Tell me about it," said L
"Well, ter be shure," he began, "ye must know that theer
was a mighty to-do among the Protestants fur the reason that
we do have crucifixes^ to^ show how the Gawd o' Heaven died
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304 ''DOWN THE Court:' [June,
for us. An' so, as we won't furgit as He had a Blessed
Mother, we puts up a statue ter remimber the same. An' sez
they, ' Shure, 'tis wor-shippin' idols ! ' sez they. * An' divil a
bit ev we '11 let 'em,' sez they. ' So let us pull 'em down an'
disthroy the mimory (ev we can),' sez they. Wid that," said
Mr. Brannigan excitedly, "oflf goes the Protestants, jes as if
the old boy was after 'em, to the chapel over beyant."
So my friend continued, and I listened breathlessly, until
finally he rose up in his wrath, and denounced the occupant of
the See of London for his religious intolerance.
" But," I remonstrated, " he never did anything to the
Catholics. He is a fine man," I added warmly.
" Is he indeed ? " said the Kerryman with scorn ; " thin I 'd
be likin' him all the betther if he did n't talk agin' us."
" What did he say ? " I asked.
" ' What did he say ? ' sez you ! " demanded Mr. Brannigan
hotly. " Shure ! and is n't it enough that he said ' To the
divil wid em ! ' sez he ? And be the same token," continued
Mr. Brannigan, *' and ter prove it ter ytz ! Was n't it then
that a man be the name of Gillighan, as come from me own
County Kerry — ^and shure isn't he the boy to do it! — rushes
in ter the church, and another Irishman along uv him, wid a
shillalagh in his hand ? — and, ' Be dad ! ' sez he, ' who '11 sthop us,'
sez he, * in a chapel of our own,' sez he, ' from havin' what we
likes in it, and what we dislikes out uv it'; and wid that,"
said Mr. Brannigan, '' he threw out the Protestants, and there
was a reg'Iar shindy ! Shure ! 't was a great time entirely ! I
do be surprised you did n't read it in the papers."
The situation was so complicated as to be almost hopeless,
and I hesitated a moment what to say. " Look here ! " I said,
" you 've taken it up wrong. The Bishop of London never
said anything about us; the Catholics weren't in it; the man's
name was n't Gillighan and he did n't come from the County
Kerry; and Mr. Kensit, who rushed into church with the shil-
lalagh in his hand, was as good a Protestant as ever grew in
the Black North." Mr. Brannigan turned round in his chair,
speechless, and stared at me in amazement.
" Is that the truth ? " he asked slowly.
"That is the truth," I said.
" Thin, be the hokey ! " said the completely bewildered Mr.
Brannigan, " I don't be understandin' the fight at all, at all 1 "
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1904.] ''Down the Court:' 305
The next time I went down the court the place resounded
with passionate cries — two girls were at war. " Tis on'y thim
Brannigans I " said the devil's alley, and the children continued
their play.
The door of 36 stood open, and within were two factory-
girls facing one another, their eyes blazing with passion. A
pail of water had been upset over the half-scrubbed floor, and
the water poured out into the court. Clearly my arrival was
only in time to prevent black eyes. For a girl with a black
eye was not uncommon ; but to remark upon it was con-
sidered in the East End as a want of savoir-faire. My sudden
appearance, coupled with my silence, had an unexpected effect
It seemed suddenly to paralyze them, for their bare arms
dropped nerveless by their sides, the flashing eyes were lowered,
and they hung their heads in shame.
"What is it?" I asked.
" Nellie wint and walked acrost the flure while I was
a-scrubbin' it ! '' said Moggie ; " and it ain't as if she never knew !
Fur she knows as I can't abear any one walkin' over me flure
whin it ain't dry," added Moggie in extenuation.
" And I suppose you thought it was worth fighting about ? "
said I.
"Yuss," said Nellie doubtfully.
Nellie had been my special charge, so I drew her aside.
Any appeal to Nellie's better feelings was usually listened to;
but an appeal made through Nellie's faith invariably answered.
" Yuss ! I '11 do it," she said, by way of atonement ; and
refilling the pail, she went down on her knees and finished
Moggie's work.
" Come, Moggie," I said, " we '11 sit outside " ; and Moggie,
bestowing an angry scowl on Nellie, joined me in the court,
where we sat on the window-sill and discussed her love affairs.
I remember the first time I ever saw Moggie. There had
been dissension among the Brannigans that day too, and it was
a fearful picture of uncontrolled human passion. This girl and
her brother had already broken a window, and were then bat-
tering at the door to force an entrance, while another sister
and brother kept the door barred within. The court re-echoed
to the sound of curses and imprecations, and the sight of the
factory-girl, with dishevelled hair streaming down her back, her
dress ragged and torn in her rage, and her hoarse sobs of
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''DOWN THE Court:'
[June,
0"
0--
'She discussed her love affairs in the court.'
absolute passion as she hurled herself recklessly against the
resisting door, was like the picture of some wild fury let loose
from Hades. For passion grew and throve in the devil's alley.
And being herded together like cattle, they forgot, these hu-
man beings, that there existed any laws, either human or divine.
Many months later I was staying in a neighborhood far
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1904.] ''Down the Court:' 307
removed from the East End. And as I walked along a
fashionable street my eye was attracted to an old flower-
woman who was resting her basket against the iron railings
while she rearranged her flowers. She was almost enveloped
in an old brown shawl. It was of an East End pattern, and 1
wondered idly if I was likely to know the owner. Then I
caught sight of an East End nose under the old crape bonnet,
and the nose was the nose of Mrs. Mullins, of the devil's
alley. Whereupon the said Mrs. Mullins almost capsized her
basket of flowers with the warmth of her greeting. " Tis little
I thought," she ejaculated, " that I 'd be seein' y^z this blessed
day ! And ain't yer comin' back to us no more ? " she
asked.
" As soon as I 'm allowed," I answered.
'' To be shure," said Mrs. Mullins sympathetically. " And
ye did be lookin' bad befure ye left, and ev ye'd stayed theer
tin now 'tis a corpse ye 'd 'a' been ! "
" Oh ! " I said, laughing, " I 'm much better. Now tell me
about yourself!"
*'Whirrah! whirrah ! " sighed Mrs. Mullins mournfully, *' me
heart do be heavy wid me throubles. Did yez hear o' me
bein' away in Wormwood Scrubbs ? " she asked.
"Yes, I heard," I said. For did not Moggie Brannigan
write to me at intervals those wonderful epistles wherein each,
member of the Brannigan family sent his or her quota of news
or greeting, to the evident bewilderment of the scribe, who
whenever she penned a sentiment of her own had perforce to
label it with the outrider, " i Margreat Brannigan sez it " ? So
Moggie wrote laboriously of the fracas in Mark's Place; and
of how she was stabbed, and of the scene in the police court,
where, as she wrote, " she was afeered ; niver 'avin' been in
sich a place befor " ; and of the verdict : six months for Mrs.
Mullins.
"Yis," said Mrs. Mullins as the tears poured down her
cheeks, " and thim Brannigans to kiss the Book and to swear
me life away, and me to hev six months in Wormwood Scrubbs I
I hope the Lord may forgive thim ; fur I can't," she added
bitterly.
" Listen," I said ; " be at this address in half an hour, for I
want to buy some flowers and to have a chat."
Half an hour later Mrs. Mullins presented herself at the
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'DOWN THE Court:'
[June,
"I 'm that sthiff!" said Mrs. Mullins, "1 might as well hev two
WOODEN LEGS ON ME!"
given address, where the cook had had instructions to see that
she made a good dinner.
" Well ! " I said to Mrs. Mullins afterwards, as, basket in
hand, she painfully made her way upstairs for the promised
interview, ** you seem tired."
"I'm that sthiff!" said Mrs. Mullins, "I might as well
hev two wooden legs on me ! "
** Did you make a good dinner ? " I asked.
" Shure the dinner was beautiful," she replied.
"But did you eat it?" I persisted.
** Musha ! " said Mrs. Mullins, " and how kin I eat, wid me
heart overflowin* wid me throubles ? " And her eyes filled with
tears.
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1904.] ''Down the Court:' 309
" Is it your son ? " I asked.
" Achone ! 'tis me son ! " she said ; " five weeks come Fri-
day he died ! " And as she told of the death of her boy the
great tears ran down her face and splashed onto the yellow
daffodils in her basket. " Whirrah ! whirrah ! " she moaned,
" was theer iver sich throuble as come to me ? ? " And, with
her arms resting on the handle of the flower-basket and
her head on her arms, she rocked herself to and fro in her
grief
'* Tell me about the quarrel in Mark's Place/' I said presently.
" How did it happen ? "
"Ter be shure," said the old flower-seller, drying her eyes.
"Ye do be remimbering me little Hinry," she began, "as is
now at school — and may the Lord keep him from all harm! —
well, I was cuttin' him out a pair of breeches in me own little
room, whin all of a suddint ev the door wasn't broke in, and
a Brannigan girl fell into me room along o' the door ! Wid
that I ups and afther 'er. Like a flash I run down the alley —
me scissors was in me hand, d' ye mind ? and wid it I sthruck
at Moggie Brannigan ! And whin I was in the dock and the
Brannigans was kissin' the Book and swearin' me life away
among 'em — fur, sez they, ' 't was a knife she done it wid ' ;
and Hiven is me witness — here Mrs. Mullins appealed from me
to the company of the saints — 't was the ol' scissors as I was
cuttin' out Hinry's breeches wid. The dock, ye must know," she
explained inconsequentially, " is a great sthand, as high mebbe
as the room, and from theer I looks down into the court where
the Brannigans was, and sez I, shakin' me fist at Moggie:
'Moggie Brannigan,' sez I, 'ev 1 cud get at yer now, 'tis more
I 'd give y^z ! ' Thin the judge he asked ev I 'd anything to
say to the gintlemen o' the jury. ' N'er a word,' sez I, not
knowin' no more 'n yerself who was the gintlemen o' the jury ;
and wid that he give me six months ! "
" Poor Mrs. Mullins ! that was a very hard sentence," 1 said,
"and it will make it all the harder to forgive what you can
never forget."
But as I was Moggie's friend I had to plead for her, even
though Mrs. Mullins turned a deaf ear. " Child," she said
finally, laying her hand on my arm, " don't ask it uv me ! — to
forgive the Brannigans wud be agin nature ! "
Looking at Mrs. Mullins my thoughts flew back to other
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Down the Court:'
[June,
' The Curse o' the Almightv is upon Mark's Place.
times, when the verb to forgive was lost in the pages of the
world's history ; when the faction cry of " A Guelph ! " or " A
GhibelHne ! " in the Tuscan streets, was followed by a clash
of arms, and the hands of the rivals met but in death ! Those
were the days when the waters of the Arno ran red with blood
and the fair " City of Flowers " mourned for her sons.
And though Mrs. Mullins knew nothing of the history of
Tuscany, she knew her own limitations when she folded her
arms leisurely and said with decision : ** Divil a bit will I
forgive."
It was to me one of those human touches that make the
whole world kin.
Seeifng that nothing could avail to-day, I pressed her no
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1904.] ''Down the Court:' 311
further. " Well, any way," I said, driven at last into the open,
''you can cheer up and make a fresh start."
"Arrah!" she replied, "'tis wishin' to die I am."
But knowing something of the Celtic temperament, where
the pathos and the humor are only divided by a partition of
tears, I said : " Why ? Is it because of the old age or the vil-
lany ? "
She looked up quickly; and answered, with a twinkle in her
eye, " Shure ! and mebbe 'tis both ! "
" And now," I asked, for Mrs. MuUins was about to go, "how
IS Mark's Place ? "
Mrs. MuUins stood erect With her flower- basket resting on
one hip, she stretched out a hand in solemn warning : " Niver
throuble yer head about the court," she said slowly, " nor
about thim as lives theer ! Fur the curse o' the Almighty
is upon Mark's Place, and 'tis the divil hisself as owns the
alley ! "
And with a muttered supplication that Heaven would pro-
tect her against the power of the Evil One, she traced with
her thumb nail the sign of the Cross on her forehead.
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312 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [June,
HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALUNCKRODT,
THE CHIEF FOUNDER AND FIRST LEADER OF THE CENTRE
PARTY,
BY REV. GEORGE F. WEIBEL, S.J.
II.
;HUS far we have traced, for the better guidance
of our reader, the general outlines of a life
simple in its way, yet productive of the grand-
est results. We shall now essay a brief sketch
of those phases in it which raised Mallinckrodt
to a niche in the hall of fame, and which perpetuate his mem-
ory in millions of Christian hearts.
Masonry and Carbonarism had encircled continental Europe
with their fatal coils. The throne of St. Louis, still reeking
with innocent blood, a second time tottered and rolled in the
dust. On the barricades of the modern Babylon a faithful
shepherd was laying down his life for a wayward flock, with
the sacrificial prayer " that his might be the last blood spilled."
The supreme Pastor of Christendom, driven from his own
Rome, wandered a fugitive to hospitable Gaeta. All the larger
cities of German tongue became vantage-points for socialistic
and revolutionary propagandism. It was in the midst of this
chaotic scene of crumbling crowns, tottering thrones, and fugi-
tive sovereigns, when virtue was a crime and injustice an
honor, that Herman von Mallinckrodt, for the first time,
loomed into public view.
Quiet Paderborn, in Westphalia, had been shocked at wit-
nessing within its walls riotous meetings of deluded citizens,
and hearing the wild harangues of raving demagogues. By a
common instinct of self-preservation, the saner portion of its
inhabitants banded together to beat back this dangerous ele-
ment of social disintegration. Living in the immediate vicinity
of that ancient city, foremost in loyalty to church and coun-
try, the two Mallinckrodt brothers naturally became leading
spirits in the *' Constitutional Club," a patriotic association
formed for the preservation of peace and order. At an open
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1 904. J Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt, 313
Mallinckrodt in his Student Days.
session of this club, Herman, then only twenty- seven, gave
special indications of latent parliamentary powers. There was
more than a sprinkling of socialists present at the assembly,
in hopes of using for their own purpose their opponents' ex-
ceptional prestige. In the course of the debates one of the
leaders went so far as to offer open insult to the conservative
president. Herman von Mallinckrodt jumped to his feet to
vindicate the honor of his chief. So vigorously did he apply
the cutting lash of logic and satire that the disturbers were
hooted down and driven from the hall in utter discomfiture.
Mallinckrodt had won the day.
During those same troublous days King William of Prussia,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
314 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [June,
under the strain of political events, granted his subjects the
boon of a constitution — a true burnt- offering of a spurred
Hohenzollern at the shrine of Liberty. After a minute discus-
sion in the second session of the legislature, it had been duly
promulgated and solemnly sworn to by the sovereign. This
constitution was a sort of Magna Charta for Catholicism in
Northern Germany. Not extorted by the Catholic population,
in a moment of transitory influence, biit honestly won by loyal
support of the* throne, it contained clauses of vital importance
to religious interests. In its twelfth article it granted ** free-
dom of conscience, liberty for religious associations, and of
worship both private and public." It was expected to inaugu-
rate in the realm a new era for Catholic life and development.
The following years, however, semi-official decrees and instruc-
tions of the ministers of the interior and of worship to pro-
vincial functionaries, along with odious pamphlets inspired by
members of the ministry, all of which, offensive in tone and
coercive in tenor for men and things Catholic, showed indeed
that there existed a written charter of liberty, but that no
spirit was quickening it into life. Then came the elections of
1852. Party spirit ran high. Was the much-lauded constitu-
tion to remain a dead letter, or was it to energize, in the
kingdom, for the benefit of all — even Catholics ? Such was the
question that perplexed every honest, thinking mind. The
Catholic Prussians, roused from their lethargy by previous
revolutionary storms, and highly incensed at the late minis-
terial provocations, united for common action. At the opening
of the ** Landtag *' — the Prussian parliament — sixty- three Catho-
lic representatives, '' strong in their electors' implicit trust and
support," stood in serried ranks before the astounded adminis-
tration, as a new political party — " The Catholic Fraction."
Herman von Mallinckrodt, now thirty-one, was one of their
number. They had come to vindicate the disregarded rights of
two -fifths of Prussia's population. Well might their electoral
patrons look up to them with a feeling of legitimate exulta-
tion. A truer corps of parliamentarians never entered hall of
law-giving assembly. If inferior in numbers, they were the
peers of all for distinction and ability. And how high they
bore the banner of their religious profession ! The Deutsche
VolkshalUy their organ, gives us a preliminary resolution from
their programme :
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1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 315
"Wherecis, Without the assistance of God's grace all human
endeavors are of no avail ; and *
"Whereas, On the other hand, the Lord of Heaven, if He
so will, can achieve great things even with weak instruments :
"Be it resolved, That, every Saturday, one of the priest-
representatives offer up in honor of the Most Blessed Virgin
the Holy Sacrifice, at which it will be the duty of the other
members to assist, in order to implore the intercession of her
who is the Help of all Christendom, and the Protectress of all
Christian warriors."
Such was the Catholicity of men who, without so much as
a thought for personal interests, now entered the lists to do
battle for their Mother, the Church.
As might have been expected, a storm of virtuous indigna-
tion greeted the Catholic representatives at their entrance into
the House. The devoutly Protestant or professedly infidel
majority protested against a body of men who were foolishly
mixing up religion with politics, or sneered at their media&val
simplicity. There were Catholic temporizers, too, who openly
expressed their sorrow at this inopportune manifestation of
zeal. In the meantime our representatives set to work with
true Teutonic determination and tenacity of purpose. To-day,
friend and foe gaze in reverential wonderment at the work of
which they laid the foundation.
Mallinckrodt had in nowise worked for his election. In
the heat of the campaign he penned the following lines to his
friend Linhoff, who had offered him a nomination in Beckum-
Ahaus : •' I neither seek nor care for a seat in the House.
Because of this abstention of mine, and because I fully realize
what responsibility and burden attach to a mandate, I declare
to jou, in all candor, that I shall accept a seat only if it is
offered by electors of political views similar to my own."
Once seated in the House, Mallinckrodt's independent spirit
knew but one line of action — that of honest duty. A Catholic
of the best type, elected by a Catholic vote for the defence of
Catholic interests, his place was in the Catholic Party. In
taking so decided a stand, he knew full well that he forfeited
a pending promotion to a desirable post in the civil service.
This mattered little, so long as he remained true to his en-
gagements.
From the very start, the parliamentary doings wholly
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3i6 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [June,
absorbed our representative's attention. With keenest eye he
followed every step and move, in his own as well as in the
enemy's camp. Ere long he was able to venture on appropri«
ate remarks, especially in vexed questions concerning the order
of the day. The President of the House, it is said, was well
pleased whenever Mallinckrodt took the floor for this purpose.
Neither his position before the general public, nor the esteem
of the Catholics for their party and its constituents, affected in
the least the incipient parliamentarian's modesty and self-
control. " I do not set store by the poetic effervescence of
your friend Micus/' he wrote to a priest at Paderborn. " In
general I think there ought to be less fuss made about the
Catholic Party; for we do not give any occasion for it. Thus
far our successes have been quite modest. Really I do not
see why we should be considered as heroes, unless you con-
sider that an occasional use of the favored weed smacks of the
heroic."
The remarkable talent of our young parliamentarian could
not, however, remain hidden under the bushel for any con-
siderable length of time. The very second session, side by
side with veterans in politics, he was chosen to a special com-
mission detailed by the House for an examination of Catholic
grievances. Immediately after this election a member from an
opposing party grasped Mallinckrodt's hand and, congratulating
him on his appointment, remarked: "I have nothing at all
against Catholics in general; but I do dread the Jesuits."
Mallinckrodt smiled at this naivet^. A few days later we find
him at Dortmund, following, during the Easter recess, the
exercises of a mission preached by the celebrated Father Rob,
S.J. Evidently, although not educated by them, he was not
so much afraid of those dreadful men. He was so well pleased
with the spiritual fruit gathered in that mission that on subse-
quent occasions he made several retreats under Jesuit directors.
It was also from personal knowledge that he was able, in
** Kulturkampf " days, to sound their praises in the face of the
Iron-willed Chancellor.
In order to keep in proper touch with their electors, the
Catholic Party hit on the wise plan of issuing an occasional
bulletin of their transactions in Parliament. These accounts
took the shape of reduced and popularized Congressional
Records. On devoted representatives fell the task of preparing
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I904-]
HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT,
317
these pages for the public. Mallinckrodt took his full share of
the burden. The conclusion of the first of those accounts
originated wholly from his pen. In it the writer reviews the
entire situation, and in his own plain and thorough manner
gives expression to several causes of joy and hope for Catho-
lics in Prussia. "... Catholics may even rejoice more at
the union and harmony reigning in their midst," he writes,
"than at the beginning of fairness in Protestant representatives.
The Nordborchen H(>me.
. . . The many- voiced *Yea' and 'Nay' of a compact
Caiholic body in Parliament in the cause of religion is in itself
a fact of historical significance. It shows that anything like a
division of forces into liberal and ultramontane has ceased to
be a reality in their ranks. It entitles th< m firmly to believe
that, for Prussian Catholics, the stand-point of liberal Catholicism
in France, Belgium, Sardinia is a thing of the past. This same
unanimity of sentiment and vote has given a strong and far-
reaching testimony to the honor of the most antagonized orders
and institutions of the church. In fine, it will react on seven
millions of Prussian Catholics, quicken thtm to renewed efforts
and encourage them to new hopes."
His new field of action was entirely to Mallinckrodt's liking,
or, to use a homely saying, it was altogether in his line. A
distinguished Catholic, head of the newly created Department
of Catholic Affairs in the Ministry of Worship, wished to
VOL. LXXIX.^21
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3I« HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [June,
secure our parliamentarian's services for his branch of the
administration. He thought, as he expressed himself in a
letter, that Mallinckrodt had not yet found his calling in life.
Ere long, however, this vocation became manifest even to the
dullest eye. Evidently Mallinckrodt's battle-field was the Parlia-
ment; his vantage-ground, the rostrum. It is true he was
only at the starting point of his life-work. And already
journals of all political colors began to mention him as a
prominent member, a leader of his party. Every session of the
House now only served to place the modest and plain-dealing
man higher and higher on the roll of fame.
There was hardly a nook or corner in the vast field that
the law-makers of his country entered, where Mallinckrodt was
not on more or less familiar grounds. Now his former mani-
fold occupations proved indeed to have been a blessing in dis-
guise. Naturally, as his many-sided talent broke through an
inborn reserve, work came pouring in on him from every
quarter. Long sessions in the House, preparatory meetings of
his party, special researches for one commission or other so
filled in his hours, that for entire days he was unable to take
the most necessary relaxation. Indeed it required herculean
strength, endurance, and will-power to suffice for it all. Parti-
cularly was there need of an inexhaustible store of disinter-
estedness to a man who could not boast of great wealth, and
to whom his parliamentary labors brought no remuneration, and
even entailed a considerable drain on his private means.
Mallinckrodt was equal to the occasion. Duty was his watch-
word; his strength, spirit of sacrifice, devotion to his cause.
Unable as we are in a simple sketch to follow our hero
through the many years of toil and endeavor and success, we
beg to be allowed to take a glance at him here and there, as
he ascends the tribune, the true lay- apostle's pulpit, for the
defence of more important measures touching religious interests.
During his second term a bill on divorce was brought
before the House. Although of some advantage from a Prot-
estant point of view, it was by no means considered useful in
Catholic circles. It presented even positively objectionable
features, in as far as it forced on Catholics an implicit recogni-
tion of Protestant principles. Mallinckrodt and Reichensperger
fought the measure with all the superiority which their religious
stand-point afforded them, especially in this question. Its dis-
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1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 319
ctrssion swelled into a series of brilliant debates. The entire
kingdom was held in suspense for several days. Mallinckrodt
became the hero of the hour. His clear, unadorned, but vigor-
ous logic overcame every obstacle, unhinged all arguments to
the contrary. For once truth prevailed over prejudice; reason
over passion. In spite of royal wishes, in spite of ministerial
pressure, in spite of preconcerted plans, the obnoxious bill was
defeated by a large majority. When in the following term a
similar measure was proposed for the acceptance of the House,
Mallinckrodt again entered the lists. This time he struck at
the root of the evil. He denied the legislature all competency
in the matter. His words, a correct and strong exposition of
Catholic teaching, might well be repeated nowadays in many
a legislative assembly. In answer to an opponent, he exclaimed :
" Certainly marriage is the basis of the family. But it is more
than a mere civil contract, just as the family itself is more than
a simple state-institution. Marriage is more than a mere moral
action. The true Christian marriage is essentially a religious
relation. Persons contracting it do not simply perform a civil
act, with a religious aspect, if you will ; no, they perform an
action altogether religious, in every sense as religious as the
reception of any sacrament deserves and obtains that appella-
tion. I repeat it, the core, the essence, the innermost shrine
of matrimony lies in the domain of the church. Nothing save
civil relations and consequences incidental to the religious act
falls within the sphere of state legislation. Therefore I main-
tain, in opposition to your commission, that the way of civil
marriage is utterly impossible, in as far as you thereby intend
to establish a true matrimonial relation. Civil marriage thus
sanctioned by law is no more than the ' matrimonium ' in the
pagan sense of the word. It is, let me say it, purely and
simply concubinage regulated by law.''
We might aptly quote from the splendid discourses which
he pronounced at this period, when championing the necessity
of religious care for schools and prisons. A few lines will
show his lofty stand-point. With regard to prisons, a Catholiq
representative, not of the Centre Party, and of any but Catho-
lic views, had remarked that moral improvement was not
directly the scope of the state in the establishment of jails and
penitentiaries. "Neither do I," replied Mallinckrodt, "con-
sider the care of a moral training the sole purpose of the state
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320 HERMAN Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [June,
in this matter. But I must confess that I hold it for one of
the most important duties devolving on the management of
such institutions; a duty that cannot be performed except on a
religious basis and with religious means. Again, since means
of a religious character are required, it is self-evident that
denominational means are of absolute necessity. For religion
that is undenominational is no religion at all. Hence, if the
scope of the criminal administration is to be fully realized, such
measures must be adopted as are most conducive to that end
— care of religion, of denominational religion."
This same religious principle rendered our parliamentarian
impartial to all. Jews, Protestants, Dissidents, all were to
receive their due consideration. Justice on constitutional
grounds was to be accorded to all. Were there different reli-
gious creeds professed in a community, each was to have its
own place of worship, each its own schools for the training of
the young. To an education without religion Mallinckrodt's
mind was perfectly impervious. In his eyes it was a chimera.
In this spirit he would ascend the rostrum and vindicate the
inalienable rights to a school of their own creed of a dozen or
so of Protestant children interspersed in a Catholic community.
At the same time he would take advantage of such an occa-
sion to remind the Protestant majority in the House and the
Minister of Worship that hundreds of Catholic children were
cruelly denied that fair treatment which he thought it his duty
to claim openly for members of the Protestant creed.
Thus session succeeded session, term followed term — each
proving a new stepping-stone to distinction and honor for the
Catholic Party. Its high reputation for sincerity and integrity
was on all, even Protestant, lips. Among its members Mal-
linckrodt, by common consent, had long since been numbered
as the foremost. The bold device written in bolder characters
on his parliamentary banner, he had lived up to with a fidelity
beyond suspicion : ** Etsi omnes, ego non." It sounded so
strange on the lips of a man whose ability and renown were
equalled only by his modesty. Yes, even though all others
should sacrifice to selfish opportunity, never shall he kneel to
Favor. We have mentioned several instances where his straight-
forward honesty seriously injured his advancement with the
government. Many more occasions might be chronicled, in
which even a simple abstention from voting would have suf-
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1904.] Herman Joseph von mallinckrodt. 321
ficed to insure the success of friendly efforts in his behalf^
At times, well-meaning persons besought him not to recklessly
spoil his chances, as they were pleased to style them. Mal-
linckrodt could not bring it upon himself to remain neutral
from such motives, because " to abstain from casting a vote,"
he wrote to his brother George, ** simply means to give one
vote to the enemy and likewise one to my own pa.rty, when I
know that both belong to the cause of justice and truth. No,
I cannot allow such influences to shape my line of action."
Again he kept true to his motto, when taking the floor, one
day, he opened with the following words : " Gentlemen, I am
in the perplexing condition of occupying to-day an almost
entirely isolated position, differing as I do both from my per-
sonal friends and the other representatives from my own native
Westphalia. This very isolation of mine imposes upon me the
duty of giving here an account of my views." On another
occasion he ushered in his strong plea for a just but hopeless
cause with the noble remark : '* To-day I stand before you,
gentlemen, not with the assurance of achieving victory, but with
the full conviction of meeting with defeat. Still, I think it my
sacred duty in the face of failure to proclaim the justice of my
cause and to call for its recognition."
It was a fundamental rule of the Catholic Party never to
oppose any measure in the legislature simply for the sake of
opposing or of showing their power at favorable moments. We
may add that in the course of time the strict adhesion to this
self imposed law proved the safeguard of their ascendency
in Parliament, as it is the corner-stone of the Centre Party's,
power at the present day. In this matter Mallinckrodt's noble
example was a guiding star for all. During the earlier portion
of his public life, measures originating with the government
had been brought before the House against which Mallinckrodt,
time and again, thought it proper to object. In one stage of the
discussion he so vigorously opposed a ministerial clause that it
was defeated by an overwhelming majority, and Mallinckrodt's
amendment substituted in its stead. Without awaiting the close -
of the session, a Liberal leader approached the victor and
warmly congratulated him "on now having at last burnt the
ship behind him," implying of course that Mallinckrodt had by '
his action given proof of a complete break with the govern-
ment. Evidently he knew little of the sentiments of the great
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322 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [June,
parliamentarian in his triumph. For the latter wrote conlfiden-
tially to Boeddeken : " The governmental proposals touching
the arrangement of municipalities in Westphalia have entailed a
series of defeats for the ministry. This whole affair gives me
less joy, I believe, than any other man here." If to-day he
hsCd to co-operate so effectually towards a humiliating failure
of a minister, to-morrow, in some sounder measure, the admin-
istration found no stauncher defender of its cause than Herman
von Mallinckrodt.
In the light of the foregoing remarks, it is needless to state
expressly that Mallinckrodt was a power in the parliamentary
circle at large. A word about his influence in the narrower
sphere of his own party. To say that Mallinckrodt was of the
greatest use to the Catholic Party, both by his noble example
and by shedding upon it all the lustre of his personal prestige,
is simply to enunciate a self-evident fact. But his was espe-
cially a directly strengthening and guiding influence from
within. In that galaxy of men, several of whom enjoyed a
national reputation, the necessary harmony of sentiment and
action could be maintained only at the sacrifice of individual
views and opinions. The harm resulting from possible internal
dissensions and conflicts would have proved all the more disas-
trous, as external agents in every shape and guise were untir-
ing in their effort to ruin the Centre Party. Perfect union of
minds in essentials was therefore to be preserved at any price.
Many a time, from motives of peace, men of Mallinckrodt's
stamp, and following in Mallinckrodt's wake, refrained even
against their better convictions from imposing their personal
opinions on the party. Many a time also, Mallinckrodt informs
us, the spiritual guides of the party had to preach down the
more reckless of its members.
At the beginning of the term of 1859 the very existence
of the Catholic Party was seriously endangered. Representa-
tives were of opinion that they should abolish its name and
adopt a less pronounced religious platform ; voices were even
heard advocating complete dissolution of a denominational party
in politics. Ta Mallinckrodt's forbearance, tact, and prudence
are due in great measure the credit and praise of having
brought the threatened organization through that perilous pass.
For it was he who at the critical moment proposed for official
title the appellation of " Fraction of the Centre " instead of
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1904.] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT, 323
Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt.
'' Catholic Fraction/' thus riveting his memory to a name
destined to become synonymous with everything sound and
honest in modern politics. It was Mallinckrodt, too, no doubt,
who, as leading member of a committee charged with this
work, was instrumental in drawing up new statutes for the
party which met with such general approbation.
As the years rolled on, Mallinckrodt became more and more
the great exponent of the Centre's principles. His influence
naturally increased in a proportionate measure, until in his last
years, when he steered their political course, the members of
the present Centre Party in the new German Empire looked
upon him with more than mere admiration. They revered him
as patriot, leader, and Christian.
All who consider Mallinckrodt's intellectual eminence and
rare qualifications of character are forced to admit that he was
one of the greatest leaders of modern times. Yet we can safely
assert, without fear ef seeing our statement challenged, that his
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324 HERMAN Joseph von MALLINCKRODT, [June,
soul sought for inspiration in regions far above all that is com-
monly understood by party- spirit. So broad were his principles,
so lofty his views, that each and every member of the legis-
lature might have adopted them for his own, had all been ani-
mated with that singleness of purpose which shaped Mallinck-
rodt's life in striving to secure the common welfare.
A German in the truest sense of the word, a Prussian fired
with the purest flame of patriotism, he certainly wished Ger-
many to become one of the leading nations of the world ; but
her path to greatness was to lie on the immutable basis of
right and justice. Every deviation from that eternal norm of
all rectitude, the Law of God, brought the blush of shame to
his cheek and wrenched his very soul. "The political events
of 1866," says one of his companions-in-arms, "deeply wounded
his sense of justice; after 1870, the onslaught against the most
elementary rights of the church literally broke his Catholic
heart." How could he remain a silent spectator of such crimi-
nal proceedings? " Etsi omnes, ego non." No; no unholy con-
nivance was to seal his lips. Immediately after the war of
1866, whilst an unscrupulous administration and the immerse
majority of Prussian politicians, in the intoxication of triumph,
were casting about for new military laurels, like a thunder- clap
in a clear summer sky, the bold and unexpected denunciation
of the unjust methods for Prussian aggrandizement burst from
the lips of the most patriotic of Prussian citizens. Before a
time-serving House, in presence of the German Warwick who
had dethroned kings in the hope of rearing an empire, Mal-
linckrodt stigmatized Prussia's policy as an embodiment of
that abortion of a principle : " Might is Right." He solemnly
declared that he, for one, would for ever adhere to the God-
given principle: "Justitia fundamentum regnorum" — Justice is
the foundation of kingdoms. He deeply regretted not to have
seen this principle at the cradle of the newly organized North-
German Alliance. Prussia, he continued, had waged a war
without cause or provocation. The brilliant success of her arms,
it is true, had dazzled for the time the popular sense of jus-
tice ; as for him personally, he could not but cling to his inner-
most conviction, that the eternal laws of right and justice should
be the standard and rule not only for private individuals, but
for governments as well.
This speech was one of the greatest oratorical efforts ever
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I904-] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. 325
yet made by Mallihckrodt Bismarck, the deilfied hero of the
day, never attempted a direct refutation. By some skilful
manoeuvres he endeavored to divert the attention of the House.
The numerous worshippers of the idol of success, for a vin-
dication of their course, fell back on personal insults, calling
in question Mallinckrodt's love for the Fatherland, even accus-
ing him of French sympathies. Bismarck himself, in high-sound-
ing phrases and pedantic allusions, spoke of dangerous Corio-
lanuses in Germanic lands, who waited only a call from modern
Volscians to throw off the mask. All this, however, was not
able to obliterate the impression of Mallinckrodt's oration on
the public at large. From one end of the realm to the other
congratulations, individual and collective, came pouring in on
our fearless defender of justice. Within a few days over a
thousand such letters accumulated on his desk. Foremost and
most enthusiastic with their felicitations were his own West-
phalians — the brave Tyroleans of Northern Germany.
Whilst boldly denouncing unjust conquerors at home Mal-
linckrodt, a true son of the church, and in fear for her tem-
poral power, whenever occasion permitted, would vehemently
inveigh against Prussia's connivance with the encroachments of
the Sardinian robber-king in the Apennine peninsula. The
cabinet's attitude, countenancing the sacrilegious advance of
Garibaldi's infamous hordes under the flaming banner of the
Revolution, seemed unpardonable, because in flagrant opposi-
tion to Germany's, and for that matter, to every nation's most
sacred interests. " The abortive efforts," Mallinckrodt exclaimed
on a given occasion in 1859, ''have engendered in Piedmont a
chronic depression of spirits. The Iron Crown of Lombardy
was the goal of the royal father's ambitions, ten years ago;
his worthy son to-day aims at nothing less. The father, to
secure the coveted prize, threw himself into the arms of the
Revolution ; the Revolution has become a fit helpmate to the
son." Later on he pointed out in unmistakable terms the
scope of this connivance on the part of Prussia. He openly
declared that the creation of a precedent was the end of it
all. Those spirits, ever on the alert for aggrandizement, were
bent on helping the " Italian Prussians " in this dark business of a
unification of Italy, in order to give a coloring of legality to
the aims of " German Sardinia." Elsewhere having spoken in
a similar strain, he thus concluded his remarks: "Gentlemen,
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326 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt, [June,
I care little to know on which side your sympathies are; of
one thing I am fully convinced : if you put your hands on your
hearts you will have to own that there is one man in Italy for
whom you have more respect than for all his opponents from
London to Bologna; and that man is — the Pope."
At the occupation of Rome by the Piedmontese invaders, he
pleaded in vain for the maintenance of previously guaranteed
rights; in vain, with over fifty Catholic representatives, he be-
sought King William to intervene in behalf of the Vatican
Captive.
This extraordinary man thus spent the vigor of his man-
hood in the defence and support of legitimate authority in
church and state. Regardless of personal interests, he had
sacrificed in former days renown and honor and popularity on
the altar of duty, buoyed up by the noble expectation of achiev-
ing proper freedom, both civil and religious, for all citizens
alike. And now he was forced to witness, both abroad and in
the home government, the triumph of principles against which
he had always combated with all the energy of inspiration, and
which he abhorred of necessity as a frivolous tampering with
the pillars of civil and religious society. Now came the crucial
test of so disinterested a career. To fight for justice in hope
of success may be noble and heroic ; to rise on shattered hopes
and strenuously battle against all hope borders on the divine.
Such was to be the part of Mallinckrodt's closing years.
For some time the political atmosphere bad been charged
with the subtle element of destruction. Dull and leaden it
weighed on governments and legislatures. The threatening
storm suddenly burst upon unhappy France. By the hundred
thousand scions of glory-crowned crusaders were swept to a
premature grave — a saddening hecatomb fruitlessly immolated
by the third Napoleon in his inglorious fall. Surrounded by
reeking battle-fields, amid the thunders of deadly cannon and the
wails of grief and distress that echoed from the Vosges to the
Pyrenees, a new empire rose near that same Paris where the
first Napoleon had heaped indignities on the august Vicar of
Christ.
The hard-won laurels were still fresh on the warriors' brows
in their Northern homes when a conflict of a more dangerous
nature broke out in the very heart of the new empire. Catho-
lics and Protestants had stood shoulder to shoulder under the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt, 327
murderous jfire of the French mitrailleuse ; their hearts' blood
flowing in common streams had fecundated Gallic soil, from
the fertile plains of Alsace and the vine clad hills of Cham-
pagne to the basins of the Loire and the Somme. Thousands
and tens of thousands lay in brotherly embrace bedded in
common graves at Woerth, Gravelotte, and scores of other
fields of death. Their sorrowing families, proud in the con-
sciousness of their sacrifices, might at least expect, in recogni-
tion of their sorrow, to be allowed the peaceful enjoyment of
the never- failing comforts of religion. But the man of blood
and iron who stood at the helm of the ship of state was more
than proof against all such suggestions of tender pity. He
had pressed the imperial crown on the brow of an aged
HohenzoUern, and held in his powerful grasp the destinies of
a continent. Why not constitute the same old man Pontifex
Maximus ? The creation of a national church, broad enough in
its creed to absorb both Catholic dogma and Protestant tenets
of every shape and description, such was the vision that
haunted the slumbers of that son of fortune. A church with
an emperor- pope and a chancellor- vicar, the spiritual and tem-
poral sword wielded by the same hand — verily the goal was
worthy any man's highest ambitions. With iron will and iron
hand the man of iron set to work. He conjured up the " Kul-
turkampf " — in very truth a war of civilization, in which the
leagued powers of modern pagan culture were hurled against
the Church of Christ, the prolific parent of true civilization.
On the one hand were arrayed for fierce battle the mightiest
man of his time, the world's resources at his command, empires
and kingdoms at his feet, and as sworn allies Old Catholicism,
Protestantism, Judaism, and the world-wide Masonic Atheism.
On the other, a handful of Catholic men in the Parliament,
a score of bishops and several millions of helpless and partly
crushed Catholic people. But the God of might was watching
over his little flock. Against the modern Antiochus and all
his pride and arrogance he pitted his faithful Machabees, fore-
most among them Mallinckrodt.
Our hero had foreseen the storm. When asked during the
Franco- German war to apply for a vacant post of provincial
counselor near home, he declined on the plea of '' not wishing
to be officially manacled at a moment when the future lay
before him extraordinarily veiled, not to say entirely shrouded
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
328 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [June,
in darkness." And a little later, writing to his brother George,
he remarks: ."In fine, Berlin too longs for peace with France;
but little or nothing is left to guarantee our peace at home."
Long ere the new Reichstag was actually convoked provi-
dential men, with Mallinckrodt, Savigny, Reichensperger, Muel-
ler,, and Kehler, had planned the creation of a Centre Party for
the newly constituted German Empire. At first doubtful with
regard to the issue of so grand an undertaking, for the union
of the Catholic representatives from the Various sections of
the empire was fraught with knotty difficulties, Mallinckrodt
soon threw into the balance the whole weight of a life's experi-
ence and the influence and prestige of his universally esteemed
personality. This energetic proceeding was crowned with con-
soling results. At the first session of the Reichstag, in March,
1 87 1, sixty men of brawn and brain, all determined never to
yield an inch in the defence of justice and right, rallied around
those revered veterans, Mallinckrodt, Windhorst, Reichensperger,
and others. Elected with several of his illustrious colleagues
both to the Prussian House and the Reichstag, Mallinckrodt
was vested with a double legislative capacity, corresponding to
what here in the United States would be a simultaneous mem-
bership in a State Legislature and the Federal Congress. If
we keep in mind that as an employee in the civil service he
was obliged at the same time to devote several months of the
year to the performance of his official duties, we shall be able
to form some idea of his capacity for work.
As early as January 27, 1871, an eye witness wrote from
Berlin concerning Mallinckrodt and Windhorst in the Prussian
legislature : " Windhorst is with Mallinckrodt one heart and
one soul : they are the nerve of the party, which without them
would dissolve into incoherent elements. In the session of the
1 6th inst. Mallinckrodt has been awarded the victory from all
sides of the House. His discourse has been of substantial help
to us, both in the House in general and within the party
itself." In the speech referred to Mallinckrodt, after refuting
some charges made against a member of the cabinet, had laid
bare the whole plan of the campaign against Catholics. " Gen-
tlemen," he remarked, '* I do not wish to assert that you
intend to rob the people at large of all . religion ; but one.
thing I do assert : you are bent on robbing the Catholic peo-
ple of the Catholic religion. The proof, gentlemen, is most
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.J Herman Joseph von mallinckrodt. 329
Pauline von Mallinckrodt.
easy ; in fact, there is no need ot any further proof. My
predecessor in the tribune has given full proofs. I call on you
all as witnesses: what was the main burden of his discourse
but an extremely violent and* hostile attack on what Catholics
cherish as their dearest interests ? . . . There is one point,
however, I cannot pass over in silence, but must give it some
attention. Gentlemen, I do not think that this assembly is fit
to discuss matters of the Vatican Council. In my opinion
these are purely dogmatic questions. In touching them you
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
330 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT, [June,
deal with affairs wholly internal to the Catholic Church. Please,
gentlemen, leave those questions to us Catholics; we shall be
able to settle them for ourselves. I begin to believe that you
are in fear lest we should reach too easily an amicable settle-
ment. If there is no lurking feeling of that kind, please, gen-
tlemen, what cause have you for ever poking in the fire and
fanning anew the dying embers into a blaze of discord ?
Again, gentlemen, please leave those matters to us Catholics."
In these words Mallinckrodt had touched the core of the infa-
mous warfare : separation of German Catholics from the Mother
Church, the first step towards the contemplated amalgamation
of religions in the empire. The late definition of the papal
infallibility had given the spur to the aggression.
On July 8, 187 1, the Catholic department in the Prussian
ministry of worship was suppressed — a measure, as Parsons
justly remarks, which was equivalent to a declaration that
thereafter the government would pay no attention to any
grievances which the Catholics might suffer. Then followed
blow upon blow, each and every one of them aimed and dealt
at the very heart of the church with a precision and deter-
mination well-nigh infernal. This is not the place to rehearse
the sad story of the " Kulturkampf." At its beginning a repre-
sentative of Bismarckian inspiration uttered the Voltairean bat«-
tle-cry : *' ficrasez I'infame I " the distant echo of the primeval
shout of rebellion : "Non serviam" — I will not serve! Higher
and higher rose the storm-lashed tide; louder and fiercer
howled the gale ; darker and darker frowned the heavens.
But at the helm of the much- imperilled bark stood Mallinck-
rodt with the courage of a hero, the perseverance of a martyr,
the faith of a thaumaturgus.
The more effectually to attain their diabolical end, the
vandalic civilizers started the conflict simultaneously in the
Prussian and other state legislatures, and in the imperial diet.
Mallinckrodt and his brave companions-in-arms were forced
literally to double their sorely tried energies. Day after day,
week after week, now in the Prussian House, now in the
Reichstag, they would ascend the rostrum and, in the face of
an overwhelming hostile majority, defend with sublime efforts
their down-trodden rights. It is true they were not able to
prevent the passage of iniquitous measures so well calculated
to stifle the last breath of Catholic spirit; but no law, no
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. 33 1
section, no single paragraph was allowed to pass without being
held up to the scorn and reprobation of all right-minded men.
And thus every seeming defeat was but a new moral triumph
for that little band of heroes.
First came the so-called " Pulpit-paragraph," placing the
divinely commissioned teachers of God's word under Protestant
or infidel surveillance. Then the schools were withdrawn from
the influence of religion. The members of religious orders
were banished from their native land. Then followed the
iniquitous May Laws, whereby the training, the formation, and
the appointment of the Catholic clergy practically passed into
the hands of a Protestant minister of worship ; episcopal juris-
diction with regard to refractory priests was equivalently sup-
pressed; the door to wholesale apostasy from the faith was
thrown open; a few thousand ''Old Catholics," for refusing to
recognize and admit the Vatican Council, were granted legal
existence and rights denied to several millions of loyal Catho-
lics; the clergy were pressed into military service and the
anything but Christian atmosphere of the barracks ; civil marriage
was made obligatory for Catholics; even the administration of
sacraments and the saying of Mass forbidden under severe
penalties. Paragraphs of the constitution granting equality
before the law to Catholics and Protestants alike were abrogated
in order to allow the persecutors a freer hand in their tyrannical
work. These and a hundred more vexatious measures were the
means resorted to in order to asphyxiate — we use Bismarck's
expression — the Body Catholic. The scientist Virchow, the
originator of the term " Kulturkampf," and a staunch supporter
of the Iron Chancellor's policy, admitted in a cynical discourse
that the May Laws were '' arbitrary in the extreme, and danger-
ous to liberty ; but," added he, " since we need not fear that
the Centre will soon attain power, and since these arbitrary
laws injure the Catholic Church alone, we ought to adopt
them."
All these tyrannical measures — for we cannot call them laws
— led to numerous condemnations of bishops and priests, who
preferred to obey God rather than Caesar. Fines, prison,
official deposition from ecclesiastical offices, and banishment,
such were the penalties inflicted on those confessors of the
faith. Up to 1879, therefore, during the space of eight years,
nine bishoprics were without bishops, six having been deposed
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
332 HERMArN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [June,
by the government and three having died; over one thousand
parishes had been deprived of their pastors, and more than
two thousand priests condemned to heavy fines or cruel im-
prisonment Still, during this new " Reign of Terror " the
Catholic spirit increased and intensified. The voices of Mai-
linckrodt, Windhorst, Reichensperger, and other champions
echoed far and wide over the desolated land, sending a thrill
of enthusiasm through every loyal heart. Meetings of Catho-
lics were held in every section of the country for mutual con-
solation and encouragement. Whenever their manifold duties
permitted, the leaders hurried from place to place, everywhere
exhorting the people to patient endurance, and spurring them
on to renewed efforts. Every year the ** Katholikentag," with
its untold influence for good, whilst bringing into a common
channel the otherwise scattered energies- of the Catholics, be-
came the yearly review of the Catholic forces and a powerful
stimulus of Catholic action.
(to be concluded.)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904-] PROGRESS IN PRAYER. 333
PROGRESS IN PRAYER.*
BY REV. JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P.
^ORE convincing than many a theological argu-
ment for original sin is our experience of the
unfailing certainty with which evil follows hard
upon the advent of good — as Satan, they say,
raises a chapel by the side of every house of
God. Even that holy instinct which impels the human soul to
sympathy and tenderness is full of danger ; even the inspira-
tions of our Saviour's teaching and the examples of the saints
are made into occasions of wickedness; and among the very
saddest scenes of history is that of men and women who have
begun with aspiring to climb the mountain of perfection and
have ended in the paths that lead to the lowest hell.
So in spiritual science there has ever been a chapter deal-
ing with the illusions to be feared and shunned. St. Teresa
censures those who fancy that mere human striving can attain
to contemplation ; Lallemant rebukes directors for implying
that the highest graces of prayer are at the disposal of all men
indifiFerently ; Boudon of Evreux quotes a warning given to
some who pretended that familiar acquaintance with God's
deepest secrets might be enjoyed without incessantly striving
for holiness of life. It all reminds us that one who treads the
way of perfection must pursue his quest with the sure eye and
the steady foot of an Alpine climber; and that those who
quail at the mere thought of falling will never get far in such
an adventure as this.
Historically, we can perhaps best verify the need of spiritual
caution in the records of the seventeenth century. It hap-
pened then, that a number of erroneous conceptions drifted
together and formed a system of piety which came near to
attaining an international European vogue. The unhappy
notoriety of having stood sponsor to the system attaches to
the name of Miguel Molinos, a Spanish priest, who settled in
•This article is taken from Father McSorley's preface to a new volume, Progressive
Prayer. Translated from Instructions Spirit uelle s , par Pere Caussade, S.J. St. Louis : B,
Herder.
VOL. LXXIX.— 22
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
334 PROGRESS IN PRAYER. [June,
Rome about 1667, at the age of forty, and gained great repute
there as a director of souls. Laity and clergy alike sought
his advice; and one of his many distinguished friends was
Cardinal Odescalchi, afterwards Pope Innocent XI. In 1675
Molinos published his Guida Spirituale^ a book which, within
six years, passed through twenty editions in various languages
and became a sort of spiritual manual for groups of his disci-
ples scattered through the different cities of Europe. The new
school aimed at being more lofty, more free, more affectionate
than ^the common run ; some of its adherents preferred to
reject ecclesiastical forms and institutions as useless vanities;
and the vision of a purely spiritual and internal religion began
to dazzle many with the promise of speedy perfection.
The Jesuits were the first to sound the alarm. In 1681
Father Paolo Segneri undertook the examination and refutation
of Molinos in a treatise called Concordia tra la fatica e la quiete
nelV orazione. A tremendous outcry was raised — but against
Segneri. Denounced as blind, ambitious, envious, and the
calumniator of a saint, he barely escaped death ; and for the
moment Molinos was raised even higher in the general favor.
But the storm had not all blown over. In 1682 Cardinal
Carraccioli, writing from Naples, complained to the Pope that
unsound spiritual doctrine was spreading through the kingdom
and that its upholders went so far as to condemn the practice
of meditation, vocal prayer, and the spiritual exercise of the
imagination; to dispense with all preparation, plan, or con-
sideration of subject in mental prayer; to abstain from the use
of the Rosary, the Sign of the Cross, and sacramental confes-
sion ; to communicate daily at will ; to obey no one ; and to
believe every thought of their own a divine inspiration. A
sense of uneasiness began to affect the authorities; and a
second book, which Segneri published in 1685 ^^t with better
success than his first. The officers of the Inquisition arrested
Molinos, together with sixty-six persons of Rome, including
the Count Vespiniani, his wife, and a number of nobles, and
several hundred others throughout Italy. Investigation showed
that the new school had taken deep root. Nearly all the reli-
gious communities of women in the country seemed to be
infected; and Cardinal Cibo, in the name of the Inquisition,
addressed a letter to the princes, bishops, and ecclesiastical
superiors of Italy, exposing the dangers and errors of "Quiet-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] PROGRESS IN PRAYER. 335
ism," ordering the dissolution of all societies made up of fol-
lowers of Molinos, and instructing that great care should be
taken to prevent convents being attended by confessors imbued
with the novel spirituality. Finally, in 1688, Pope Innocent
XL published a Bull confirming the Inquisitors* condemnation
of 68 propositions considered close enough to the teaching of
Molinos to be called his by implication at least.
Clothed in penitential garb and mounted on a platform in
one of the churches of Rome, Molinos was required solemnly to
abjure his errors. He remained in prison until his death in
1696; and later traces in Italy of his teaching are unknown.
Whether or not Molinos had ever really taught the gross
abominations often ascribed to him, certain it is that in many
places Quietism took on such a form and tone as to succeed
in attracting many really noble souls. In the following words
F^nelon describes how the new school made its way in his
country : " Beneath the show of perfection, the detestable
teaching of the Quietists was spreading like gangrene into
various parts of France and Belgium ; and writings of a character
cither erroneous or suspicious were exciting rash curiosity
amongst the faithful. For several centuries previously this
error had been favored, unwittingly and inculpably, by various
mystical writers ^ho, though themselves holding fast to the
doctrines of the faith, made mistakes due to an excess of
tender piety, combined with a very pardonable knowledge of
theological principles and a lack of caution in the use of terms.
This fired the zeal of certain illustrious bishops, and together
with me, they compiled 34 articles and passed various censures
on some little books containing passages which, if taken in
their most obvious sense, were deserving of condemnation. It
is rare, however, that men fly from one extreme without rush-
ing into the other, and, contrary to our intention, this action
of ours has by certain persons been made a pretext for ridi-
culing the love of the contemplative life as a wild chimera." •
The baneful teaching to which Fenelon alludes betrayed itself
principally in the tendency to regard true love of God as a
mere synonym for an uninterrupted state of passive prayer, and
consequently to recommend the suppression of all distinct acts
of faith and hope, all petitions, thanksgivings, and reflections.
Chief among the pious booklets circulated in France at the
• Letter to the Pope, 27 April, 1697.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
336 PROGRESS IN PRAYER. fjune,
time were those written by Mme. Guyon. Born at Montargis
in 1648, this lady, wedded at sixteen and widowed at twenty-
eight, had entered a religious community at Gex by the invi-
tation of the bishop. After her exit she visited various cities
of France, returning finally to Paris in 1687. But her two
books, Moyen court et tris facile pour Voraison and L explication
mystique du Cantique des Cantiques excited such suspicions of
heterodoxy that Mgr. Harlay, Archbishop of Paris, had her
arrested and examined as to her spiritual doctrine. After
various accusations and debates, the matter was handed over to
a commission made up of Bossuet, M. Tronson, superior of
Saint Sulpice, and Bishop de Noailles of Chalons. During the
course of some six or eight months these three met frequently,
to discuss and formulate the Catholic doctrines on mystical
prayer ; and, after F^nelon had become Archbishop of Cam-
bray, he also attended their meetings. The result of the dis-
cussions finally took shape in the thirty-four articles of Issy,
published March 10, 1695. Already Mgr. Harlay had con-
demned the books in question, and Bossuet and De Noailles, on
returning to their dioceses, repeated the condemnation. Bos-
suet then began the writing of his famous £tats d'Otaison, in
order to expose the errors of the false mystics and to spread
a knowledge of the true doctrine of the churph concerning con-
templative prayer. As originally projected, the work was to
contain five treatises. Rather unfortunately, however, only the
.first of them was published. The second remained in manu-
script up to the year 1897, and the other three were never
even so much as written out.
The effect of the treatise published was noticeable enough.
Backed by the authority of the most eminent churchmen in
France and, to all appearances, doubly reinforced by the out-
come of Bossuet's unfortunate controversy with Fenelon, it
exercised an influence that, on the whole, was rather too far-
reaching and profound. Anxious as the Issy conference had
been to safeguard the church's real doctrine on prayer, and
determined though Bossuet was to follow up his attack on the
false mystics with a defence of the true, yet the inevitable
reaction which set in carried nearly every one off solid ground.
Henceforth, partly because contemplative prayer suggested
Quietism and partly because the suspicion of a taint might
lead to a residence in the Bastille, none dared to breathe even
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] Progress in Prayer. 337
the name of contemplation. As a controversialist, indeed, Bos-
suet had been crowned with success; but the consequence of
his victory was that the finest flower of Catholic spirituality
lay in danger of being crushed utterly out of existence.
The next generation of Catholics grew up to look upon
contemplative prayer and the teaching of the mystics as things
girt round with danger, and very carefully to be shunned by
all who held spiritual or even temporal safety in any regard.
Naturally enough, this condition was irksome and unsatisfactory
to deeper minds who appreciated the immense importance of
the truths thus discredited by error, and who perceived the
consequences certain to follow a general suppression of mysti-
cal aspirations. To correct the evil tendency, however, was
neither a simple nor a safe undertaking. So most of those
who might have stemmed the tide that was sweeping Catholic
spirituality down to such low levels contented themselves with
quietly fostering the higher life in their own souls and holding
entirely aloof from discussions.
Such was the condition of affairs when P^re Caussade came
upon the scene. English readers to-day know this man almost
exclusively through the precious little book Abandonment, pub-
lished at Le Puy, in 1 861, by Father Ramiere, after astonish-
ing exertions, re-edited a number of times in at least five lan-
guages, and introduced (in part) to the American public by
Miss Ella McMahon at Father Hecker's suggestion in 1887.
But the writer of Abandonment during his lifetime did other
good work, too. Admitted to the Jesuit novitiate of the Tou-
louse province in 1693, he became professor of grammar at
Auch three years later, lived at Nancy for awhile, was sta-
tioned at Albi as rector, and died at Toulouse in 1751; and,
though but scant information is at hand as to the way his
time was spent, he has left behind him a glorious and endur-
ing monument in the brief record we do possess. While at
Nancy, Father Caussade came into close contact with the reli-
gious of the Visitation there, and in the volumes of L Annie
Sainte^ we find abundant evidence of the powerful influence
he exercised over souls aspiring to lives of holiness. Among
the nuns were some whose vocation had been decided with his
assistance; and, at the convent, all considered his conferences,
^ Annit Sainte des RiligUuses de la Visitation de Sti. Marie. Annecy : Ch. Burdet, 1868,
1869, 1870, 1871. (12 vols.)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
338 PROGRESS IN PRAYER. [June,
his private counsel, and his letters of direction to be among
the very best aids to perfection that the community possessed.
One of the nuns, Sister Marie Anne-Sophie de Rottenbourg
(who died in 1775 in the seventy-ninth year of her profession),
collected a number of letters received from Father Caussade
into a little treatise ; and this treatise it is which to-day goes
by the name of *' Abandonment to Divine Providence " — a
phrase ever on the author's lips and pen, and truly significant
of the abiding disposition which he tried to awaken in souls
under his care.
At what particular source Father Caussade had drunk in
his enthusiasm for the contemplative life, we have no means of
knowing; nor can we tell how he had first been drawn to the
reading of the older spiritual teachers, to the pages redolent of
that mystical odor so eagerly sought and so gladly welcomed
by souls like his. Perhaps it was Suarez' treatise on Mental
Prayer that first set him thinking ; or maybe a chapter by St.
Alphonsus Rodriguez, or Le Gaudier, or De Paz. Possibly it
was Da Ponte's Life of Balthasar Alvarez, or Lallemant's doc-
trine on the Holy Spirit, or a book by Rigoleuc, or Surin, or
Guillor^ that burst into his life and swayed his path towards
new ways of thought and prayer. But wherever the first im-
pulse came from, it introduced him to a kind of literature
which his soul, thereafter, always loved to feed upon. Last-
ingly grateful for his treasure- trove, he determined that those
around him should enjoy further instruction in the science of
the saints than had hitherto been accorded them. His heart
was heavy with a sense of the wrongs endured by Catholics
shut out from their priceless birthright of spiritual doctrine ;
and he recognized that the church was suffering serious harm
from the prevalent tendency to belittle contemplative prayer or
to speak of it only for the purpose of uttering warnings against
it. To Caussade it was as if these speeches had been, warnings
against the abuses attaching to frequent communion or to
devotion towards our Blessed Lady. Independently of all
question about good or bad intention, such words were, he
considered, merely an indirect method of decrying precious
things.*
So Pere Caussade set himself resolutely to the task of im-
proving the situation. In his letters we find how continually
* Instructions spirituelUs, pt. I. dial. i6.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] PROGRESS IN PRAYER. 339
he strove to hold up mystical ideals to the veneration and imi-
tation of his spiritual children ; and V Annie Sainte gives much
evidence of the striking success that rewarded his efforts. But
to influence the souls with whom he came into immediate con-
tact would not suffice ; and he decided, by means of an expla-
natory comment on Bossuet's famous book, to provide an effec-
tive and permanent instrument for the upholding and spreading
of the sublime teaching that had come down from Catholic
antiquity. Dividing his treatise in two parts, one doctrinal and
technical, the other practical and popular, he put it forth under
the shelter of Bossuet's authority, as an explanation of con-
templative prayer and a protest against the disposition to ignore
those fields of spiritual activity which lie outside the confines
of formal meditation. At the first he judged it wise to conceal
his authorship ; and the original edition of the Instructions on
prayet was published at Perpignan, in 1741, as the work of
Pere Gabriel Antoine. Antoine was a Jesuit writer, already •
well known as the author of several spiritual books (one of
them, Courtes Meditations, republished by Poussielgue, Paris,
1882), and of a Cours de Theologie Morale which Benedict XIV.
introduced into the Propaganda. Antoine had been with Caus-
sade in the novitiate and, doubtless, they were confidential
friends, for it was no small favor to accept the paternity of the
new book "in order to give it greater credit with the public*
By way of further guarantee, the work bore the approval of
two official censors, M. Saunier, Docteur en Theologie, ex-Pro-
fesseur, Chanoine, Penitencier, Archidiacre, Official et Grand
Vicaire, and R. P. Amanrich, Prieur du Convent des Freres
Precheurs de Perpignan, Docteur en Theologie, Professeur royal,
Doyen de la Faculte et Examinateur synodal. An interesting
detail in the warm recommendation given by these censors is,
that they extend approval all the more willingly "because the
theologian responsible for the publication has shown himself
worthy of esteem and approbation by his various treatises of
scholastic and moral theology so generally approved in France."
Then followed an endorsement by the Jesuit provincial of
Champagne, certifying that the book had been submitted to the
censorship of three theologians of the society and might law-
fully be printed. Finally, came the authorization of the Pro-
cureur General du Roi.
•This being the motive for the selection of Antoine's name, according to the Peres de
Backer: Bibliothique di la Compagnit de J^sus, s. v. Antoine.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
340 Progress in Prayer. [June,
Thus, armed and armored, the little volume commenced a
career destined to be truly remarkable. Within a few years a
second edition was published at Toulouse, still without the true
authorship being disclosed — a wise enough precaution for a man
who valued peace as much as did Caussade, since there were
many ready to spread most uncomfortable reports about the
book and its author. It wanted but a few years then of
the time when — he being dead and his connection with the
volume known — the Jansenist writers of Les Nouvelles Eccle^
siastiques should set down the Instructions on prayer as "an
attempt to insinuate Quietism under the name and authority of
the great Bossuet." • But by this date Caussade was beyond
the reach of calumny, and whether or not his ears had once
been wounded by such like denunciation we cannot easily tell.
The subsequent history of the book is the best testimony
to its real merit. Time and again it has been recalled from
oblivion to carry its message of comfort and inspiration to
generation after generation. The third edition (Perpignan,
1758) contained only the practical portion of the book, the
editor alleging that the technical defensive part had already
served its purpose, since theologians universally recognized the
soundness of Caussade's doctrine, and since the average reader
cared for the practical portion only. Subsequent editions fol-
lowed this precedent, as at Paris (1810), at Anvers (1824), at
Tournai (1852), at Rheims (1891). and at Paris (1892). The
one exception to this was the edition of Avignon (1825) pre-
pared by ** G " t and reproducing, with some verbal corrections
and a few notes, the whole of the original* publication of 1741.
To M. Bussenot, the editor of the Rheims and Paris editions.
Cardinal Langenicux wrote that the work of re- editing Caus-
sade's book had been " truly inspired." Both these editions
were quickly exhausted and the work is now again out of
print, though but temporarily, of course. Meanwhile, at the
instance of Pere Ludovic Besse, | a Capuchin and an ardent
admirer of Caussade, the long-forgotten doctrinal part of the
work has been re- edited by M. Bussenot (Paris, 1895).
* TahU Raissonie et Alphabitique des Nouvelles JiccUsiasiiques, depuis 1^28 jusqu' en lyto
inclusivement. The entry states pointedly : " cinq de ses confreres participent 3i rimpression."
t M. Levesque of Paris, directeur au S^minaire Saint Sulpice, informs' us that "G"
stands for M. Gosselin, once the superior of the seminary of Issy and editor of Les CEuvres de
Finelon.
\ His recent publication, Science de la Pri?re (Paris, Oudin), is well worth reading.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] PROGRESS IN PRAYER. 34I
II.
Father Caussade composed his treatise out of a deep sense
of the harm due to lack of acquaintance with the Catholic
teaching about prayer. He felt that the want of proper in-
struction was holding many a soul back from the realization of
its truly noble possibilities ; and he published his pages in the
hope that they would be read widely in a spirit at once studi-
ous and religious. Hence readers will do well to prepare their
minds by a consideration of certain familiar truths bearing on
the soul's relationship with God.
Reason and revelation alike tell us that the ultimate des-
tiny of the human soul is union with the Deity; and that this
union is to be attained by the exercise of faculties and the
play of tendencies set by the Creator in • the nature of man.
The highest operations of a rational being are to contemplate
truth with the intellect and to embrace good with the will ;
and by grace these powers have been exalted to such a degree
that they surpass the range of a mere creature's existence and
share in an activity which by nature is the proper life of God.
In consequence, man has been destined to see God with a
clearness and to love him with a fulness transcending all human
conceptions. Once this blessed vision and blessed union have
been attained, perfect happiness will possess the soul and man's
spiritual hunger and thirst will be satiated so completely that
in an eternity he can never want.
Ideal existence on earth would mean a life of growth
toward this final consummation, a life in which man's noblest
powers should retain their due supremacy, God being contem-
plated and loved as the perfect Truth and the perfect Good,
and each faculty helping to establish and to perfect the soul's
union with Divinity. As a matter of fact, however, man in his
fallen state finds life strangely discordant ; his mind will per-
sist in going astray ; his animal nature rises up in rebellion ;
and lesser goods contest with God the right to engage the
supreme interest and affection of the soul. This strife disturbs
the peace of man's spirit; the movements of life swing him
hither and thither, more often away from than toward his end
of being ; and heroic effort is required to reduce the unruly
passions to order and enlist them in the cause of right. Ex-
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342 PROGRESS IN PRAYER, [June,
ternally, he has to overcome the numerous obstacles that make
against the faithful observance of the whole natural and posi-
tive law. Internally, he has to conquer his own soul in order
to bring it into Godlike contemplation of infinite Truth and
Godlike love of infinite Good. Mere instinct and spontaneous
impulse will not suffice. Resolute effort must be added, and
the influence of grace superadded, that he may lead a life
which will truly resemble God's, and be, in a real sense, a
preparation for and a growth toward the destined life of
heaven.
Of the two fields of struggle, outer and inner, the latter is
by far the more important, both because of its greater intrinsic
nobleness and because it exercises a dominant influence over
conduct. Hence the primary need is a right ordering of the
internal activities.
It is at the securing of this that spiritual exercises aim.
Prayer, for instance, means that for the moment a human soul
is living somewhat as it will live eternally in heaven, mentally
contemplating and voluntarily loving the Supreme Object of
thought and affection, though now that Object is seen but
dimly and loved only insecurely. Each exercise of true prayer
renders the soul a little more like God and leaves it a little
less unfit to abide eternally in his presence and to live the life
he lives.
But we find it hard to pray. Not all the philosophy in the
world can make it easy for us to turn away from the sensual
things that solicit us and to begin communing with God. To
set aside distracting thoughts and for the moment to forget all
selfish interests, to rise in spirit above created things and to
contemplate the Creator of them, to resign cheerfully the
objects for which body or soul is hungering and clamoring, and
to do all this, as it were, off-hand and on the instant; this is
not given to man even by grace. Herein, as elsewhere, he lies
under the law of labor. Toil and struggle, effort and pain
must precede attainment. Only after the expenditure of tears
and blood shall he be able to stand at liberty and to speak
with God as one who knows and is known, who loves and is
beloved.
The big issue of life, therefore, is this : How shall a man
set about the winning back of his lost birthright ? What means
had he best adopt in order that once more he may possess the
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1904.] Progress in Prayer. 343
privilege of communing with God and once more enjoy the
liberty of God's children ?
Man's highest power is the power of willing. By the
habitual attitude of his will he is classed as noble or base ;
and by the acts of his will he is saved or lost. To will rather
than to know is the splendid gift that differentiajtes man from
brute. Whether or not external success has been achieved, the
one who goes down to his grave with a will set unflinchingly
on good, carries with him the deepest heart-worship of his
fellows; and a child that has the will of a hero is reckoned a
greater glory to the race than the wisest scholar.
Yet we must recognize that the will is largely a dependent
faculty and that it has to be directed by a mind which is con-
templating truth. In a sense, all goodness is bound up with
wisdom ; and to dazzle or distract the mind is to interfere thus
far with the perfect action of the will. If the intellect view
the world in a false light, or a wrong order; if the perception
of God's relationship with creatures be distorted or imperfect;
then there is a likelihood of the will's directing its activity in
opposition to God, thus rendering itself sterile and its energy
of no avail. When Essential and Absolute Truth is seen clearly,
as in heaven, the will, of course, darts swiftly and infallibly at
the Good; but, outside of heaven, the chances of right action
vary with the soul's greater or lesser success in conceiving of
the world of things under true relations. Hence the schooling
of man's spirit must consist largely in his learning to look
upon God so constantly and attentively, that with ever grow-
ing ease he may pierce through all disguises and instantly
recognize Truth and Beauty and Goodness, wherever they
exist — properly estimating the value of each finite thing, and
exactly realizing the measure in which it will aid or binder
him to make progress towards perfection. On the other hand,
it is only by ignorance of one sort or another that he can be
prevented from going straight to God. Only when he fails to
see are his feet enmeshed in snares or turned toward pitfalls.
So what he must beg for first is light.
Oftentimes, it is merely an ignorance born of inattentiveness
that troubles the soul. Then the correction is to be found in
a concentration of thought which will bring us to see things in
their true perspective and to realize their exact worth. Herein
lies the value of meditation, an exercise in which the souKs
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344 PROGRESS IN PRAYER. [June,
powers are employed upon some truth or fact for the purpose
of developing and impressing on the mind the spiritual signifi-
cance contained. The memory is made to recall the subject;
the imagination is stimulated to an extent befitting the
character of the meditating mind and the matter in question;
the intellect proceeds to analyze, to discuss and to compare;
until, under the spell of truth thus made vivid, the emotional
nature awakens and the will is drawn strongly to the choosing
and embracing of the good. The efficacy of meditation as a
help to prayer is proportionate to its power of revealing or
clarifying truth, and of thus eliciting response from the will ;
and the measure of a good meditation is the measure of
strength and reality in the consequent movement of the soul
towards God. It serves much the same purpose as the chafing
which makes penmanship possible to benumbed fingers, or the
preparatory exercise which limbers muscle for a trial of strength.
As a man who dwells upon the memory of an insult will rouse
himself to anger, hatred, and the desire of revenge, so one
who contemplates the things of God will be moved to sorrow
for sin and new longing for holiness — a principle tx) which St.
Ignatius drew the world's attention so successfully that it can
never again be excusably ignored.
Meditation, then, is based on a recognized psychological
law — the permanent element common to all the various methods
employed by different individuals or suggested by changing
circumstances. At any given time the best form is, of course,
that which most efficiently moves the will towards intimate
union with God. The practice of meditating is necessary
whenever, and in so far as, the will requires it; but, when not
needed to induce or to intensify the act of the will, it may
properly be dispensed with. In form, it allows of indefinite
variations both as to plan adopted and subject dwelt upon.
Necessarily so ; since the mind in question may be that bf a
sodden sinner unused to any good thought, or the holy mind
of an innocent, shrinking child; and since the influences to be
counteracted may be such as play on the will of a poet or of
a tradesman, or again of a mathematician; while each medita-
tion is to combine the intellectual, emotional, and practical
elements in proportions suitable to the requirements of the
particular case.
From the preceding it will appear that meditation is well-
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1904.] Progress in prayer, 345
nigh indispensable for all who, while aspiring to close union
with God, are distracted from sustained attention to him either
by inordinate liking for, or teasing solicitude about created
goods; and that the need of meditation is greater or less,
accordingly as the mind is wont to picture hazily or vividly the
supreme desirableness of God. Under favorable conditions,
meditation should, of course, 'be but a temporary stage of the
soul's growth in divine likeness. Allowing for variations, such
growth should in general follow the ordinary laws of mental
development; for progress up to and beyond this point requires
only ordinary grace which will never be wanting. Hence
fervent souls, fitted by disposition and circumstances for a
higher form of prayer, may look to acquire the power of com-
muning with God more perfectly than can be done in a formal
meditation. Spiritual writers give us to understand that the
average person, after a reasonable time spent in the practice of
meditation — not to mention those rarer souls who even at first
may dispense with tedious discursive processes — can get the
fruit of meditation without meditating; that is, can elicit acts
of praise, thanksgiving, ttust, love and other affections habit-
ually, easily, and independently of preceding consideration. This
means that by degrees the intellect acts less and the will more ;
that the mind grows satisfied more quickly and with a lesser
variety of thoughts. So the exercise can no longer be regarded
as an intellectual one or be called meditation ; because the
play of affection and will has been substituted almost entirely
for that of the discursive powers, and analysis is replaced by
contemplation.
This advance in prayer is marked first by the will's readier
response to the suggestions of each doctrine or fact presented.
As progress goes on, less and less study is needed in order to
produce the mental illumination that precedes every movement
of the soul. In other words, the activity of the will increases;
and, in a proportional measure, the range and activity of men-
tal work lessen.
That movement by which the soul leaps toward God, upon
the suggestion offered by a vivid realization of his desirable-
ness, is called, in the language of Catholic writers, an affection
of the soul. And when there has come a noticeable decrease
in the amount of mental labor prerequisite for the eliciting of
such affections ; when they come easily, quickly, almost spon-
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346 Progress in Prayer. [June,
taneously ; then the soul is said to have passed beyond the
first stage of progress, to have exchanged meditation for affec-
tive prayer, and to be entering upon the ** illuminative way," —
illuminative in a double sense, since the affections in turn per-
fect perception, just as our senses grow keen to detect the
presence or the voice of one we love.
In due time these affectionate movements of the soul be-
come still simpler. Some one particular affection rises out of
the crowd and acquires predominance, and to this the soul
recurs by preference again and again ; or rather, a supreme
affection, which appears to sum up and include the others,
commences to satisfy the soul as being the simple expression
of all its sentiments. A phrase like Deus mens et omnia,
whether spoken or unspoken, exhausts and sufficiently voices
the thought of the mind. With little or no meditative reflec-
tion, this affection is now elicited, quietly and almost con-
stantly; for though the soul cannot, indeed, at every instant
be multiplying and carefully repeating its act of worship, it
can and does acquire a disposition, a habit, an attitude, a
temper which is practically permanent and abiding.
Catholic teachers of spirituality often call this kind of
prayer "acquired contemplation," and tell us it is the highest
state which man can attain without a grace quite beyond the
ordinary. At the same time they teach that common souls
who are industrious, consistent, and wisely guided, may lawfully
desire and reasonably hope to advance as far as this. As a
matter of fact, too few, it is said, venture to mount as high as
God wishes them to go. A little more confidence in God ; a
little more forgetfulness of self; and there would be many
souls enjoying closer intimacy with their Creator than they
have ever dreamed to be possible. Indeed, the prayer above
described may very properly be considered as a humble
attempt of some on earth to imitate that blessed life for which
all are destined in heaven. It is less a formal exercise than a
lover's vision. It is the loving soul's responsive attention to
the stimulus of the divine presence. ** He is here " : the
memory recalls, the intellect contemplates, the will desires and
chooses and reaches out toward the Beloved.
It was the encouragement and direction of souls in prayer
of this sort that Father Caussade had in view when he wrote
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1904.] The Knock. 347
the treatise before us. No doubt such prayer can be and
indeed often has been practised by persons unacquainted with
the principles concerned in its acquisition ; just as people fre-
quently profit by sanitary laws of which they are totally ignor-
ant. Yet It is of no little value to be instructed in these
matters and to understand something about the various phe-
nomena of the soul's growth into fulness of stature, as in any
field pf knowledge it is helpful to be conversant with the
experience of others and to know the methods and expedients
that one's predecessors have found useful. This is why we
may anticipate that the same motives which induced Father
Caussade to compose, will lead many others to approve and to
recommend his treatise.
The Knock.
BY JOHN JEROME ROONEY.
EHOLD, I stand at the door,
I stand at the door and knock :
If any man shall hear my voice
And open to me the lock,
I will come in to him !
I will come in to him !
The night is bleak and chill,
I faint, I droop, I fall :
If any man shall hear my voice
And answer to my call,
I will sup with him !
I will sup with him !
I stand at the door and knock —
My love is my only plea :
If any man shall hear my voice
And open his heart to me,
I will abide with him !
I will abide with him !
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348 " MORE Lasting than Bronze:' [June,
'' MORE LASTING THAN BRONZE."
BY T. B. C.
ST was in '65, on one of my rambling hospital-
tours, that I ran across old Pierre. He was an
inmate of the aged- cripple ward in Les Inva-
lides; and I was so much impressed on first
sight of the old fellow that I determined to
make his acquaintance. You see, I have for a number of
years been fond of wandering through hospitals, and picking
up friends whom I should never know except on their backs
or in the depths of invalid chairs. I have liked especially to
frequent the wards for the aged, where the quaint, withered
old "specimens," in the most placid ease and quiet, are pay-
ing out slowly, as if reluctantly, the last years of a long
store. I used to try, too, very frequently, to get their histories
from them ; and I would sometimes even give myself up to a
long, toilsome siege of persuasion, mingled with every artifice
in the endeavor. They often — nearly always, perhaps — had
nothing extraordinary in their histories to tell. Just a life of
struggle and hard work for a poor living with the usual share
of joys and sorrows, good and bad fortune — all in a dull,
unromantic way.
But it had a charm for me that never grew old. There
was so much in the strange contrast ! This story of busy days
and nights, of toil and sweat and jostling life, told by a lean
old fellow with a whistling treble and a child's smile, who
seemed as if he had never had anything more to do than just
to look cross or comfortable by turns.
But now I *ve told you enough about myself and my pur-
suit. Let me say something about Pierre;
He was just one of those old "codjers" of whom I have
been speaking, with little to distinguish him from the rest,
except that he was much more impervious to questioning. It
was like prying out a nail to get a word out of him. He
would simply sit and mumble half sentences ; and the hard,
drawn expression never left his face. But it was just this
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1904.] ''More Lasting than Bronze:' 349
expression that made me more eager to hear something from
him. It was the expression of one who has lived for years
with Pain, and in the closest companionship; lain down with
him at night, sat with him alone through days of sun and
rain, and yet has not learned to fear him or to shrink from
him, but has only become hardened and inured in the long
trial, hardened and made more dogged and unyielding, and
even defiant. All this I saw in the lines of that lean, pale,
old face, with a small white growth covering the lower lip and
chin, and making the face look even leaner. And so I toiled
on and coaxed him in my visits and brought little presents of
fruit and flowers in my patient endeavor to loosen that old
tongue of his.
I gained during the succeeding days in which I passed in
and out of the ward a few pieces of information about Pierre.
They were meagre enough it is true. First, from the head
nurse in charge, I learned from what a very distant period the
old man had occupied his berth in Les Invalides. His arrival
dated long before her own, and she had been on duty now
for more than twenty- five years. She remembered hearing the
nurse whom she succeeded — an old woman who had worn out
a long life in this work of mercy — speak of Pierre as having
come there. in her early days.
So he was an old settler indeed. After this I had a talk
with the visiting surgeon. He supplied me with some details
of somewhat keener interest. He said he had heard that
Pierre was one of the soldiers of the First Empire, having
been wounded serving under Bonaparte. This was as far as
his information went in this direction — nothing more definite.
But he spoke of Pierre's wound and said that, for an old
wound, it was one of the worst he had ever met with in all
his experience of surgery.
** He was evidently," said the doctor, *' struck by a grape-
shot, or a fragment of a shell. It met his hip-bone just at
the point of it ; and it shattered the entire socket, making it
like a bag of dice. Nothing but the iron, wiry constitution of
a French peasant would have lived through it, especially with
the bungling army-surgery of those days, which did no more
than extract the ball or fragment of shell, pick out the pieces
of broken bone, and then bind up the wound, leaving the man
with a hole in his side big enough to build a nest in."
VOU LXXIY.— 23 ^ J
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350 ''More Lasting than Bronze:' [June,
Then, on my asking him whether he thought there was any
permanent suffering from the wound, he replied with more
emphasis, " Pain ! why, I don't believe that during the last fifty
years — which is about the time we surmise old Pierre has had
lodgings yonder — he has been a day without it. You see
his spine is affected, and that causes a constant dull twinge
which seems all over the frame. Just think of that for fifty
years ! It would kill some men. It would drive others stark
crazy. But Pierre has managed to liv^ through it and keep
sane too. It is wonderful— wonderful ! "
Now that I had some data of information concerning Pierre,
I felt even more anxious to make him talk. I kept up my
attentions and gifts, but for a time it seemed with no signs
of progress, though he did seem to warm towards me. His
old gray eyes would brighten when he saw me coming. He
would awkwardly put out his hand from his chair to welcome
me. But that was all. Not a word out of him except a grunt
or two of thanks for my fruit or tobacco. One day, however,
came when he did talk.
I had come to see Pierre on the evening of a very rainy
day. The streets of Paris were wet and glistening. The air
was heavy with dampness. I had always noticed that Pierre
was more restless on these damp days; and I was sure now
since my talk with the doctor that his uneasiness came from
his wound, which the dampness irritated. There we sat to-
gether, Pierre in his invalid's chair, which creaked gently every
now and then as he shifted in it, close to the big window
where he used to bask in the sun during the day. We could
look out across the roofs of the city growing dim now in the
gathering dusk. For some time we sat without a word. The
quietness of the hour inclined one to silence and musing. But
my project to make old Pierre say a word about himself never
left my mind; and so, after a few minutes, I began to stir
him up cautiously, as I had so often tried to do before.
The doctor's information that Pierre had served under
Bonaparte gave me new material with which to bait my ques-
tions. I began, half carelessly, to observe something about the
late Napoleon ; what a poor imitation he was of his brilliant
uncle ; and how foolish it was that a house should lay claim to
the throne of France merely because of the personal achieve-
ments, of a single man, however glorious these may have been.
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I904-] ''MORE LASTING THAN BRONZE:* 351
I was mistaken, however, in thinking that this would rouse
Pierre. He merely glanced up in a sleepy sort of way and
muttered something about this " new order of things/' " which
no one could understand, — new people, with old names," — and
so on. And then, when I ventured to question him somewhat
closer, asking him whether he thought the great Bonaparte
really benefitted France by his reign and his victories, he grew
somewhat more animated than I had ever seen him before, but
it was only to pipe out in a peevish tone : " What do I know,
monsieur, about benefit to France? — Benefit to France! — All
that I see of France is this patch of roofs here, or a piece of
Paris sidewalk when I can push my chair close enough to the
window."
" But," I said insistently, " he was certainly a great gen-
eral. You should know, Pierre ; you served under him." This
was the boldest stroke I had yet dared.
" Who was a great general ? What is this you say, mon-
sieur ? Of whom are you talking ? " The quaver of impatience
was strong in his tone. It was the highest mark of interest he
had yet given.
" Why, Bonaparte," I said, " General Napoleon Bonaparte.
Surely you remember him."
As I sounded the name in his ears a change came over
Pierre's face. The light of some strong memory was certainly
kindling there. How strangely it seemed to flicker where
all had been so dull and lustreless before ! Pierre stopped his
uneasy motion and settled back rigidly in his chair, as if he
were gathering all his breath and energy for an effort. He be-
gan to talk half to himself, but the tone was very clear — a
tOQch of suppressed excitement in it.
" Bonap'arte ! " he repeated, " General Bonaparte ! — How we
all had worship for him! How we would follow him, rush
before him like mad ! " He repeated these sentences with little
alteration a number of times.
Then I made bold to put in an inquiry. *' Your wound,
Pierre, I said. " How was that ? "
" Wound I Wounded ! " he repeated in the same tone. " This
has been with me for a long time, and I remember the day so
well:— 7the battle that morning on the plains of Italy. What a
spirit burned in us men I How we had learned to trust our
lives and our very souls to young General Bonaparte. He
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352 ''MORE Lasting than Bronze:' [June,
was everything to us. We could have conquered the world
with him."
Could this, I thought, be sleepy old Pierre ? But on he
went talking, like a man in an excited dream.
"Yes! that morning's battle I remember it so well. There
was that bridge, with the earthworks just above it. The Gen-
eral, our Bonaparte, said it must be crossed ; — victory depended.
I saw a whole line of grenadiers blown off their feet before
they were half way across. It was awful — that deadly fire.
But the General — our Bonaparte ! — the next moment 1 saw him
there before my eyes — half way across the bridge. He held a
color staff in one hand; his black hair was blown about his
face, his eyes were bright, an.d he turned and waved to us.
I heard a terrible shout. The whole army must have cried out
at once. Then I started with all my might towards the bridge.
My whole soul was bent on getting near that young figure —
our Bonaparte. I could hear the rush of feet and the rattle of
accoutrements all around me. But no one reached the bridge
before me. And just as I reached the other end of it came
that fearful blow on the hip. I fell and my senses left me.
And then it seemed but a few moments — I cannot say how
long it really was — when I opened my eyes again. I lay on
some kind of a bed with a blanket over me. My whole body
was alive with pain. I felt as if I had been shot in half. But
there was a figure bending over me. I could not make it out
at first because of the mist in my eyes. As I peered it be-
came plainer. I recognized that young form — and the uniform.
I saw the dark, flowing hair, and the eyes were still bright as
when I saw them last. He stood there for some moments and
then I felt him press my hand, and he whispered in my
ear : ** You are a soldier — my true soldier ! " A * quiver ran
through me stronger than the pain of my wound. Then every-
thing left me again and I remembered nothing more — nothing.
Then came a new life which has lasted ever since — of being
nursed and wheeled about, with always that burning pain that
never leaves me but only grows. milder and sharper by turns."
Here Pierre came to a sudden stop. It was like an old
clock run down. It was some time before I could say a word.
It had all been so vivid to me. I seemed to pass through the
rapid action of it all.
: But as I thought of the ending of it, his reference to the
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1904.] ''More Lasting than Bronze:' 353
"life that had lasted ever since" — fully fifty years of invalid's
life! — I coald not help saying, after a silence for some time:
" But see, Pierre, do you still cherish a devotion to Bonaparte ?
What has he done for you ? He won a few brilliant victories
and then vanished out of France for ever. All that he has left
you is this terrible wound which has made you painfully crip-
pled for life. Surely it was not worth while."
There was a pause for a few moments, and then Pierre
answered me. He was looking straight forward with the same
dreamy stare. But he had understood me perfectly. Not only
his sympathy had been aroused, but his intelligence too seemed
to brighten wonderfully.
" Monsieur," he began slowly, " I have indeed had a rough
time of it. This wound of mine has been no gentle companion.
I was young when it came, and all the brightness left my life,
all my young hopes and ambitions. Then too it has taken all my
manhood away from me and left me helpless on the hands of
others. This is hard. And then the pain — it has been with
me always like a fire that burns now lower now higher. Some-
times it has kept me awake at night, and there was no getting
away from it, no finding an easy side to lie on. And it has
sometimes set me thinking; and I have thought, monsieur, I
have gone over it all again. I have stood on the bank of that
stream with my youth and my health, and I have looked down
on that bridge before me, half splintered by the cannon-shot
that was pouring upon it. And I have seen the young figure
there — our General — our Bonaparte — with the flag in his hand.
And I have felt the fire rise again within me as I plunge for*
ward. And then I have cried out to myself: 'But, Pierre, do
you know what you are rushing to, and do you still rush on ?
Do you see those long years of a cripple's life — of wretched
dependence ; those hours and hours of burning pain that never
leaves you?' And I answer, I shout back to myself: 'I see
it all. and I still rush on. I would not turn back, I would not
pause for it all.' Then I lie again in the hospital-tent and see
dimly that young figure bending over me. I hear the sound of
his voice. I feel the touch of his hand !■ — He spoke to me 1 —
He touched my hand, monsieur! — And then I cried out to
myself : ' Stop your grumbling, Pierre, you have been well re-
paid for all — all 'the'tlA)»s-and tiights and weeks and years, all,
all— yes, Pierre, you have been repaid, well repaid, for all 1 ' "
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
354 ''MORE Lasting than bronze:' [June,
Here the old man's voice died down slowly, and for some
seconds I could hear him whispering to himself, and then he
was silent altogether. And I had no more questions now. I
was effectually silenced. I sat with my head between my
hands gazing on the floor, while all the strong, deep feelings
that had been stirred up in me held me motionless. Surely
there is something more than selfish human nature in a devotion
like this. And oh, Bonaparte ! Bonaparte ! How is it that
you did not conquer more than half the world with a power
over men as was yours ? It is true you strived ; but how
sublime was that power you wielded! which is stirring yet in
this distant day, when even the strong curses of the nations
that hated you have died away. Then my thpughts took a
sublimer trend, I thought how it was a devotion like this — a
personal, living devotion to another Leader — which has made
men whom we call saints strong te lead lives all filled with
labor and sacrifice and pain. I say it is a devotion like this;
for the human heart is the same whatever be the cause it serves.
Its wonderful gifts are raised and beautified but never changed.
And all this seemed strangely intelligible to me as I sat there.
I felt that I understood it all.
I must have mused there for a long time ; but I was roused
at length by a gust of cold, damp air on my cheek. I turned
and looked out the open window. It was fully night now;
and the lights of the city dotted the darkness everywhere.
Some one brushed in front of me. It was the head-nurse.
" Too much of this night air is not good for our rheumatic
patients, monsieur," she said, as she drew down the window.
I stood up ashamed at my carelessness, and began to stammer
out an apology, but she checked me with an assuring gesture.
" But, monsieur," as I was turning to go without a word,
" Aren't you going to say good-by to poor old Pierre ? "
There was a touch of pathos in her tone. Pathos is rather
rare among these professional people. Not that they are not
kind; their lives are one act of charity. But most sensible
feeling must be worn off by their long familiarity with afHiction
and sorrow in all their forms. I . looked up rattier surprised.
And then, turning half mechanically towards the invalid's chair,
" Good night, Pierre."
'' But he is sleeping," I added aloud, as I saw the closed
eyes and .the features rather rigidly set.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] At Complin, 355
" No, he is dead, monsieur," said the nurse.
" Dead ! " I exclaimed. " No,— it can't be ! Could it have
been my fault? I hope I did not excite him."
" No indeed, monsieur," she replied ; " it is most usual.
Nearly all our old cripple-patients drop off in this way. And
Pierre was the very oldest we had. He died very quietly too.
See the smile and the relaxed look. But I thought you knew
he was dead» monsieur. You were sitting here looking down
with your face covered, I thought you were weeping for him."
I was standing while she spoke with my eyes fixed on the
old white face. " No, I was not weeping," I answered without
turning, " I was only thinking. I was reflecting on something
he told me."
Then I turned away silently and went from the dimly-
lighted ward, down the stairs and out into the street.
At Complin.
BY THOMAS B. REILLY.
EARS for languor of the way; but these —
How can they touch the heart; alter a fate
Into that other and diviner state
Of sorrow and remitted memories ?
Oh ! ask not all for self His charities ;
But for that absent one gone overlate
Into the shadowy camps that fascinate —
Into the groves of specious destinies.
Give thought beyond your own deep happiness;
With Christian recollection bind your prayer.
Grace, like influential rain, again
May lure from mould of death and barrenness
The miracle of Spring upon the air —
Lilies and a pleading Magdalen.
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356 The Temperance Movement IN ENGLAND. [June,
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND.
BY REVEREND JAMES M. REARDON.
|T the beginning of the present century Justin
McCarthy wrote as follows in the Independent:
'* I am glad to learn that the reign of the new
King is to see a fresh and most important effort
made for the promotion of some legislative action
in the cause of temperance." This statement was, no doubt,
evoked by the following paragraph in the King's speech to the
first Parliament that assembled after his accession to the
throne: ''Legislation has been prepared, and if the time at
your disposal should prove to be adequate, will be laid before
you, for the prevention of drunkenness in licensed houses or
public places." This explicit promise of temperance reform
has to some extent been fulfilled; and as it is but one phase
of a national awakening that augurs well for the cause of
sobriety, it may be of interest to consider the present status
of the liquor question in England, and review some of the
more important steps that have been taken to remedy the
deplorable condition of English society due to drink.
About twenty- five years ago Canon Farrar declared that
''the national sin of England is drunkenness; the national
curse of England is drink." And those who are in a position
to know the true state of affairs in England to- day reiterate
this statement. Notwithstanding the efforts put forth during
these years to better the condition of the people, they have
not yet been thoroughly aroused to an appreciation of the
dangers that beset them because of this evil. The chains of
bondage forged by the task- master, Alcohol, on the slaves of
intemperance have become more galling year by year and
threaten to destroy the life of the nation itself. - The victims
of this degrading habit are almost hopelessly ensnared in the
meshes of a web woven with consummate skill — a criminal
craving that can with difficulty be banished from the land.
High and low, rich and poor, prince and peasant, have fallen
victims to its imperious sway; and it will require years of
persevering, uplifting effort to banish from the homes of the
people this spectre of ruin and death that has g^ged^fUelf
IQ04.] The Temperance Movement IN England, 357
with the life-blood of so many of the sons and daughters of
once merry England.
The struggle against this crying evil is destined to be a
long and fiercely- waged one, for the enemy has at its com-
mand almost unlimited resources. Kitig Alcohol will not be
worsted without a contest such, perhaps, as England has never
witnessed, even in the days when mighty armies threatened
her very existence.
It is a well-known fact that, "next to the agricultural inter-
est, the liquor trade represents the largest and wealthiest
interest in England." The tens of thousands of people who
are interested, either directly or indirectly, in this trade have
at their command enormous capital; and those who are
actively engaged in the manufacture and sale of intoxicating
beverages are banded together in determined opposition to
every effort that may be made to place restrictions on their
business. They have representatives in all parts of the coun-
try to watch the trend of public opinion and to devise means
for the safeguarding of their interests. Many of the prominent
people of England, who would not think of engaging openly
in the liquor business, do not hesitate to invest their money in
breweries and distilleries. The influence of their position and
wealth is, therefore, given to those who are benefited by the
spread of intemperance, and must be reckoned with in every
attempt to create a public sentiment in favor of sobriety.
The dawn of the new century witnessed a renewal of the
agitation in favor of legislative action to restrict the drink
evil ; and pressure has been brought to bear upon the mem-
bers of both houses of parliament, urging them to take
measures towards this end. In our own day, as in the days
of Cobden, thinking men are convinced that "the temperance
reformation lies at the very basis of all social and political
reform." The people of England are very anxious to see the
government do whatever is possible to remove temptation
from the pathway of the weak, and thus diminish the horrors
of the drink traffic. Some months ago the London Tablet
said: "There is a growing impatience all over the country
with the present condition of the drink traffic, and an almost
unanimous conviction that the people should at least be pro-
tected from what may be described as artificial incitements to
drink, and this can be done only by absolntely eliminating
from the traffic the element of private gain." ^^^^^^,Q,oO^Z
358 THE Temperance Movement IN England, [June,
The country will no longer be satisfied with promises. The
members of Parliament must show by their deeds that they
are in earnest in their desires to do the will of their con-
stituents. There are few people who believe, as Lord Salis-
bury did, th^t " the drink problem lies beyond the power of
Parliament," and that it is a matter that should be regulated
by the public opinion of the community.
*Tis scarcely possible to make men sober by act of Parlia-
ment; but much may be done by legislative enactment to
lessen the opportunities for over-indulgence. '' It is a mere
mockery to ask us to put down drunkenness by moral and
religious measures when the legislature facilitates the multipli-
cation of the incitementis to intemperance on every side. Let
the legislature do its part and we will answer for the rest."
So spoke Cardinal Manning a third of a century ago, and his
worns he has demonstrated
that good health, ability to endure fatigue, and general well-
being under most trying circumstances, are more marked when
no alcoholic beverages are furnished.
The society is in a prosperous condition, and is doing yeo-
man service in the cause of sobriety by weaning its members
from that over-indulgence which has been the ruin of so many men
of talent and energy in every walk of life. The example given
by the members of this organization, many of whom enjoy
more than national reputations, c^n scarcely fail to influence
their fellowmen and thus hasten the dawn of a temperance era
in British homes.
Nor are their lacking efforts to rescue those who have
fallen victims to the fell sway of the demon of intemperance^
The drink evil is a social evil ; and if inebriates would be
restored to health and happiness they must be taken^from their
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1904.] The Temperance Movement in England. 365
unwholesome surroundings and placed under uplifting influences.
It is not enough to raise the outcast from the gutter and then
withdraw the supporting hand. He must be taken from the
street, away from the source of temptation, and encouraged, in
a new environment, to struggle against that craving for liquor
that has degraded him. Efforts of this nature — efforts to reform
the drunkard by removing him from the haunts of dissipation,
by furnishing new ideals, by fostering noble aspirations — have
been made by English philanthropists, especially in the case of
female outcasts driven to the slums by drink.
Every student of social reform in England is aware of the
appalling extent to which drinking is indulged in by women in
every walk of life. So universal is this indulgence, so open its
manifestation, that women of the middle class think it no dis-
grace to go into a saloon and lead their little children with
them to the public bar. For those who are more self-respect-
ing, who are restrained by a remnant of sense of public decency
from flaunting their drunken propensities before the public eye,
saloon-keepers have provided private entrances and private bars
where they can enjoy the luxury of a drink unobserved by
the passers-by.
There is no dearth of testimony to prove the prevalence
of the drinking habit among Englishwomen. Sir Thomas
Barlow, Physician to the King, says that, though the coarser
forms, of drinking have decreased among the educated class,
drinking is still a national crime, and secret drinking among
women a national sin. The Bishop of London says there are
"Spirit Clubs" among the factory girls of that city to the
maintenance of which all must contribute. " Drink," says Mgr.
Nugent of Liverpool, "is making terrible havoc upon the
female population of this town — not only demoralizing the
young, and leading them step by step into vice and the lowest
depths of crime, but destroying the sacred character of family
life, and changing wives and mothers into brutal savages.
. . . Not a week passes without some one being brought to
the prison whom drink has maddened and robbed of all female
decency, whose language and actions are so horrible that they
seem no longer rational beings, but fiends."
The following is from the pen of the London correspondent of
the New York Sun^ who paints a vivid picture of the liquor-
traffiic in London : " Lined up in front (of the counter), elbow
VOL. LXXIX. — 24 ^ T
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366 THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND. [June,
to elbow with the men, are women of all ages and conditions,
tossing down their glass of whisky, gin, or beer. Many band
over bottles or pitchers to be filled. Some are old and totter-
ing and already half drunk. Young mothers lead in their chil-
dren and give them a portion of their own glass. Mothers sit
at the little tables with a baby at their breast, drinking a tum-
bler of gin or whisky. It is just as common for a young fellow
and his sweetheart to stand up at the bar in a saloon and take
their beer or whisky, as it is in the United States for them to
go to a soda fountain."
The annual report of the Commissioner of Prisons for 1900
contains the following statement: "The sin of drunkenness is
not decreasing among women. One- third of the women in
prison owe their imprisonment to drink." Lady Somerset tes-
tifies that *' in England there are more drunken women than
in any other nation"; and that "the annals of our police
courts show that drunkenness has not only invaded the hemes
of the poorest of our people, but also that drinking is alarm-
ingly on the increase among women of the wealthy and the
leisured class."
Speaking of the effect that such women have upon their
offspring she paints a picture that should rouse all true English-
men and women to concerted action against the curse of drink
— a picture from which we would do well to draw a moral,
however much we may think that it does not portray condi-
tions in our own country. She says: "Women enter drink-
shops with little babies in their arms, and often give these
babies a share of the liquor ; and the little mouths greedily suck
the spoon or the glass that has in it the taste of liquor. . . .
Those who know anything of the social life of the people in
England have long realized that children are drunk for the
first time in their mothers' arms, or cursed with the appetite
before they are born."
Is it any wonder, then, that philanthropic men and women
have sought to devise some plan to ameliorate the condition of
women debased by drink ? The places provided for them by
the state are utterly incapable of accommodating the large
numbers sent there. Julian Ralph, the noted journalist, writes:
"The houses for inebriates all over the country are crowded to
overflowing, and police magistrates are obliged, daily and hourly,
to send women back to the beer dens froni which they have
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1904.] The Temperance Mo vement in England. 367
been dragged by the police, because there is no room for these
human offscourings in ^the places provided for them by an in-
dulgent state."
It is refreshing to turn from the contemplation of this
gloomy picture of drink's debasing rule to that of the peace-
ful, bright, and cheery landscape in which the deft hand of
Lady Somerset has sketched the broad outlines of the Farm
Colony.
The " Farm Colony " is a picturesque village in Surrey,
whither inebriate . women are sent, and where they are kept
until the fearful craving for intoxicants, which has been the
bane of their lives, has been obliterated, and until they are
placed once more on the plane of sobriety and self-respect from
which drink has dragged them. "It is not a village where
family life is lived, but rather one where it is rebuilt." The
colony consists of a number of neat, simply-furnished houses
where the inmates live under the care of skilled nurses, who
make a study of each individual case. The idea of an institu-
tion is abandoned entirely. Three principles underlie the estab-
lishment and management of this retreat. Its promoters believe
(i) that a village is better adapted than an institution for the
rehabilitation of drunkards; (2) that outdoor exercise and
healthy, normal recreation are absolutely necessary for the
benefit of the patients ; (3) that each case must be dealU with
individually.
The village system approximates more closely than any in-
stitution can to home-like surroundings, and does not so radi-
cally sever all connections with past family-life and its associa-
tions. The home life of the village is made very real and
natural by the presence of children, for whom the women care,
and who, in turn, exert a beneficial effect upon the women.
The children are there, not because they are drunkards, but
because they are the children of drunkards, taken for a time
from their wretched homes in the poorest slums of the city,
and given an opportunity tb breathe the pure air, to see the
bright sky above them, to enjoy the delights of country life,
of becoming raiment, and nourishing food.
When the weather permits, the women are required to spend
the greater part of their time in the open air engaged in suita-
ble employment, such as caring for the lawns, tending the gar-
dens, planting seeds and flowers, picking fruit, etc. When the
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368 The Temperance MOVEMENT IN England. [June,
weather is unfavorable for outdoor work, they engage in house-
hold duties, assort seeds, make embroidery and linen goods.
Each one is assigned work in keeping, as far as possible, with
the requirements of her case. The individual needs are never
for a moment lost sight of, for it is a cardinal principle of the
Farm Colony that drunkenness is not only a moral but a phy-
sical evil, and in their treatment of its victims they strive to
imitate the example of the Saviour, " the keynote of whose
gospel is His teaching of the infinite value of the individual."
As a result of this judicious care the. physical system is
built up and strengthened while the requisite moral and spiri-
tual regeneration is taking place. The shattered, depraved
wrecks of a once noble and innocent womanhood that find their
way to this refuge among the Surrey hills are restored, as far
as restoration is possible, to lives of usefulness and purity.
Many of these outcasts, whom the ordinary prison discipline
would only have confirmed in their evil ways, go forth after
their sojourn at the Farm Colony with their once cherished
ideals and aspirations restored, and assume once again the
duties of life with hearts chastened and purified, determined to
glean for themselves whatever of good the years to come may
hold in store.
That the value of the Farm Colony as a factor in the work
of social reform has been recognized is attested by the fact that
in one year the managers were forced, through lack of accom-
modation, to refuse admission to three thousand inebriate
women. That it serves the purpose its promoters hoped to
attain is evidenced by the records which show that sixty- five
per cent, of those admitted are permanently cured of their
craving for intoxicants, and, after dismissal, lead lives of so-
briety and righteousness.
This brief resume of some of the more important measures
adopted by English temperance workers will attain the end
sought in presenting it if it leads us, from time to time, to
take even a hurried survey of what others are doing to com-
bat the drink evil. Nothing can widen the horizon of our
mental vision more than to know and appreciate at their full
value the labors of others who are as interested as we in the
noble cause of temperance reform.
5/. Paul, Minn.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. 369
ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D.
[O a serious student of the history of science and
the lives of scientific men it becomes very
tiresome after awhile to hear it so constantly
said that science is practically always, and in-
deed almost inevitably, associated with unortho-
doxy in religious views. The frequent repetition of this view
has given rise to quite a general impression that men who
devote themselves to scientific investigation are almost sure to
lose their faith. Of course it is admitted that astronomy, be-
cause of the traditions of orthodoxy in the science itself and
the supreme impressiveness and grandeur of the objects with
the endless immensities of space which are the subject-matter
of astronomical study, is not so likely to do this. With this
solitary exception, however, modern science is supposed to be
distinctly unorthodox in its tendencies, and the name scientist
to most people is almost synonymous with unbeliever, or at
least that generally recognized though unacknowledged equiva-
lent for it — agnostic.
This is thought to be particularly true for the science of
biology, the study of life and of living things, with which are
wrapped up so many problems relating to the origin and des-
tiny of man. I have had occasion to show, however, in a
series of papers, that the great master minds of nineteenth
century biology were far from being unchristian or infidel in
thinking. Schwann, the discoverer of the cellular constitution
of all living things, who first taught the great cell doctrine,
the foundation of all modern biology, was a devout Catholic
all his long life, preferring to teach at the Catholic University
of Liege, though many flattering offers of professorships in his
favorite studies came to him from great German universities.
Lamarck, the great modern father of evolution, who long
before Darwin taught the development of beings, one from
another, not because of extrinsic influences but from intrinsic
powers of evolution which, as he insisted, had evidently been
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370 ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [June,
conferred on them by a provident Creator, was buried from
his parish church in Paris at a time when this was a sure
sign that he had died a faithful member of the Catholic
Church. Johann Mueller, whom the Germans delight to call
the father of modern medicine, and who was the iirst to apply
biological methods to medical investigation, was another fer-
vent, faithful Catholic.
There are many others; suffice it to name but two of the
greatest. The first, Claude Bernard, to whom modern physiol-
ogy owes more than perhaps to any other in the nineteenth
century. The great French physiologist, after losing his faith
for a time, came back to die in the church in which he had
been born and brought up. The second, Pasteur, undoubtedly
the greatest of modern biologists, the very incarnation of in-
vestigating genius, whose intuitions never seemed to lead him
astray, the man to whom the world owes modern bacteriology,
with all the lessening of disease and the physical ill which
that implies, was not only a practical Catholic, but was so
deeply imbued with the doctrines of the church that there is
about his relations to his family a pious simplicity that reminds
one more of the mediaeval saint than the modern scientific
investigator. His one consolation at the end of life was to
have his friends read to him from the life of St. Vincent de
Paul, because he hoped that his work, like that of the great
father of modern charity organization, would save suffering
among the poor, especially among the little ones. Besides
these, it must not be forgotten that many of the distinguished
biologists who were not Catholics were yet faithful Christians
and believers, not only in Revelation but also in all that Chris-
tianity means tor the solution of our great social problems,
present and future.
It is not the history of modern biology alone, however,
that furnishes an absolute contradiction to the notion that great
scientific attainments, and especially supreme success in scien-
tific investigation, are incompatible with the most perfect in-
tellectual submission to orthodox religious principles. An
almost more striking example in this regard than that of biol-
ogy is to be found in the history of the science of electricity.
It might well be thought that this department of physics,
which has now come to be considered as an independent
science, is so modern that it must furnish some striking ex-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
igo4.] Electricity AND Orthodoxy. 371
amples in support of the idea that science leads men away
from that attention to other worldly things, which many seem
fain to believe is characteristic only of the poet and dreamer,
and takes from them Faith and Hope according to Christian
teaching. As a matter of fact, however, the great discoverers
in the science of electricity are all of them practically, without
exception, devout, faithful, practical Christians. Volta, to
whom we owe the original discoveries that made the further
investigation of the electrical current possible, and who thus
opened the way for the industrial applications of electricity,
was always a constant and .devout member of the . Catholic
Church. Galvani, who first pointed out the existence of animal
electricity, was almost quixotic in his devotions to Catholic
principles and obedience to the dictates of conscience, even at
material loss to himself. Ampere, the great French father of
magnetic electricity, was quite as faithful a devotee to his re-
ligious practices of piety as he was to his scientific work in
magnetism and electricity.
It is not alone among the Latin nations that this combi-
nation of Christian faith and scientific attainments with suc-
cessful investigation leading to great discovcrief, is found.
Michael Faraday, the great English physicist, to whose dis-
coveries in the department of electricity we owe so much,
though not a Catholic, was an eminently good Christian and a
faithful believer in the care of Providence for the world. Of
Sir - Humphry Davy, Faraday's great predecessor, the same
thing may be said with equal truth. Of the great Scandi-
navian discoverer in electricity, Oersted, whose work proved
such a stimulus to investigators throughout the world, we have
definite proof that he was not only a believer but a public
advocate of all that Christianity meant for humanity and mod-
ern civilization. Of Ohm, whose name is enshrined in elec-
trical terminology, we know that he was a pupil of the Jesuits,
a teacher subsequently at one of their colleges, and a faithful
member of the Catholic Church to the end of his life.
With regard to each of these men we shall furnish definite
quotations from their works that show without any doubt the
truth o£ these assertions. Of course it may be said that these
were the older scientists. There is no doubt that they were
the greatest of scientists in electricity. It is possible, however,
and it may be urged that the modern scientific men who have
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372 ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY, [June,
made a name in electricity, caught up by the rational ideas
which have crept into scienee in the last century, were less
faithful to early Christian training, or abandoned it entirely,
and thus helped to give rise to the tradition that science and
orthodoxy do not go together.
It will not be hard, however, to dispose of this objection.
The modern electricians, that is the really great men in elec-
trical science, have been quite as good Christians as their lore-
bears in the preceding generation who made the great dis-
coveries. Clerk Maxwell, for instance, who had been for many
years before his death the Professor of Experimental Physics
at the University of Cambridge, and who was undoubtedly
the greatest mind that has applied itself to the explanation
of electrical forces by mathematical and physical formulas,
was quite as good a Christian as had been his great English
predecessor in physics, Michael Faraday. Werner von Sie-
mens, who was the scientific head of the famous electrical
firm of Siemens & Halske, and was for long an acknowledged
leader in electrical technology, whose discovery of the princi-
ple of the dynamo machine and an elaboration of the theory
for the submarine cable have given him deservedly a high
place in modern science, did not hesitate, even in a scientific
assemblage not long before his death, to talk of Providence
and the work of Creation, and the wisdom of the Creator, and
the humility of mind that scientific study brought with it in
the presence of so much to know and so little known. The
present dean of the physical sciences, to mention at least one
man who is yet alive, Lord Kelvin, is not only not in any
sense an infidel, he is even something of a controversial Chris-
tian, who insists on the smallness of mind of those who fail to
see God*s handiwork in the things of nature. These are some
of the greatest names at the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth century, and rationalism has failed
utterly to touch them.
ALEXANDER VOLTA.
One of the greatest names in the history of the origins of
modern electricity must ever remain, that of the distinguished
Italian discoverer who first made experimentation with elec-
tricity possible by inventing the apparatus by which a constant
current could be obtained. Once the Voltaic pile had been put
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1904.] Electricity and Orthodoxy, 373
into practical working shape the development of practical elec-
tricity was a matter of course. The apparatus seems very
simple now, but, as a matter of fact, it is one of the most
wonderful discoveries in the whole history of applied science or
mechanical invention. Arago, the distinguished French scientist,
declared that Volta's " pile is the most wonderful instrument
that has ever come from the hand of man, not excluding even
the telescope or the steam engine."
Volta's discovery of this was no mere accident, though the
experimental steps by which he was led on to the manufacture
of it sometimes came to him rather as the result of apparently
chance collocation of metals and fluids than by deliberate
choice of these materials. Volta had, hpwever, the intuition
of genius, and somehow seemed to be able to see farther into
nature's secrets than the generality of men. Before his dis-
covery of the Voltaic pile he had invented the electrophorus,
an instrument by which frictional or static electricity could first
be studied with serious scientific purpose, and had published a
series of papers on electricity which attracted widespread atten-
tion. Among other bits of apparatus he succeeded in con-
structing an electroscope by which to measure electricity.
With this instrument he was able to demonstrate the presence
of minute quantities of electricity, developed under circum-
stances under which ordinarily the occurrence of any such
phenomena would be unsuspected. Instead of the gold leaf
which is now employed he used bits of straw. It was typical
of the man to be able to use simple materials to accomplish
great results even in extremely delicate scientific problems.
He also invented an electrical pistol by means of which gas
could be ignited by an electrical spark, and the energy thus
developed employed to throw a small projectile.
One of the most interesting features of his inventive genius,
however, is the fact that instruments were always theoretically
complete in his mind before he began their construction.
Arago, the distinguished French scientist, whom we have quoted
before, says : " There is not a single one of the discoveries of
Volta which can be said to be the result of chance. Every
instrument with which he has enriched science existed in prin-
ciple in his imagination before ever he or his workmen began
to put it into material shape."
It is not surprising then that Volta should have become
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J74 ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY, f June,
one of the most famous scientists of his time, perhaps the best
known physicist in Europe during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century. Honors were showered upon him ; the
French Academy after welcoming him to its halls, and hearing
his own description of his experiments and discoveries, con-
trary to its usual custom, voted him by acclamation its gold
medal. Napoleon was so much interested in Volta's work that
he not only attended his public demonstrations but spent many
hours- with him afterwards, discussing the development and the
possibilities of electrical science. When, as a reward for his
discoveries, however. Napoleon conferred upon him an annual
income of 3,000 lire from the public purse, which was to be
piaid out of the revenues of a bishopric in Italy, Volta would
not receive it until Napoleon's decree had been confirmed by
the Pope.
Notwithstanding his breadth of interest in scientific subjects
and his complete absorption in scientific investigation Volta never
lost sight of what was to him the one thing necessary. He had
always remained not only a practical Catholic in the ordinary sense
of the word, but what would be called a pious member of the
church. Towards the end of his life he spent several years in
the country making himself beloved by the poor people ol the
neighborhood, who called him II mago Benefico, because of all
he did for them in the midst of the wonderful things that he
had accomplished for electrical science.
While thus living in the country, Volta's piety became a
sort of proverb among the country people. Every morning at
an early hour, in company with his servant, he could be seen
with bowed head making his way to the church. Here he
heard Mass and usually the office of the day, in which all the
canons of the cathedral took part. He had a special place on
the epistle side of the altar, not far from the organ. His
favorite method of prayer was the rosary. He was not infre-
quently held up to the people by the parish priest as a model
of devotion. Whenever he was in the country, every evening
saw him taking his walk toward the church. On these occasions
he was usually accompanied by members of his family, and
they entered the church for an evening visit to the Blessed
Sacrament.
Such was the simple religious faith of a man whose name
was undoubtedly one of the greatest in the history of science.
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1904.] Electricity and Orthodoxy. 375
His name is ever to remain attached to the chapter of applied
science of which he was the creator. His was typically the
mind of the genius ever alert to take that step beyond
the boundaries of the known, which once taken seems so
obvious to succeeding generations, but which only the genius
can take. Volta's scientific greatness only seemed to make
him readier to submit to what are sometimes spoken of as the
shackles of faith, though to him belief in the spiritual appealed
as a completion of knowledge with regard to things beyond the
domain of sense.
SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.
The first great name in the history of electricity in English-
speaking countries is that of Sir Humphry Davy. His first
contribution to electrical chemistry, of inhich he was to be in a
sense the founder, was a communication to the Royal Society
made when he was about twenty- two years of age. Its title
was " An Account of Some Galvanic Combinations Formed by
an Arrangement of Single Metallic Plates and Fluid." In all
the Voltaic piles constructed before this, either two plates of
metal or one of metal and one of charcoal had been employed.
Davy showed that one metal was all that was necessary if two
fluids were employed, one of them acting on one of the sur-
faces of the metal. This was to prove the index of the life-
work for which he was to be famous.
In his first Baker lecture .before the Royal Society he
showed that all electrical phenomena were possible of explana-
tion according to one general law, and illustrated his theory of
electrical action, so far as it could be studied, with Volta's pile
and its constant current by a number of very ingenious experi-
ments. His studies of the law of electro-chemical action proved
especially valuable and suggestive. His principle, that chemical
and electrical contractions are produced by the same cause,
acting in the one case on the particles, in the other on the
masses, has undergone many vicissitudes during the century
since its announcement, but is at the present moment, as the
result of the development of physical chemistry, attracting
even more attention than at any time during the intervening
one hundred years. While Davy was making his investigations
in electricity his discoveries in chemistry were rendering him
famous throughout the world. In 1807 he succeeded in decom-
posing, by means of the electric current, the alkali earths apd
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376
Electricity and Orthodoxy.
[June,
Sir Humphry Davy, 1778-1829.
isolating potassium and sodium. He predicted the existence of
other substances very similar to these ; and, while he himself
was ill during the next year, barium and calcium were dis-
covered by Berzelius and Pontain. After his recovery from his
illness Davy himself completed the work by the discovery of
magnesium and strontium. He was not able to accomplish his
purpose of decomposing aluminium and silica into their constitu-
ents, but he clearly foretold the discoveries of aluminium and
silicon which have since been made.
His discovery of the safety lamps some years later was one
of the most valuable practical inventions of the nineteenth
century, and was perhaps the discovery of which Davy himself
was proudest, since he felt that it saved and would save many
lives every year in the mining districts of the world.
Davy was much more, however, than a mere delver in
science, who happened to come at a time when the discoveries
were almost waiting to be made. He was gifted with a very
high grade of intellectual imagination, which enabled Jiim^Ttp
1904.] ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. 377
foresee what the probable explanation of phenomena were, and
then almost intuitively direct his experimental demonstrations
so as to confirm or disapprove his theories. He was not
twenty-one years of age when he wrote : ** It is only by form-
ing theories and then comparing them with facts .that we can
hope to discover the true system of nature."
His lectures were extremely popular, and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, the great contemporary English man of letters, who
often went to them, said : " I attend Davy's lectures to in-
crease my stock of metaphors." He was wonderfully clear in
his grasp of scientific facts and his capacity for illustrating
their similitude and metaphor. His numerous and brilliant
discoveries stamped him as one of the greatest men of science
of the nineteenth century, and one who was interested not only
in the dry bones of science, but in the relations of ever}rthing
scientific to the world around him and to the thoughts that
troubled men's minds during those years of intellectual incer-
titude that followed the French Revolution.
How faithful a believer in the great principles of religion
was the father of electrical chemistry may be best appreciated
from some expressions of his which are often quoted. In his
last book, written not long before his death, The Last Days
of a Naturalist^ he said: "The influence of religion survives
all earthly consolations. It takes on renewed power as the
organs grow older and the body hastens to its dissolution. It
shines like an evening star on the horizon of life, which we
cannot but feel sure will prove the morning star of another
world, and send its rays through the shadows and darkness of
death."
''The doctrines of the materialists," he said in another
place, " were for me even in my younger days a cold, unsym-
pathetic, obscure, inexplicable teaching. They seemed neces-
sarily to me to lead to atheism. The true chemist sees God
in all the manifold forms of the external world. In the con-
sideration of the variety and beauty around him, the scientist
must ever feel himself necessarily drawn to an admiration for
that Eternal Wisdom whose beneficence has permitted him to
obtain a knowledge of the beauties of this creation. Under
circumstances in which the veil through which the causes of
things are seen becomes thinner, the scientist cannot fail to
admire ever more and more the splendor of the Divine Light
which has made the wonders of creation visible." r^^^^T^
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378 ELECTRICITY AND Orthodoxy. [June,
The last year of his life Davy spent on the Continent in
search of health. He was not an old man, however, as he
died when scarcely more than fifty, and while his bodily con-
dition was so delicate his intellectual powers were at the height
of their maturity. Some quotations, from his diary, kept dur-
ing these days of illness and of introspection, cannot but be
interesting as showing the inmost thoughts of the man and his
consideration of his relations to this world and to his Creator,
and to the next world that he felt himself so soon to enter.
April 6, 1827, he says: "Did not shoot, but returned
thanks to the Great Cause of all being for all His mercies to
me, an undeserving and often ungrateful creature, but now
very grateful. May I become better and more grateful and
more humble- minded every day."
September 2 he writes: " I took my exercise well, with
less fatigue, and certainly feel better. Offered up my thanks-
giving to the O. O. O. (this is always Davy's abbreviation for
the Latin words Omnipotenti, Omniscienti, Omnituenti, the All-
powerful, the All-wise, the All-seeing,) with tears of gratitude
and feelings of intense adoration.''
Septemder 27 he writes, evidently under the influence of
the thought, suggested by the hopelessness of his condition,
that he might shorten his sufferings, and also perhaps some-
what with the idea, in case anything should happen to him,
of forestalling any possibility of a rumor that he had shortened
his existence : ** St. Goar. As I have so often alluded to the
possibility of my dying suddenly, I think it right to mention
that I am too intense a believer in the Supreme Intelligence,
and have too strong a faith in the optimism of the system of
the universe, ever to accelerate my dissolution. The laurtl-
water and laudanum and opium that are in my dressing-case
are medicines. I have been and am taking a care of my health
which I fear it is not worth, but which, hoping it may please
Providence to preserve me for wise purposes, I think my duty.
G. O. O. O. (Gratias Omnipotenti, Omniscienti, Omnituenti, thanks
to the All-powerful, the All-wise, the AU-seeing.)
ALOYSIUS GALVANI.
Volta's great compatriot and contemporary, the man to whose
ground-breaking discovery Volta himself owed some of the
stimulus for his marvellously successful investigations into elec-
tricity, was Galvani. Galvani was a Professor of Anatomy, dis^
Digitize^.
I934-] ELECTRICITY AND Orthodoxy, 379
tinguished as a teacher in the Italian schools at a time when
anatomy was being taught better in Italy than anywhere else
in the world. He was a worthy contemporary for such a man
as Morgagni, to whom Virchow gave the proud title of Father
of Modern Pathology. Like Volta. Galvani was one of the
geniuses who seem to hit upon a discovery by chance, but
who are really distinguished by the fact that an incident that
to some one else would appear trivial, to them proves the
suggestion out of which they develop a whole new series of
thoughts and make a great step in advance in scientific inves-
tigation.
The story of Galvani's discovery, as most frequently told, is
that one day while preparing for his wife, whom he loved very
dearly and who was ill, some frog's legs, a delicacy .which she liked
very much, he noticed that when he touched with a metallic
instrument the end of the sciatic nerve — the main nervous trunk in
the leg. which was of course laid bare during the preparation for
cooking — and brought the other end of the metal instrument in
contact with the bared muscle of the frog, twitchings took place.
This was the hint out of which Galvani developed a whole new
system of thought and gave to the world the fundamental idea
of animal electricity. He suggested as an explanation for the
twitchings the existence in the animal economy of a special
form of electricity which he considered to be of great impor-
tance in assisting in the performance of many vital functions.
Especially does he seem to have felt that somehow the con-
nection between nerve and muscle had an electrical element
in it, and that the study of electricity in the tissues would
prove of great help in the explanation of many hitherto obscure
physiological problems.
For nearly a century the full significance of Galvani's work was
not understood, and his own generation and immediately succeed-
ing generations refused to accept his conclusions or even to
find them of serious suggestive value. Towards the middle of
the nineteenth century, however, his intuitions began to be
recognized as important basic principles in physiology, and now
no one is more appreciated as a great ground-breaking inves-
tigator, who, in the midst of his work in anatomy, could recog-
nize the significance of important facts in a cognate science
and continue the observations necessary to show their bearings.
On the other hand, his name has been enshrined in the science
of electricity in the term Galvanism ; and not S^ij|J|pjit(^^f)^^
38o ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [June,
son, since it is due to his studies, and the enthusiasm for investiga-
tion along this line aroused by his announcements, that the
rising science of electricity developed so well at the beginning
of the nineteenth century.
While thus a scientific genius of high order, Galvani
remained ever a simple, sincere, fervent Catholic. He seems
to have been quite as proud to have been a member of the
Third Order of St. Francis as to be a member of many impor-
tant scientific bodies throughout Europe, which extended
honorary membership to him because of his discoveries. On
the other hand, his was no theoretic Christianity, and princi-
ples meant so much for him that there are those who would
think that perhaps he even went too far in the practical appli-
cation of a refined morality to his own case. He had been a
professor at one of the Italian universities before Napoleon's
invasion of Italy. When the old government was overthrown,
and the newly created Cis- Alpine Republic took charge of
affairs in North Italy, Galvani refused to take the oath of alle-
giance to the de facto government, as he considered he owed
his allegiance to the previously constituted authority. The new
government accordingly refused to restore Galvani to his pro-
fessorship in the university. It was only after he had suffered
for several years because of his refusal that friends finally
succeeded in having him offered the emeritus professorship
under such circumstances as would not offend his conscientious
scruples.
Galvani's character was such that he was beloved by his
friends, and was considered as one of the most charitable of
men. He seems almost to have made it a point never to give
a lecture without in some way showing how much the things
of nature recalled the great Creator, and how Providence was
concerned in the maintenance of the order of nature. All this,
however, was done with a simplicity and humility that
brought it home to his hearers without arousing any of that
mental opposition that so naturally seen^s to make itself felt
under the constant repetition of these great truths.
MICHAEL FARADAY.
One of the greatest of the original contributors to electrical
knowledge is Michael Faraday, the Englishman, of whom Tyndall
said — and surely no one was better able than he to judge in
the matter — that, taken all in all, Michael Faraday was the
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I904.]
ELECntfCITY AND OUTHODOXY.
381
Michael Faraday. 1791-1867.
greatest experimenter that the world has ever seen. The great
German physiologist, Du.Bois Reymond, re-echoed this when
he gave him the title of the greatest experimenter of his time,
and the greatest physical discoverer of ail times. The dis-
tinguished French chemist, J. B. Dumas, said, in delivering his
panegyric on Faraday, that in order to give a picture of what
he had accomplished in the science of electricity, one would
have to write a complete treatise on the subject. There is
nothing in this branch of science that Faraday has not investi-
gated, and either perfected or set on its way to development.
Much of the theoretic foundation of it was actually laid by
him and belongs undeniably to his greatness of mind. If any
one wants to realize how great Faraday was, let him read
Tyndall's essay on Faraday as a discoverer, London, 1868, and
VOL. Lxxix.— 25 ^ J
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382 ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [June,
find how the science of electricity is everywhere interpenetrated
with Faraday's ideas.
Faraday's religious ideas were as clear-cut, as straight-
forward, as penetrating, and smacked as little of self-deception
as the logical notions that enabled him to make his great
experiments and carry them out to a successful issue. He
belonged to the English sect of Protestants known as Glassites,
a body of nonconformists who believe in the God-head of
Christ and consider that this belief is a special gift of God, the
fruit and testimony of which is to be exhibited in obedience
to Christ's law. Faraday was not only a member of the sect,
but he became one of the elders and occasionally delivered
sermons, the sketches for which are still extant.
The core of his ideas with regard to the relationship
between science and religion is best outlined by the words
which his biographer quotes from one of his sermons. The
natural works of God can never by any possibility come in
contradiction with the higher things that belong to our future
existence, and must, with everything concerning them, ever glorify
him. Another expression was, '* Therefore our philosophy, while
it shows us the3e things, should lead us to think of Him who
wrought them, for it is said by an authority even far above
that which these works present that the invisible things of
him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made ; his external power
also and divinity."
It is very clear that Faraday, with all his deep interest in
science and his wonderful capacity for unravelling its mysteries,
never saw any conflict between the principles of science and
those of religion. He once said : " I have never seen anything
incompatible between those things of man which are within him
and those higher things concerning his future which he cannot
know by that spirit." In a word, he seems to have realized
deeply that doubts and difficulties from the weakness of man's
intellect are inevitable, and yet the higher things that are
known by faith are capable of lifting a man up above this
plane of weak humanity into a region of higher truth founded
on faith.
HANS CHRISTIAN OERSTED.
One of the most curious things in the history of science is
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1904.] Electricity and Orthodoxy. 383
the wide distribution of geographical area over which the steps
of scientific progress may follow one another. Volta and
Galvani's discoveries, so closely related, were made in Italy, and
it might not unnaturally have been expected that further im^
portant discoveries would come in Italy. As a matter of fact,
however, they came, as we have seen, from Davy and Faraday
in England. Just when the scientific world must have had its
expectations aroused with regard to the probability of further
discoveries from England came the announcement that a scien-
tist working at the distant north of Europe, Professor Hans
Christian Oersted, at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark,
had made a ground-breaking discovery, which definitely con-
nected magnetism and electricity. His discovery consisted in
the observation that if wire, through which a current of elec-
tricity was flowing, were placed above a magnetic needle, as,
for instance, that of an ordinary compass, there was a deflection
of the needle just in proportion to the strength of the current.
The simple demonstration laid the firm foundation of the science
of magneto- electricity. As the result the name of Oersted
is deservedly one of the most distinguished in modern electricity.
His great work met with immediate recognition all over
Europe and was confirmed by many physicists in a very short
time. He was an extremely patriotic man and strove to make
his country, Denmark, prominent in science. He was indeed
proud of his discovery, mainly because of the glory it brought
to Denmark. His fellow-countrymen repaid these patriotic
fedings by honors and memorials of many kinds. At Copen-
hagen there are two monuments to him, each of them given
an important place. Besides, a park is very appropriately
named after him, for Oersted was a great lover of nature and
a devotee of nature study. His most frequent expression,
however, was that nature must lead up to nature's God, and
that it was impossible to understand how men could study
nature and fail to see the hand of the Creator originating it
and the arm of Providence constantly directing it.
At the celebration of the tenth centenary of the introduc-
tion of Christianity into Denmark, Oersted was selected to
take part, and chose for the subject of his address the influence
of Christianity on science. " I may be permitted," he said,
"speaking in the name of the whole university, to illustrate
how much Christianity has helped science and intellectual de-
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2^4 ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [June,
vclopmeht, and how on the other hand it has been helped by
these. - Enemies of Christianity and of science and revelation
hav£ often endeavored to obscure this great truth. Generation
after generation, however, has been persuaded that truth can
nev^'be-at war with itself, and that our best and most zeal-
oui: efforts should be given to setting forth their entire accord-
ance,- ill order that the less firm friends of Christianity may
Hans Christian Oersted, 1777-1851.
iiDt be disturbed by the distracting asseverations of pseudo-
scientiste, or be led away from the right path." " No other
rfeHgron -in the world," he says, a little farther on, "can in
thiir respect be compared with ours. Most other religions have
taikeh- up a. hostile relation to the mental development of the
humanj race. Our holy Christian religion, however, on the
contrary^ attaches itself most intimately to this development.
In nsast traces the conflict that has been supposed to exist be-
tween: -Ghrtstianity and scientific discovery has only been a
q.uestion of human misunderstanding, on the one hand, or the
reatdt ofra too thoughtless license in the expression of the
extent to which scientific discovery had gone."
With Oersted it was a favorite maxim that "nature led up
to God." He went so far as to say that every investigation
of- natural phenomena, carried to its ultimate extent, leads men
inevitably to the knowledge of God. He even planned a
special' ^ork in which this thought should be developed.
"Existence," he said, "is the unending work of God, in which
his eternal, perfect wisdom, which has never changed, is every-
where displayed. In my opinion this ever consentaneous effect
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1904.] ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. <^
of divine wisdom and its eternal similitude to itself is one of
the great laws of nature. From the greatness of nature we
can learn that we are as nothing against God, and only some-
thing through God."
In a sort of diary that he kept for himself occur the fol-
lowing expressions:
" Make thy representation of God as lively as possible.
The more you accomplish this purpose, the more will you feel
God to be a friend. Your soul will learn to depeifcil a| God
as on the source of all good. You will be able;'4oR |ay to
yourself 'I love God/ so far as this term expressive' t^^^
feeling can possibly represent the exalted state of m ind uP 'which
there is question when you use the expression." As a -matter of
fact Oersted's relations to the Deity would seem to haviff-been as
intimate almost as those of many a saint who has b^eft' canon-
ized. It is surprising to think that in the midst of'Ki^ mani-
fold scientific labors he should have found time /for almost
mystical contemplations that show the depth of his. Religious
feeling, apd that were very practically illustrated tqf ,jt^^ blame-
less life during which he won for himself the friendship of all
those around him. Lj ~.
We have thus seen that the great scientific genius^:ijk) whom
we owe the foundations of electricity, the first' important
ground-breaking discoveries in the departments*- ^V- animal
electricity, voltaic electricity, the connection between Neiectricily
and chemistry, between electricity and certain physical liranifesta-
tions, and also between electricity and magnetism,/weYe all of
them sincere, simple-minded believers in the great reTi^ioys truths
which have so influenced mankind, and were practical religious
followers of their beliefs, proud of the name of Christians, and
glad to be helpful to others in the matter of faith in religious
mysteries. It might be thought that these men lived before
the modern sceptical spirit had invaded science, or ^that^erhaps
it was the later logical deductions from their discoveries which
led men into materialism. We shall see, howev^jC) in: a suc-
ceeding paper that the great electrical scientists iwha/followed
the founders, and who have led electrical science up to it^ modern
acme of development, were practically all of them,' ^itkout ex-
ception, quite as firm believers in religious truth arid quite as
devoted adherents of religious principles as wefe- tfrerr great
predecessors in this department of physical science^. * '
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386 Cor PARVULL [June,
Cor Parvuli.
BY WILFRID WILBERFORCE.
)RLD-wom and sad, I gazed upon the cot
Whereon was stretched, deep in his sinless sleep,
Our only child, my golden-headed boy.
My eyes were hot and heavy— and my heart;
And yet I could not sleep, for hideous fears.
And sordid thoughts that weary iterance keep,
And horror of successless months and years,
The consciousness of wasted powers, and sin.
The shuddering dread of swift-approaching death ; —
All these tormented me, and banished sleep.
Sudden, there came a whimper from the child;
His sleep found danger in some harmless sound >
Out shot his little hands, as seeking help.
And fell on mine. He clutched them to his breast.
And held them there in soft, warm, close embrace.
Oh! was it Heaven? For, at that gentle touch.
My harassed, weary soul was cleansed from doubt,
My mind broke free from carking worldly care;
And in my fancy troops of Angels soared
Within me and around — compelling thought
Of what was holy, joyous, and sublime ;
And peace undreamed-of calmly wrapped me round,
And happiness surged o'er me like the sea.
A restful sigh, and once more moved the child,
Turning his back, and spurning now my hands.
The spell was broken ! Back came all the care,
The fears, the doubts, the sordid earthly aims.
For one brief moment God had let me share
The sanctity, the innocence, the bliss
Which Angels bring us ere our first consent
To Satan's whisper. ''O Great God,'' I thought,
** And may such raptures be again our own?
Ah, not till Heaven is reached, when — saved by fire.
We stand like sinless babes before Thy Throne."
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1904.] Trinity College and Higher Educa tion. 387
TRINITY COLLEGE AND HIGHER EDUCATION.
BY M. McDEVITT.
{[HE battle for higher education of women has
been fought for many years in this country,
but it is only within the last few decades that
it has met with the approval that it deserves.
In most countries the position of the average
woman has not, until recent times, demanded any unusual
mental training. Her education was restricted ; she was unlet-
tered, and content to be so, knowing that such was her fate.
As this statement is made, the mind will probably travel back
through the centuries and recall the names of Sappho, Aspasia,
Cornelia, Catherine of Siena, and Vittoria Colonna, women
whose literary ability and profound learning, social and politi-
cal influence, austerity and self- sacrifice, made each the pride
of her age. But it must not be forgotten that these women
were altogether exceptional in ability. In another respect, too,
their condition was exceptional, inasmuch as they met with
no opposition in their pursuit of knowledge. In those days
there was little mental competition between man and woman.
In modern times, when the latter attempted to follow the
same university courses, and enter upon the same professional
careers as man, opposition became strong, and the discussion
waxed hot as to whether or not woman should be permitted
the advantages of higher education.
Those inimical to the movement in favor of collegiate edu-
cation for woman said she is incapable of strenuous mental
exertion; that, by her very nature, she is unfitted to follow
the same university course as man, and that even if she were
able to withstand the mental strain, the physical strain would
undermine her constitution. The success of woman in all
grades of life proves how unfounded is the first objection ;
experience both here and in England has shown that women
study more easily than men, and maintain a slightly higher
level of proficiency. As to the second objection, why should
woman not receive the same education as man ? If she is to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
388 TRINITY COLLEGE AND HIGHER ED UCA TION. [June,
compete with him in the practice of the same trade or profes-
sion, if she is to do anything under the same conditions and
with the same object as man, why should there be any differ-
ence in their preliminary training ? As to the third and last
objection, arguments pro and con. concerning it were stated for
years until the answer which practically closed the discussion
came through the efforts of the Association of Collegiate
Alumnae, whose statistics and data, collected by the Massachu-
setts Bureau of Labor Statistics, gave woman reason to be
thankful that one form of opposition was removed from her
path. Gradually all opposition gave way to approval ; people
began to realize that the question of education has reference
to vocation and destiny, that it is a preparation for an end.
The education of woman involves her chosen state of life ; if
she is a good woman, this becomes more perfect as her educa-
tion becomes more perfect.
This question of higher education for women is by no means
a new one; it has been ' agitated abroad for years, and Ameri-
can women are but following the example of their European
sisters when they demand an education equal to that of their
brothers. Let us see how this movement has succeeded
abroad.
Germany was the last European nation to open her univer-
sity doors to women. England was the first, and her example
was speedily followed by other foreign countries. The first
traces of this movement may be found as early as the last
century, when influential people tried to elevate the standard of
girls' education by first establishing institutions that would im-
prove the professional preparation of teachers. As a result.
Queen's College was established in London in 1848, and Bed-
ford College in 1849. I'he women 'of England realized that,
if they wished the movement to succeed, they must have the
best the country had to offer them, they must aspire to a uni-
versity career. In 1869 it was decided to open university
courses* to women ; a house was rented near Cambridge, and
this was the beginning of Girton College, which was opened
in 1872. Soon after Ne'wnham College was commenced at
Cambridge, and two- similar institutions were founded at Oxford.
In 1878 London University opened all its grades to women.
England's example was not followed immediately by Ameri-
ca, although the progress of the movement, when once beg^n.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
. 1904.] Trinity College and Higher Educa tion. 389
was steady and sure. At first the American girl received in-
tellectuah training of a high degree, but without system or
recognition. This did not discourage her, however, but made
her more determined to have an education that would put her
oil the same intellectual plane as man. The result was that
Vassar was founded in 1861, Smith in 1875, Wellesley in 1875,
Bryh Mawr in 1880, and Radcliife in 1879. Thus did col-
legiate training for women receive an assured place in modern
educational activities.
It would have been very strange if the Catholic girl had
hesitated to join in this demand for higher education. She is
as truly an American girl as any other, of an equally demo-
cratic and independent spirit, possessing ambition, persever-
ance, and brilliancy, and it was not to be expected that there
should be any difference in thirst for knowledge. Again, it
was impossible that the Catholic Church should fail either to
recdgnize the importance of such a movement, or to exercise
supervision and active interest in a work so affecting the moral
and religious life as education. She ever rises to the require-
ments of the age and keeps abreast of a nation's progress,
whether it be along social, educational, or religious lines. No
historical fact has better foundation than that the Catholic
Church has at all times fostered education. She founded and
endowed the great European universities of Oxford and Paris,
and was the first to establish common schools for the free
education of the people. As she has always distinguished her-
self in this manner, it was to be anticipated that she would
further the movement for collegiate education for women.
This came true. Her attitude being favorable, she set to work
to put her theories into practice, with the result that, with the
co-operation of learned, brilliant, far-sighted, enthusiastic men.
Trinity College was founded in 1900 by Sister Julia, late Pro-
vincial of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.
Although now generally approved, it was to be expected
that, at the first, this institution would experience opposition.
We grow so accust6med to the routine of life, that any inno-
vation, even in education, is sure to call forth some dissenting
voices. These were raised loud in protestation against Trinity
College, only to be counteracted by the favorable utterances
of meil who realized the dangers to which the faith of Catho-
lic girls is exposed in other colleges, and the necessity of a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
390 TRINITY College and Higher Educa tion. [June,
college of their own; and so the college was founded, and in
this present month is about to confer degrees for the first
time.
The aim of Trinity College is to give the student a thor-
ough and well-rounded education in the sciences, philosophy,
literature, and the languages, developing in her breadth of
mind and ability to cope successfully with the great problems
of the day. It aims to combine intellectual, social, and re-
ligious training in such a manner that she may see the two
sides of a question fairly and without prejudice; that she may
be a useful ornament in society and an example worthy of
imitation; that she may be in the world, but not of the
" world worldly." The life of the Trinity student does not
differ materially from that of any other college grirl. She
studies the same subjects, has the same amusements, her
Glee and Mandolin Clubs, and enjoys her literary and drama-
tic societies — in short, she is a good American college girl.
In religious matters the Trinity College girl has a dislike
for unwarranted display. The religious ideal presented to her
is an enlightened one, and the spontaneity of the student in
responding to suggestions as to the performance of her religious
duties shows greater wisdom, and is productive of better and
more .satisfactory results, than would be found were she bound
down by iron-clad rules and regulations.
As yet the government of the student body is in the hands
of the faculty ; the good old conservative spirit being shown in
the slow growth of the movement to establish self-government,
the first feeble steps towards which were taken in the institu-
tion of the Student's Advisory Board and the ofHce of proctor.
There is every reason to believe that Trinity College will
succeed in the great work it has undertaken, and although it
is too young to have already attained the high eminence at
which it aims, we find in the zealous co-operation of professors
and students, bright promise of future success. Intellectual
triumph seems certain because of the erudition and ability of
its teaching staff, which includes Notre Dame religious who
studied for years in preparation, and who have received degrees
from European universities, including Oxford and Cambridge.
Although not affiliated with the Catholic University, as has
been sometimes affirmed, the college has the honor to claim as
members of its faculty some of the University's most learned
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904-1 . Trinity College and Higher Education.. 391
professors, men of the highest repute in Europe and America,
who, from the very beginning, have given valuable assist-
ance. The efforts of the professors, however, would be of
comparatively little avail if they were not supplemented by a
corresponding zeal and enthusiasm for work on the part of the
.students. That enthusiasm is not wanting.
Another indication of Trinity's future success and renown is
to be found in the fact that she is ready and anxious to adopt
the best and latest in educational methods that will contribute
to the welfare of her students. To cite an instance in passing,
all those who have attained a sufficiently high average in their
daily work are exempted from those bugbears of students the
world over — semester examinations.
The great advantage of the modern college education lies
less in the amount of knowledge gained than at first appears.
We rejoice in our understanding of science and philosophy, our
appreciation of prose and poetry, our ability to read Latin, to
speak French, German, and Italian, but more than these we
should value the opportunities to gain mental force and solidity,
to develop the reasoning powers and a deeper insight into
human nature; in a word, to become educated, able Catholic
women. In reviewing all that Trinity has accomplished in the
four short years of its life, the senior passing with the first
group from out its gates, and bidding it God-speed, is filled
with the assurance that its past achievements are but an
earnest of what the future will bring in measure manifold.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
392 THE Report of the mosely Commission. [June,
NOTES ON THE ^REPORT OF THE MOSELY COMMISSION.
/ I.
-VERY one interested in educational movements
will attach great importance to the report of
the Mosely Commission, which has recently
been issued, although the most important part
of all education has been omitted from the in-
quiry — that is to say, religious education. This perhaps cannot
be wondered at, for the sender of the Commission and the
payer of its expenses is a business man who, like so many
others, looks upon business interests and worldly prosperity,
not merely as supremely but as exclusively worth attention.
Yet it is impossible to be neutral as to religion, for every one
who is not for it is against it; and so the commissioners, in
the brief joint report which is prefixed to the individual re-
ports, note it as their opinion that the absence of the religious
difficulty in American schools materially facilitates the work of
the schools.. This is an indication not of any special animus
against religion, but of the end and scope of the inquiry, which
was, how far the system of education established in the United
States is responsible for the industrial progress of the country.
Leaving on one side, therefore, the question of religious
education, the commissioners make their report upon education
viewed merely as a means for fitting out boys and girls in the
best way for a life devoted to merely worldly, material ends.
It is a significant sign of the times that this should be thought
to be the question most of all worth investigation — a clear in-
dication of the present supremacy of material interests. We
must, however, take the world as it is, and as the United
States glory in their commercial prosperity, how far this indus-
trial success is due to the school system so firmly established
is a question worthy of investigation. For until it becomes
more generally recognized than it now is, or is at all likely
soon to be, that worldly prosperity is not the one worthy end
of life; if the secular system of education now established is
found to be the one best adapted to the attainment of that
universally accepted end, there is but little hope of a better
one becoming feasible. To this question then, as to what is
the direct influence of education upon industrial greatness, the
-.digitized byV
1904.] The Report of the Mosely Commission, 393
answers given by the commissioners are of great interest ;
they are not, however, in perfect agreement. Father Fin-
lay, the one Catholic on the commission — so far, at all events,
as we are aware — thinks there is no direct influence. '* Ameri-v
ca*s industry is what it is, primarily, because of the boundless
energy, restless enterprise, and the capacity for strenuous
work with which her people are endowed. . . . The schools
have not made the people what they are; being what they
are, they made the schools^"
Mr. Fletcher, recently chosen to be the chief inspector of
secondary education in England, does not believe '' that to any
notable extent education has b»en the cause of American indus-
trial success." On the other hand, Mr. Whitburn, one of the
representatives of the school boards which have up to a recent
date controlled English primary education, considers that ''the
public-school system has very materially affected the economic
progress of the American nation."
Dr. Gray, a representative of English secondary schools,
thinks that if the question had been asked a quarter of a cen-
tury ago the answer would certainly have been in the negative.
The system of education was primarily an effect of industrial
progress, not a cause. It is, however, becoming every day
more and more a cause. The Rev. T. L. Papillon, one of the
representatives of university education, thinks that there are
other equally potent causes of American success: "The
energy, hustle, and inventiveness of the American character ;
the early hours and the absorbing claims of business; the uni-
versal high pressure race for wealth ; the close bond between
employers and employed, and readiness to act upon the view
that capital and labor have common and not antagonistic inter-
ests; and I am afraid that we English must add, the greater
sobriety of all classes among them; these are pushing America
to the front. . . . My answer to the general question is, that
education, though a contributory cause, has not hitherto been the
chief cause of American industrial progress. It has shared,
and is sharing, in that progress." Dr. Reichel, principal of
the University College of North Wales, similarly looks upon
the remarkable progress of the last thirty years as due to edu-
cation not as the prime cause, but as a powerful contributory
cause; for the maintenance of that progress he looks upon the
present system as essential. Dr. Reichel quotes an opinion
of Dr. Eliot of Harvard, to the effect that the influence of
Digitized by VjOOQIC
394 The Report of the Mosely Commission. [June,
the educational system on national vigor and enterprise is
rather indirect; that those qualities sprang from the original
Puritan spirit of social and religious freedom, and the mobility
of society which cesulted from them. Surely this is a strange
characterization of the Puritan spirit, for it would certainly be
hard to find a more stringent system than that established by
the Puritans. The view of the commissioners as a whole seems
to be that the established system cannot be looked upon as
more than one of many causes of the industrial success
attained by the American people. Industrial progress, however,
in their judgment can neither be maintained nor have a further
growth without it. The commis^oners testify to the universal
belief of Americans that the established system is fundamental
to democratic civilization, and the secret of any superiority
which American institutions may possess is due, they think, to
this universal belief in the value of education. ''There," Mr.
Papillon says, "lies the real driving power. If American edu-
cation is to day alert, vigorous, progressive, and popular, it is
because the people love to have it so, because they hav.e
recognized that education is a vital necessity for national well-
being, and the most remunerative investment of public money."
Mr. H. Thiselton Mark, in his Report on Moral Education
in American schools, included in the Special Reports on
Education Subjects published by the English Board of Educa-
tion, attributes to the American schools a higher aim. The
public school is the one common centre of enlightenment and
social uplifting, as the church used to be before it was broken
up into sects. The school thus comes to be, in the words of
the United States Commissioner of Education, " the symbol of
an eternal, unifying spirit."
President Roosevelt, however, in this as in many other
instances, seems to have a clearer perception of .the real truth
than is common, or, at all events, a greater courage in
giving utterance to it. He told the Mosely Commissioners, on
the occasion of his reception of them, that education would
not save the nation, but no nation could be saved without
education. This epigrammatic utterance of the President deserves
greater attention than it has yet received, and is in harmony
with the warning which he recently gave on the diminishing
birth-rate. For what can an education which has for its end
merely the attainment of wealth and worldly prosperity ac-
complish for the real strength of the nation ? Religious educa-
I904.] THE REPORT OF THE MOSELY COMMISSION. 395
tion would undoubtedly save the nation; but an education
which sets aside the highest aims must, have lower aims, and
those lower aims degrade and deprave the people. Even at
this early stage of the nation's growth the inordinate pursuit of
wealth, which is the necessary outcome, and in fact the aim and
end, of a secular system of education, has resulted first in the
formation of the vast system of trusts which is placing that
very wealth in the hands of the very few, thus forming a
danger to the political stability of the country, and secondly, in
that system of regulation of the birth-rate which, if persisted in,
will either leave the schools without any children to attend them,
or will permit them to be filled by the children of those very
foreigners the Americanization of whom has been their chief ob-
ject The effects of the pursuit of the comfort which results from
wealth, as of making this comfort the end and aim of life, have
been well and clearly shown by Mrs. Commander in a recent num-
ber of the Independent. This article deals with every- day facts
as observed in New York City. Benjamin Franklin calculated
that in the year 1900 there would be in the United States
100,000,000 descendants of the settlers of his own days, the
basis of the calculation being the average family at that time.
By the last census, in 1900, there were 76,000,000 in all; of
these 11,000,000 are foreign-born, and 13,000,000 are the children
of foreign-born, so that the population has increased by scarcely
more than one- half of what Franklin expected ; that is to say,
the American family has had four children only on an average,
instead of eight And this is twice the present ideal size of an
American family. Mrs. Commander bears witness that of the
thirty-eight physicians in New York whom she consulted, and
who were willing to discuss the matter, thirty said that the ideal
American family was two — a boy and a girl ; six said, one ;
another said that having a family at all was not an American
ideal. There was only one who said that a willingness existed
to have five or six children, and this statement was subsequently
qualified. This ideal and the effectual realization of it is
common to rich and to poor, and the immigrants who arrive
on these shores are quickly accepting the American practice.
Nor is any shame felt at either the theory or the practice.
One doctor said: ''The foreign-born who begin to learn self-
respect and American ideas invariably wish to restrict their
families. . . . (Those who do not) form the poorest possible
material for making Americans." Another physician who has
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396 THE REJPORT OF THE MOSELY COMMISSION. [June,
practised in New York for twenty years among well-off Ameri-
cans is quoted by Mrs. Commander as saying that nowadays
the mother of a large family feels humiliated. "She is really
an object of ridicule. People laugh at her at best, and blame her
if she is poor. Society does not approve of a large family of chil-
dren." In Mrs. Commander's own words, '' the opposition to large
families is not only individual but social. Not only do people
object to large families for themselves, they do not want others
to have them. Americans disapprove of the large family as a
social institution. They dislike to see it and condemn its
existence. The producers of large families are considered
rather in the light of social enemies than social benefactors.
Childlessness is no longer considered a disgrace or a mis-
fortune." The existence of this evil has been long known;
it is as the outcome of the secular, non-religious education, and
of the inadequate education which, the sects give, that it is
worthy of attention.
In this connection we wish to point out that although, as
the Mbsely Commissioners declare^ the absence of the religious
difficulty may facilitate administrative arrangements, and even
contribute to the excellence of a merely secular education, yet it
is conducive to the spread of an evil which is sapping the very
vitals of the nation.
We do not wish to say, and we do not believe, that this
practice is taught directly and exfdicitly in the public schools.
We will go farther, and say that it is not even the indirect
outcome of that teaching; its source and spring are the false
ideal and aim of the people, whose will it is to have the
schools what they are. This aim is predominantly worldly;
success, comfort, and prosperity are indispensable; the schools
are means fashioned for that end. But if a country and a
nation are to be saved, even in this world, higher ends are
necessary, and for those higher ends schools of another char-
acter are necessary. The end of man is not merely the attain-
ment of comfort in this life. He is called upon to endure
hardships as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and any system of
education which is indifferent to this, nay more, any system
of education which does not make the inculcation of Christian
teaching in its entirety a part and parcel of its daily work, is
contributing to the ruin both of the individual and the nation.
It may not appear so to-day, although what has been said
above makes it pretty clear, even to-day, that sbiameful prac-
Digitized by VjOC
1904.] The Report of the Mosely Commission, 397
tices are not only tolerated but even commended. Oliver Wen-
del Holmes is reported to have said that the training of the
child should begin a hundred years before it was born, and
according to the scientific notion of our day, it does so begin.
We are reaping in our degree the harvest of the past; our
descendants will reap a harvest of a still more dismal char-
acter. Mrs. Commander's authorities, the physicians whom she
consulted, expatiated on the intelligence of those who limited
the number of their offspring, the observers of the law of God
were ranked by these sapient advisers among the unintelli*
gent, as persons with no sense of responsibility.
One of the Mosely Commissioners stated that the rewards
of the pursuit of wealth in this country are so great that all
the abler among the young men enter upon commercial and
industrial careers, rather than into the professions generally
called liberal. Perhaps the fact that reputable physicians give
such advice, is to be considered as one of the consequences of
the inferiority of mind of some of those who become doctors.
For if anything is evident to the disinterested student of social
questions, it is the disastrous consequences of this practice to
the individual, the family, and the nation. Students and scien-
tific men are well aware of the fact that it is the cause of'
lunacy, and that a steady increase of the number of idiots is
its consequence. The children who are spared, so far from
being bettered, even physically, are in many cases weak, neu-
rotic, and in a special way liable to alcoholism and criminality,
brain- weakness and mental disease; and for the nation a natu-
ral consequence is that, if the better educated become less
numerous through practices of this kind, the less well educated
will become more numerous, and in our day, in which the
majority rules, the care of the state and the welfare of the
nation will devolve upon those who are less well fitted, through
want of education, to have this power.
It is more than interesting to note at the present time,
when the achievements of Japan are in the thoughts of every
one, that although she is one of the oldest of nations, her
strength has increased, not departed, and that her' power is
the direct outcome of her power of increase. One of her
most prominent men is reported to have said recently: ''Japaa
is in no danger of race- suicide. . . . The workers are not
shirking maternity, as in other lands, and the result is that we
VOL. LXXIX.— 26 ^ J
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
398 The Report of the Mosely Commission, [June.
can spare half a million of men a year for an indefinite number
of years and not miss them." This is scarcely the way in
which a Christian would put it, but this only shows that the
Japanese have some of the natural virtues, even if they have not
the Christian. A practice which has its origin in the desire to
shun work, necessarily degrades the character. A moral de-
terioration follows, and in proportion to the degree in which it
spreads the weakness of the nation grows, the reign of the
brute waxes stronger, and the age of decadence has begun.
The education of the children becomes debased and stunted.
As has been well said: '^A solitary child, brought up in the
midst of solitary children, becomes necessarily isolated and self-
centered; reared in greater comfort or comparative luxury,
with no brothers or sisters of a similar age to rub off its
angles and selfishness, it is ill -prepared for every step of the
succeeding battle of life."
The truth is, that no education which neglects religious in-
struction can do more than sharpen and render more potent
for evil the lower elements of man. It is not enough that
toleration is accorded to religion. To be indifferent to the
religious upbringing of the young is a fatal error, the effects
of which error are now becoming evident even to those who
do not wish to see. And although there are many things
which are worthy of the highest praise in the present organ-
ization of society, especially the multitudinous and manifold
institutions which conduce to the temporal well-being of the
people and of the poor, yet there is lacking that one thing
necessary which the Church alone is faithful in proclaiming;
and that one thing is that the first step in all true progress is
to give to the law of God, because it is the law of God,
unquestioning obedience. All things are to be restored but in
Christ and through His Church. Mere humanitarianism, how-
ever attractive and beneficial in many ways, leaves out what is
essential to man's well-being even on its temporal side. It
leaves out the cross and the bearing of it; it leaves out the
supernatural destiny of man and the subordination of every-
thing else to it. But these are precisely the truths which the
Church and the Church alone proclaims, and these will make her
the means of salvation, not only in the religious sense of the
word, but also in the natural sense; and this not only for the
individual, but also for the nation.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
<5 <5 Ube ILatest Books. <^ <^
Dr. Vincent Henry Stanton, Ely
HISTORICITY OF THE professor of divinity in Cambridge
GOSPELS. University, who occupies a posi-
By Dr, Stanton. ^ion of eminence among New
Testament scholars, has just pub-
lished the first volume of an exceedingly important work* on
the historicity of the Gospels. Practically this question is the
only one that needs to be solved in order to establish peace in
the field of New Testament study. For while there would still
remain exegetical controversies, even if this were set at rest,
nevertheless these are of immeasurably smaller moment and
are agitated with far less acrimony than the prime problem as
to whether the Gospels are worth anything as witnessies of
truth. If they are true Christianity is divine. No matter what
one's personal prejudice against the possibility of miracles may
be, if Jesus actually wrought them, the question is closed.
Possibilities and impossibilities are idle speculations in the face
of fact. Likewise, however attractive it may be to regard our
Lord's life and message as essentially ethical and non*dogmatic,
and consequently to consider Christianity as creedless and inor-
ganic, if the Master Himself gave a doctrinal significance to
His life. His work, His Church, and His death, we must either
accept His religion as He taught it^ or own frankly that we
choose to manufacture one for ourselves. Now, did our Lord
work miracles ? Have we a true account of His life ? Are
these four biographies of Him, so full of miracle and so full of
dogma, trustworthy and historical ?
Those who would maintain that we have not a true account
of the life of Christ must endeavor to show that the Gospels
are of late composition, too late to be of substantial value in
attesting the truths of the narrative they contain. For awhile
a vast amount of scholarship was expended in such an endea-
vor. For still another while great volumes were written and
eminent names lent their prestige to demonstrate that the
Gospel- record is a reservoir of legends which are at once a
testimony to the devout imagination of primitive believers, and
* The Gospels as Historical Docvwunts. Part I. The Early Use of the Gospels. By
Vincent Henry Stanton, D.D. New York : The MacmiUan Company. 1903,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
400 The Latest Books. [June,
a witness ta. the WunderlUst of an uncritical age. Merely to
mention the Tubingen School, the Leben Jesu of Strauss, and
the Vie de Jesus of Renan, will recall these tendencies and
their chief uphplders. So far as the main contentions of these
schools are concerned, they have been utterly discredited.
Few venture now to place the composition of the Synoptic
Gospelis, as wfe have them, below loo a. d., as the Tubingen
Critics did, and it is hardly possible to doubt that their docu-
inei\tary or living sources go back to the very lifetime, of the
Apostles. / '
*' Obviously in dealing with the rationalistic attempt, to assign
a late date to the Gospels, it is of prime importance to know,
if the second generation of Christians, of which we possess a
good share pf literary remains, knew the Gospels,, quoted them,
and recognized thenl. as authoritative. It is, with this question
that Dr. Stanton'^ book is concerned. It is clear that if we,
can prove that St. Justin, for example, who was born in lOO,
witnesses to the Gospels as documents of apostolic authorshipi^
and gives testimony moreover which demonstrates that this
belief had been long fixed in his time, we are thrown back
fairly into the apostolic era for a terminus a quo for the Evan-
gelic narratives, and possess practically as solid an historical
basis for the chief books of the. New Testament as we have
for any other history of ancient times. The importance of St.
Justin's testimony is so great that rationalistic writers have
tried by all possible means to wrench him loose from the foun-
dations of orthodoxy. They have to admit that Justin
acknowledges the existence of ''apostolic memoirs"; and that
these memoirs were so old and so weighty in their claim to
apostolic authority that they, were read in Christian assemblies
along with the books of the Old Testament. Moreover, from
Justin's own loose citations we can be certain that he knew
the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and very probably
also of St Mark and St. John. Certainly Justin's use of so
extraordinary a phrase as ** Word made flesh"; his designation
of our Lord as " a fountain of living water " ; his perfectly
clear and thoroughly Biblical doctrine on the Eucharist and on
baptism; and many other similar indications leave it hardly
possible to doubt that he was familiar with St. John's Gospel,
and' regarded it as ah accepted apostolic authority. Hence the
natural conclusion that Justin's ** Memoirs/' read in the churches
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] The La test Books. 401
in 150 A. D. as of apostolic authorship, are our Gospels; It is
a conclusion exceedingly difficult to escape. The objection that
Justin quotes sources outside our Gospel- canonr is true, but it
avails little to the purpose of such men as the author <rf
Supernatural Religion. For surely the fact that Justinr used
apocryphal documents does not crowd out the fact that he
used also our four canonical documents. And as to that/ Dr.
Stanton offers exceedingly powerful arguments to i^how that
Justin's reliance upon the apocrypha is not at all so extensive
as is commonly thought. The prevalent view is that the great
apologist when he speaks of the " Gospel of Peter " means the
apocryphal Gospel of that name ; and moreover, it is widely
accepted that Justin has directly quoted from this spurious
composition. We cannot in justice dismiss this position so
curtly as Loisy, the great Catholic scholar, does in his history
of the canon. Says Loisy : "// n* est point nicessaire^ ou plut6t
il serait pudril d'admettre que Saint Justin a en vue V£vangile
de Pierre f production apocryphe dont on ignore la date et le contenu.^^
M. Loisy, of course, would not write in that way now; for
since the publication of his Histoire du Canon^ the Gospel of
Peter has been found, and it is certain that St. Justin either
knew that document itself or the source from which it is
drawn. Dr. Stanton comes very near to proving that when
Justin uses the expression "Gospel of Peter," he means the
Gospel of St. Mark, who was the companion of St. Peter.
And this method of designating the second Gospel shows how
extremely careful St. Justin and the early Christians were to
rely upon apostolic authority for their accounts of the life of
Christ Mark was comparatively too obscure a man to mention ;
but his Gospel was attested as true, from the fact that St.
Peter had given it his approval.
And so far as regards Justin's non-Evangelic citations. Dr.
Stanton maintains that they are not drawn from the Gospel of
Peter and the Proto-evangel of James, but from some earlier
sources upon which these two apocrypha are chiefly based.
Perhaps these earlier sources are the " Acta Pilati " and the
Gospel according to the Hebrews. How completely the fierce
contest waged over the testimony of St. Justin has ended in a
victory for faith, may be illustrated from the confession of
Holtzmann that St. Justin certainly used both our Synoptics
and St. John ; and from the grudging admission of Harnack in
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favor of the apologist's recognition of the fourth Gospel as
among the " Apostolic Memoirs."
It would be a pleasure to go through Dr. Stanton's chap-
ters in detail, especially those in which he studies the early
testimony to the apostolic authority of the fourth Gospel, and
discusses Harnack's celebrated view of local Gospels, a view so
admirably criticised in Father Rose's Studies on the Gospels ;
but the limits of this review department make that impossible.
Let us, however, give a sentence or two from the closing chap-
ter: ''I have said that by the middle of the second century,
the chief churches must have read all four Gospels and regarded
them as authoritative. ... In the Church of Rome they
seem to have been in use some thirty years earlier. The Gos-
pels .could hardly have made their way at the early time at
which they must have begun to do so, if they had not come
with good credentials." That is to say, during the lifetime of
men who heard the Apostles preach, our four Gospels were
read in the churches as of apostolic authority. Taking this in
connection with the fact that the age of the first converts was
an age exceedingly tenacious of oral tradition, and highly skil-
ful in retaining and transmitting it, we have a proof of apos-
tolic authorship for the Gospels, and consequently a proof of
their substantial historicity, which brings us face to face with
the deeper and more solemn question. What think ye of Christ ?
Dr. Stanton has done his work well. No one needs to be
told that who has ever read his fine study. The Jewish and the
Christian Messiah, He is a veteran in ihe use of the tools of
criticism ; and not one of the problems connected with his
theme, nor aught of* its literature, is unknown to him. So far
as the conclusions of this first volume are concerned, they fur-
nish a solid apologetic for Christianity as a supernatural reli-
gion. We shall await with something like impatience the
appearance of the three other volumes which are to complete
the work.
Dr. Briggs' latest book* is an
NEW LIGHT ON THE LIFE attempt to re-state the chronology
OF JESDS. of the Gospels, and a presentation
By Dr. Briggs. of the learned author's opinion
on the synoptic problem and the
•New Ligkt 0Hth4 Life of Jesus. By Charles Augustus Briggs, D.D. New York;
Charles Scribner's Sons.
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1904.] The Latest Books. 403
authorship of the fourth Gospel. Dr. Briggs has been long
and honorably known in Scripture scholarship, especially in
the province of Old Testament problems, and this effort of his
to illuminate some of the most perplexing and apparently
hopeless puzzles of Gospel- study will naturally attract wide-
spread attention. A few of the propositions which he main-
tains in this work are these: i. Our Lord's active ministry
began before the arrest of John the Baptist. 2. While the
Twelve were absent on mission-journeys, our Lord preached
His message in Perea and Jerusalem. This happy thought, Dr.
Briggs tells us, clears up the vexed question of the Jerusalem
ministry related by John. 3. The three Passovers mentioned
by St. John are one and the same. Hence the public minis-
try lasted a little over a year. 4. Peter's confession at Caesarea
Philippi took place not a year and a half before the Passion,
but within three weeks of it. The same thing must be said of
the discourses predicting the Passion and Death. 5. John vi. —
the celebrated Eucharistic chapter — is a post- resurrection dis-
course of Christ. 6. St. John's Gospel is not a unit, but con-
tains, like St. Matthew, the work of two or three hands. St.
John wrote an original Gospel in Hebrew, which was touched
up and worked over by a later editor^
Regarding Dr. Briggs' treatment of these positions, we
think first of all that all students of Scripture will be one with
us in saying that it is far too summary to be even moderately
satisfactory. To discuss six such propositions as we have just
given, within less than two hundred pages, may be very well,
if this volume is intended to be a suggestive sketch and noth-
ing more. But if it purposes to be a formal aigument for Dr.
Briggs' chronological re-stat(ment, synoptic theory, and Johan-
nine solution, then it is an utterly inadequate performance.
And for our second observation upon the method of this book,
we would say that in our judgment it betrays at times so
vehement an adhesion to a theory preconceived, that the author
has been misled into the application of uncritical principles and
into an unfair disregard of the difficulties attending his own,
and of the arguments supporting a divergent thesis. For ex-
ample, let us look at the first position, namely, that our Lord's
ministry began before the arrest of the Baptist. Matthew and
Mark are explicitly against Dr. Briggs here ; Luke is silent on
the matter ; John is claimed by our author, but it is by no
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means so certain as he would have us believe, that the fourth
Gospel is here at variance with the first two. At any rate
Matthew and Mark must be got out of the road if there is to
be comfortable journeying for the doctor's theory. They are
thus disposed of: The statement of our present Mark that the
public ministry began after the imprisonment of John, did not
exist in the primitive Mark, but is an unwarranted addition of
the redactor. The proof of this is that St. Luke does not
mention the imprisonment as marking the beginning of our
Lord's public life. For if the primitive Mark, which was used
by Luke, contained such a piece of information, Luke would
certainly have copied it. Luke's sitence proves that our Mark
in this passage has been interpolated ! And a second reason
is that in the Marcan passage, which tells of the beginning of
the public ministry, there are two phrases concerning the king-
dom which are an addition to the original Hebrew Mark.
Now, says Dr. Briggs: ''In any case the Greek Mark has at
least two clauses of additions to the original Hebrew Gospel;
and if so, Why not also in the reference to John*s arrest t " The
italics are ours, and we think ourselves justified in thus calling
attention to the amazing procedure of Dr. Briggs. He says
here in substance : " In my opinion we have in this passage
two clauses not in the proto-Mark. Now, if we have two inter-
polations, why not three ? especially as I require a third to
build up my theory." We submit that if this method were
carried out all through the New Testament, we could prove
or disprove any proposition that our fancy was pleased to
juggle with.
Then so revolutionary a notion as that there was a Hebrew
original for the fourth Gospel certainly cannot be despatched
in the off hand manner in which Dr. Briggs announces it.
The whole structure and spirit of St. John is so entirely Greek,
its great theme is so essentially un- Hebraic, its theological
discourses are so incapable of being expressed in Hebrew, that
surely it is not sound criticism to sweep all this aside and
leave us with a naked statement, clothed only in the veriest
rags of proof, that this Gospel was originally Hebrew, must
have been Hebrew, and cannot be understood unless we sup-
pose it to have been Hebrew. Likewise we must regard as
very feeble Dr. Briggs' statement that the Eucharistic sixth
chapter oi John is a post- resurrection discourse of Christ. In
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J904.] THE Latest Books. 405
that case why not consider the multiplication of the loaves,
to which miracle the discourse is attached, a post- resurrection
event? And how get rid of that vivid touch which does so
much to prove the discourse an historic fact, namely, the scan-
dal and departure of the disciples ? That incident, related so
simply and naturally, practically demonstrates the historicity
of the Eucharistic discourse. But it . is impossible to imagine
wavering faith and finally open disbelief in the minds of the
disciples, if they were listening to a Master risen from the
dead.
With these points and some others in this book we must
declare our lack of satisfaction. The critical processes have
been too summary, the lack of the sense of difficulties too
obvious, the proofs too slender, and the preoccupations of
theory too dangerous, to invite confidence or win assent. But
we must also in iairness say, that these pages are full of rich
suggestion ; that they contain many an original observation
and point of view possible only- to a trained and erudite
scholar; and that they really do shed upon Gospel problems
a certain amount of ''new light" for which all New Testament
students will be grateful. Moreover, Dr. Briggs is reverent,
even devout, in his attitude towards the Gospels and the great
Character whom they portray ; and according to modern stand-
ards he is conservative and cautious. And while we dare not
say that he has brought the great questions which he dis-
cusses any nearer to finality, he has certainly done no incon-
siderable service in bringing into Scriptural debate an admira-
ble and Christian spirit.
Lao-Tze, the great philosophico-
CHINESE CANON OF religious mystic of China, was
REASON AND VIRTUE. born about 604 B. c, fifty years
earlier than the birth of Confucius.
Dr. Paul Carus, who has brought out a translation of Lao-Tze's
Canon of Reason and Virtue,^ tells us that the schools of Lao-
Tze and of Confucius are still sharply distinguished in China.
The adherents of the former give themselves to devout specula-
tion as the great end of life, while the disciples of the latter
are more worldly-wise, and cultivate the more practical side of
conduct and propriety. In the Canon of Reason and Virtue
* The CanoH of Reason and Virtue, Translated from the Chinese by Dr. Paul Carus-
Chicago : The Open Court Publishing Company.
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406 THE La test BOOKS. [June,
there ^re abundant indications of Lao-Tze's noble mind and
unworldly character. He is profoundly impressed with the
vanity of '' the ten thousand things/' and with the futility of
ambition, effort, and desire, and pleads for a contemplative
giving up of ourselves to the universal Reason. The Buddhistic
non activity, non-assertiveness, non* personality seem to be the
burden of his message. The human and tangible he deprecates;
to poise over eternal vacuity is his counsel and purpose. Says
he : *' He who seeks Reason will daily diminish. He will
diminish and continue to diminish until he arrives at noa<»
assertion." That substantially is his ideal of life. What a
universe lies between this preaching and the Gospel of Christ!
What immeasurable distances between '' seek the zero of non-
existence " and '' seek the kingdom of God " ! What an im-
possibility of comparing the Chinese precepts to empty out the
heart of feeling and emotion, with the Christian beatitudes
which promise God's rewards to meekness and poverty, to long-
suffering and mercy, to purity and love! What a meaningless
thing to the spirit of man is the '' universal Reason " after
Jesus has lifted the darkness from our ntiinds, and drawn the
veil from our hearts with " Our Father who art in Heaven " !
Lao-Tze is a noble human being striving generously but vainly
to lead us to the destiny which our soul impels us to seek.
The Son of God, our Saviour, is the Deity in the midst of us
speaking simple words that go deeper than all philosophies, and
holding up ideals that have brought the divine Spirit and the
human soul together in unexampled holiness and unconquerable
love. Admiration the world should show to high souls like
Lao-Tze ; but worship should be its offering to the incompar-
able Christ.
An interesting pamphlet before
HARNACK AND LOISY. us is entitled Harnack and Loisy.^
By Rev. T. A Lacey. it opens with an Introductory
Letter by Lord Halifax, in which
the writer expresses his conviction that " good reason may be
found for putting the books (by Loisy) on the Index," as not
edifying in tone and not adapted for general reading; but at
the same time he voices the hope that no retractation of a
"purely scientific" position will be required. "These are days
* Hamack and Loiiy, By the Rev. T. A. Lacey, M.A. With an Introductory Letter by
the Right Hon. Viscount Halifax. New York : Longmans, Green & Co.
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1504] ^HE Latest Books. 407
of transition, and we do not want rash assertions on the ortho-
dox side any more than on the other." ''All Christendom is
concerned with the honor and dignity of the Roman Church."
''My own conviction is that, as a matter of fact, the Roman
Church is the strongest support of the essentials of Chris-
tianity." No doubt, since this prefatory letter was written,
Lord Halifax has been comforted not a little by the final out-
come of the Loisy affair and the certainty that no purely
scientific position was meant to be condemned.
The body of the pamphlet is a brief essay delivered at
Oxford last November by Rev. T. A. Lacey. It brings out
one point of Loisy's apologetic, the distinction between the
figure of our Saviour as partially drawn in the Synoptic Gos-
pels and the Johannine portrait, in which one reads at once
the lineaments of the Lord of Glory, the dynamic personage
gathering up and transmitting the world forces in his single
self, and controlling the development of all future history.
The author differs now and again from the abbe in some
points and makes no attempt to go very deeply into the pro-
found questions the controversy has involved; and perhaps,
especially for this reason, his pages are easily readable and
not unhelpful.
Mr. Spencer-Jones has printed for
ESSAY ON REUNION. general circulation an interesting
By Spencer-Jones. paper on Reunion,* first presented
as an Inaugural Lecture before the
Society of St. Thomas of Canterbury. This association has been
formed on the understanding that the Oxford Revival repre-
sents a definite drift toward the religion of Rome; it aims at
spreading abroad a familiarity with the history of the Church
in the West; and it invites Roman Catholics to attend and
occasionally to read papers at its meetings (but never to enter
into membership, because they cannot do this if they are priests,
and may be tempted to do so in spite of their rulers if they
are laymen).
The Inaugural Lecture consists of a very instructive review
of various circumstances affecting the attitude of Anglicans
towards reunion with Rome ; and goes far toward proving the
following pertinent facts:
^ Rome and Reunion: The Inaugural Lecture to the Members of the Society of St.
Thomas of Canterbury. By Spencer-Jones, M.A., Author of RngUmd and ike Holy See*
London : Longmans, Green & Co.
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4o8 THE Latest Books. [June,
From 597 a. d. to 1566 England was in conscious com-
munion with the Holy See in spirituals, without any interval
whatsoever.
Separation was effected against the will of the church in
England, and in spite of its protests; the chief agents in this
work being Henry VIH. and Thomas Cromwell at one period,
and Elizabeth and Cecil at another; and the instruments in
both cases being force and fraud.
The change in the nature of the sovereignty of England
having created an anomalous condition by which the Church of
England must officially include among her members both
Roman Catholics and atheists, the issue has now become not
England vs. the Holy See, but jurisdiction in spirituals vs.
jurisdiction in temporals.
The Roman Catholic Church was organized in England
some two or three centuries before the English people realized
themselves as one nation.
The Reunion party may be charged with a dishonest inter-
pretation of the XXXIX. Articles, but no reasonable being can
to-day accept them in the most natural and obvious sense, be-
cause they are contradictory to facts and to one another.
Papal Infallibility offers no greater difficulty than any other
form of church infallibility; and as for the Curia, why a large
infusion of the Anglo-Saxon race would have an influence upon
the government of the church.
Dr. Shahan's little volume on St
SAINT PATRICK. Patrick* is full of scholarship and
By Shahan. eloquence. Few men living know
better than the learned professor
of chuich history in the Catholic University the great history
of Christian Ireland, and none feel more deeply the spell of her
sacred triumphs. We cannot wonder that a scholar of Keltic
blood in treating any aspect of such a theme should utter words
that glow with feeling, and should yield up his imagination to
the memories that shed a pure and abundant glory on the long
history of Innisfail. The fierce old race-pride of the pagan
Irish still lives in substance; only it is gentler now and loftier,
and is spoken by lips that are acquainted with grief. But it is
and shall be for ever powerful, vehement, and strong. It is an
* St Patrick in History, By the Very Reverend Thomas J. Shahan, D.D. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co.
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1904.] The La test Books. 409
everlasting protest against tyranny, and a proof perpetual that
the Irish have not accepted subjugation, and have not forgotten
that they once were illustrious and free. They point to their
past, and are strengthened ; they remember the days of old,
and cling tighter to the hope that has not perished through
weary centuries, of standing once more in the front rank of
nations, unfettered and independent. And so with ardor and
with love they recall that of old time Ireland was the mother
of mighty men, and that Europe sat submissive at her feet to
learn sanctity and wisdom; that Patrick's spiritual children
spread everywhere the truth of Christ, and the truths of knowJ-i
edge; that Columba preached Christianity to the Picts; that
Cotumbanus delivered the Gospel- message in Lombardy, and
founded at Bobbio in the Apennines a home of austere monastic
discipline, and an abode of scholarship so splendid as to shine
amid the darkened nations as a lighthouse shines at night upon
the sea ; that Germany and France were penetrated unto their
uttermost fastnesses by the martial missionaries of Erin ; that
the fair daughters of the race thronged in multitudes after
Bridget, peopling convents innumerable with consecrated lives;
that in a thousand ways and by a thousand avenues the Irish
acted and reacted upon the civilization of early and mediaeval
Christian Europe, and left upon it an impress, that still shows
clear, of a temperament always religious, of a spirit unfailingly
winsome, of a character singularly attractive, of a genius incom-
parably keen, of a nature mystically beautiful. These high
records of their blood and kin the Irish of to-day rejoice to
hear, and these they wish their scholars, preachers, and doctors
to rehearse to them again and again, especially on the festival-
day of their faith and their patriotism.
Just such a message is what Dr. Shahan's volume speaks—s-
words of pride for Ireland's past and words of inspiration for
Ireland's future. It is true that if Dr. Shahan's purpose had
been to give an adequate account either of Irish history or of
the Irish race, his essay would be partial and defective. For, ais
Renan says tersely, " // tCy a pas d'histoire immacuUe^* — no
history is without its stains; and similarly no national character
is- without its weaknesses. And surely no prepossessions erf
raeral or* religious sympathy can dose our eyes to the sad
pages in the chronicle of Ireland, or to the unadmirable features
displayed often by her sons. Dr. Shahan certainly was aware
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4 1 THE LA TEST BOOKS. [J uae,
of all this; was perfectly familiar, for example, with St. Je-
rome's awful and, let us hope, uojust account of the character
of the unconverted Irish. And it was no lack of candor
that led him to turn aside from these darker shadings, and
to fill his canvas only with lightsome colors. For his aim
was not to construct a comprehensive scheme of Irish, btsioiy
and character, but rather to deliver a meeadge of justifiable in-
spiration and of well-grounded hope. Of this task h^ has
acquitted himself with the scholarly distinction mbich marks
every piece of work that proceeds from his skilful hand. His
introduction on the sources of Patrick's history, and his copious
notes at the end of the volume, are such as only a man of pro-
found erudition could write. Once again we cannot refrain from
telling Dr. Shahan that he owes it to his own accomplishments,
and to the expectations of us all, to give to the world some
great historical composition which will correspond to the extent
of his learning and be a just presentation of his claims to en-
during fame.
We sincerely congratulate the
VENICE. young Mayor of New York upon
By G. B. McClellan. his sketch of Venetian history.*
It is an unusually fine specimen
of the difficult art of historical condensation. And how far the;
condensation had to be carried may be estimated from the fact
that Venice's varied and momentous career of eleven centuries
has here been crowded into two hundred octavo pages.
Obviously, therefore, one ought to have a fair knowledge of
contemporaneous history, both civil and religious, before one
undertakes to read Mr. McClellan's volume. For the author
can do little more than name several of the great characters that
enter into the story of the Adriatic republic, and he must trust
to his readers' previous knowledge for an adequate appreciation
of the achievements, motives, and general importance of these
characters. But when one possesses this necessary preparation
this sketch is a genuine intellectual delight. Mr. McClellan is
master of an excellent style, clear, simple, smooth, and infused
with the spirit of scholarship and culture. The narrative, as
we have remarked, is thronged to flowing over with event and
incident, but it seems always guided by a hand that is trained
* The Oligarchy of Venice. By George B. McClellan. Boston : Houghton, MifiBin ft Co
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to the control of many details, and sure of accomplishing its
work gracefully and thoroughly.
The fineness with which our author draws boundaries which
he will not allow his pen to transgress is seen especially in
his treatment of the religious side of his subject. For. of
course, the history of Venice is ecclesiastical as well as secular ;
and .some of the gravest, as perhaps some of the saddest,
chapters in Papal history are concerned with the proud re-
public. Mr. McClellan gives the main features of all this, but
austerely abstains from any word of comment or personal
reflection. It would seem hardly possible that a historian could
refrain from expressing an opinion on the League of Cambrai,
in which the Emperor Maximilian and Louis XIL of France
made covenant to destroy the freedom of Venice, partition her
territory, and make over a share of the spoils to the Pope ;
yet Mr. McClellan gives no indication as to whether or not he
sympathizes with the opprobrium uttered by nearly all historians
against that treaty. Similarly almost all writers express wonder,
anger, or horror at the extreme severity of Julius II.'s excom-
munication and interdict of Venice, and at his irascible reluc*
tance to show mercy even when the city lay prostrate beneath
the feet of its foes; but this volume simply st£^tes the fact of
the interdict and makes no pretence to estimate or measure it
by moral standards. We instance these things to show how
clearly Mr. McClellan has outlined his plan of giving simply
the chief facts in the life of Venice, and with what a dispassion-
ate persistence he pursues it. Only in one paragraph have we
discovered a clue to his own opinion upon the Venetian con-
flicts with Rome. He says : ** Thus, before the beginning of
the sixteenth century Venice had had three serious difficulties
with the Papacy; had been excommunicated three times, and
had been twice placed under an interdict. On each occasion
her difficulties with Rome had been political, and had been
caused by the constantly growing spirit of aggression mani-
fested by the republic." Would that all historians were so
lenient with the Papacy I
In conclusion we must give utterance to the great satis-
faction we feel in seeing so scholarly a production from a
public man. Learning has ever been the chief ornament of
men of state, and the most gracious recommendation of political
ambition. How much it adds to the stature of great ministers
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412 The Latest BOOKS. [June,
like Lord Derby and Mr. Gladstone, like Disraeli and Mr.
Balfour, that they are as commanding figures in the halls of
universities as in the chambers of legislation. If a statesman
is a scholar, he has added an indefinable touch of dignity to
his merit and his fame. ' And in Anierica, where there is such
a worship, so admirable and exalted a worship, of the school
and the scholar, a public servant who is erudite and studious
calls for admiration for himself and wins reverence for his
office. The '' scholar in politics " is a man who not only elicits
national pride, but helps mightily to elevate our partisan dis«
ciissions, and to safeguard our country's institutions and ideals.
One of the most fascinating books
THE DESERT OF SINAI, of travel we have ever read is
By Sargenton. Madame Sargenton-Galichon's ac-
count* of her journey from Suez
to Jerusalem through the desert of Sinai. It is doubtful if any
other traveller through that wonderful region has ever enjoyed
advantages greater than those possessed by this author. The
expedition of which she was a member was composed chiefly
of learned specialists from the 6cole biblique of Jerusalem, who
knew the country thoroughly, could decipher its inscriptions,
and bring to bear the resources of great scholarship upon every
question which the journey could suggest. Then Madame Sar-
genton-Galichbn herself has extraordinary qualifications for tell-
ing the tale of travel. Her book discloses a boundless enthu-
siasm for exploration and discovery, a keen eye for observation,
a Bedouin's love for the desert and the hills, a deeply religious
and Catholic spirit, an unusual degree of Oriental erudition,
and finally a mastery of brilliant style. The Comte de Vogii^
does not exaggerate his compliments when he says in his pre-
fatory letter that while reading this book : " Tetais bien en
presence de Pceuvre a^une femme, cCune femme d*esprit^ et de
talent, Chretienne et artiste^ Besides the description of the
great scenes of Biblical incident in southern Arabia, there is a
learned sketch of the Nabataeans, whose entry into, and dis-
appearance from, history are alike so sudden and mysterious.
Both as a reading fqr,ple^$ure and as a study for information
this book deserves ,|Ji(5,,)yj^pcg,t ,c9inmendation.
^Sinai—Ma'dn—Pilra;^.$ufjtt Tfities .g'/Mtei. Par Adelaide Sargenton-Galichon.
Paris : Lecoffre, fidit'eur.
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.1904.] The Latest Books. 413
The Issues of Life,^ by Mrs. Van
THE ISSUES OP LIFE. Vorst, is, to the serious student
By Van Vorst. of social psychology, a sad book.
Cast in the form of a novel, it
represents clearly and directly the ignorance and stupidity of
much so-called culture, the perversion of the fine moral sense
of woman, and the process by which a hitherto innocent, hap-
py, and unspoiled wife may be transformed into the new
woman. One forgets the form of story in reading the book,
because intricacy of plot is not aimed at, and digressions are
not introduced in order to serve some secondary purpose.
'One finds in the book, plainly presented, the chief issues in
modern social life, such as the loss of the maternal instinct,
the hopeless confusion of standards of value in the lives of
society women, child-murder, silly over- culture and under-
education, club life and divorce — these are interwoven in the
narrative in a way to entertain the reader, without demanding
too much close attention. The picture is ugly and true. Those
who know life have seen and heard among actual people just
such things as the author describes. Our magazines and news-
papers are awakening to the situation in a way to allow no
lack of reading matter on these vital questions. But we may
ask, with some concern, about cause and remedy.
Books such as The Issues of Life may enlighten many inno-
cent readers and interpret tendencies which threaten them, but
they will scarcely win back those whose minds are already
poisoned. The pressure of modern life on woman is strong.
Religion can give her 'power to resist its evil elements. Not
education alone, not religion alone, but both combined. The
problem is so complex that one can scarcely see the solution
in concrete. Meantime one may welcome efforts to make known
the facts, such as represented in this book.
But our traditions forbid the reading of such books to the
tender, delicately trained Catholic girl. If she is to be pro-
tected in advance, she must have knowledge of the dangers and
tendencies with which she will later come in contact. Some
wise thinking is needed to give us safe guidance in teaching
Catholic girls such unpleasant truths about actual life as may
in her own future constitute a problem that she must face.
It is to be hoped that this need of young Catholic girls will
• The Issues of Life. By Mrs. John Van Vorst. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.
VOL. LXXIX. — 27 ^ T
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414 The Latest books. [June.
not be overlooked. Great tact, great knowledge, and great skill
are necessary to solve the problem.* The Issues of Life is not
a solution, but it is an attempt from a general stand -point. As
such it will not fail of useful results.
The North Star\ is a tale of Nor-
THE NORTH STAR. way in the tenth century, written
By M, E. Henry-Ruflin. by Mrs. Margaret Ellen Henry-
Ruffin, of Mobile. The writer has
gathered a superabundance of material for a stirring historical
romance from a field not much frequented by recent writers of
fiction, but she has not made the most of her opportunity.
The result of her efforts is not an artistic achievement, how-
ever praiseworthy her zeal and sincerity may be. Out of this
mass of incidents she has failed to evolve a coherent story,
and one finds it rather dull work to follow the exploits of
Olaf through an assortment of episodes which have little or
nothing to do with him. The style is laboriously heroic, and
the pages bristle with exclamation points. Characters enter
suddenly in one chapter and disappear in the next without
provocation or excuse. In brief, the book is a raw product.
The latest edition of Webster's International Dictionary
justifies the claim of its publishers that it is " the best practical
working dictionary." This edition is printed from new and
corrected plates after careful and painstaking editing, and con-
tains, moreover, a supplement of 25,000 words, phrases, and
definitions. Every means have evidently been taken to give
accurate definitions, in as far as the limits of a dictionary per-
mit, of matters Catholic, and all in all, as a dictionary of practi-
cal reference to use on one's desk, we know of none better
than the new Webster's International.
• The School of the Heart, by Margaret Fletcher, is recommended as such a book for girls.
It was reviewed in the May Catholic World. — Editor's Note.
t The North Star. By M. E. Henry-Ruffin. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. Illustrated.
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The Tablet (9 April): The execution, on April ist (Good Fri-
day), of the decree requiring the removal of all reli-
gious emblems from the law courts of Paris, has elicited
a very opportune article, " France and Catholicism."
The writer mentions the chief directors of the unholy
act, and urges the Catholic majority of France to awaken
to the critical condition of their religion. Moreover, it is
hoped that the English sympathizers with the persecu-
tion will consider this enactment significant of the minis-
ters' true position, and understand that the war is directed
against religion itself, and not against its excesses, as the
dissembling promoters would make us believe. Cap-
tain Shawe-Taylor has written a letter to the papers, in
which he shows the dissatisfaction of the Irish people
with their present college system. The advantages of an
Irish university are pointed out.
(16 April): In a review of Fr. Tyrrell's Lex Orandi,
Rev. Herbert Lucas, S.J., warmly commends the work
in its entirety, and attaches special importance to the
part which aims at explaining the best means by which
Christian people can retain their hold of religious truth,
namely, by a ' more perfect realization of the spirit of
Christ on the part of the individual believers.
(23 April): It is communicated from Rome that the typical
edition of Plain Chant is about to be published by the
Vatican Press, and that it will differ but slightly from
the version of Solesmes ; the Ratisbon edition having
been discountenanced by the Holy Father. Also an
account is given of the kind reception extended to the
English pilgrims at the Vatican. The special purpose of
the embassy's visit was to take part in the celebration of
the Gregorian Centenary. Cardinal Vaughan's last
book, The Young Priest, is noticed very favorably by
the Bishop of Newport. In the obituary columns there
appear interesting memoirs of the Very Rev. Canon
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41 6 Library Table. [June,
Wright, of Hammersmith, and of Rev. Father Amherst,
of the Society of Jesus.
(30 April) : An excellent article reviews the purpose of
Loubet's late visit to Rome. Three letters, addressed
to the editor, strongly support the Holy Father in his
ruling with regard to church music and oppose the peti-
tion proposed by M. Joseph Short.
(7 May) : A letter to the Times from ex- Vicar Beeby
calls on Bishop Gore to stand by his promise of resign-
ing should the Church of England ever allow such liberty
of doctrinal interpretation as Mr. Beeby had been pro-
hibited from using. A letter of Loisy's printed in the
Times intimates dissatisfaction with the way in which
" le jeune Cardinal Merry del Val c'est acquitte de sa
mission," and adds, '' Catholique j'etais, Catholique je
reste ; critique j'etais, critique je reste."
The Month (May) : R. H. J. Steuart scores popular *' litera-
ture " for its literary and artistic deficiencies, and de-
plores its evil influence. He charges the gaily-bound
magazine with '' mortal sins against truth and taste." The
writer intimates that the ideal existence portrayed in the
" short story " is sufficiently often of " immoral or unmoral
tendency." The pseudo-scientific articles, it would appear,
are frequently instrumental in leading half-educated minds
to conclude that their ''religious beliefs are false, or at
least in serious need of revision." ^The fact that Pius
X. notes a parallelism between the beginning of his own
Pontificate and St. Gregory's, elicits from Rev. S. F.
Smith a brief outline of the appalling situation which
confronted Gregory in 590.
Church Quarterly Review (April) : An article on " Criticism
and Catholicism " deals with the Loisy affair as indica-
tive of an important crisis in the history of the Church
of Rome, and therefore something of great interest to
Anglicans who mediate between the excess and the
defect of ecclesiastical authority. There are now two
conceptions struggling for supremacy in the Catholic
Church. That represented by Loisy accepts all the doc-
trines of the church, but questions if they can be demon-
strated from the Gospels according to the received prin-
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1904.] Library Table. 417
ciples and methods (be they right or wrong) of scientific
criticism. As a critic, Loisy attempts to define the
results of criticism ; as an apologist, he attempts to show
that these results really leave Christianity untouched.
The theory of the absolute and unlimited authority of
the teaching church is not a Catholic doctrine but a
theological opinion; and the extravagant development of
it has at last forced a critical examination, and seems
about to result in its destruction. In its place there is
being substituted a new conception of church authority
built on the organized collective experience and reflec-
tion of the multitudinous members of the Christian body.
This new conception will deliver men from lawless Prot-
estantism, on the one hand, and from theological despo-
tism, on the other. An article, "Japan and Western
Ideas,'' shows the remarkable process of assimilation of
Western ideas going on in the Japanese mind since
Perry's time. The writer traces the forces at work in
this to six heads, as follows: The influence of the volun-
tary exiles from Japan ; the work of the foreign diplo-
matic representatives; the influence of the foreigners
whom Japan has invited to her shores; the young men
sent out by Japan to be educated in other countries ;
the foreign commercial communities at the treaty ports,
and the influence of Christian missionaries " Chris-
tian Socialism in France." In this review of a recent
work written by Georges Goyau attention is drawn to
"the perpetual charm which the Church of Rome exer-
cises over the Gallic mind — not only among the old
aristocracy of the Faubourg St. Germain, but in that
young France which is interesting itself in Christian
Socialism," with the further remark that : " They know
what they are about, these men. They see that its (the
church's) power over men's minds is as fresh in this age
of the search after causal knowledge and facts as ever it
was in the ages which have been known as those of
Faith." " The Popish Plot." This is a review of Mr.
Pollock's work of the same title, and of the attacks
made upon it by Mr. Andrew Lang and Father Gerard,
S.J. The conclusion reached by the article is that Mr.
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4i8 Library Table. [June,
Pollock has given the world a good piece of work in his
volume, and that his opponents have failed to refute his
positions.
Le Correspondant (Mar. -April) : In an article entitled "La
Premiere Etape '* Count Albert de Mun demonstrates
the astute policy of a government that deceives the
common people by sophisms which veil the true nature
of the work of dechristianizing a country. M.
Fenelon Gibon, in " La Suppression de I'Enseignement
Catholique en France," figures out the enormous sum it
will cost the country to support the schools which have
been taken out of the hands of the religious communities.
He tabulates, so that who runs may read, the services
rendered to France by only two of the teaching orders
at the very time of their expulsion. The writer thinks
that this matter of expense may be used to prevent the
state from monopolizing the work of education, and
draws attention to four principal points to be kept in
view as the end of all endeavor.
La Revue Apologitique (April) : Under the title of " Protest-
antism " A. Baudrillart discusses the question whether or
not Protestantism has been more favorable than Catho-
licism to moral and spiritual progress. First he gives
us the views of Charles Villers, Napoleon Roussel, and
£mil de Lavelye, all of whom claim that Protestantism
has been a guarantee of political and social peace,
together with a high standard of morals, while agitations
and disorders are always rife among the Catholic nations.
Lavelye takes France as an example of a Catholic
country, and cites Germany, England, and the United
States as defenders of religion, morals, and liberty. The
writer of this article does not pretend to claim that
Catholic nations, and especially those under the sway of
Freemasonry, are what they should be. In attempting
to refute the assertions of Lavelye he brings before us
the indifference and impiety of the three Protestant
countries quoted by that writer.
La Revue GSnerale (April) : M. Ch. Woeste reviews the sixth
volume of M. De la Gorce*s History of the Second
Empire. On account of the important facts covered in
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1904.] Library Table, 419
this volume, namely, the relations of Napoleon with
Prussia during the first part of the year of 1871, M.
Woeste considers this work the most valuable of the
series. M. Paul de Decker discusses the causes and
probable outcome of the Russia-Japan war. The inter-
ests of the Christian world, he says, require that Russia
should be successful in the struggle. ^The proposed
law to compel the teaching of Flemish in the free
schools of Belgium is the subject of an interesting arti-
cle by Father Verest, S.J. He shows that this law not
only opposes the constitutional rights of the people but
also threatens to cripple the usefulness of the schools.
Revue des Questions Scientifiques (April): R. P. Lammens, S.J.,
in treating of ''Syria and its Geographical Importance,"
shows how "la Syrie de tout temps a form^ comme un
trait d'union entre TOrient et TOccidcnt." Syria's part
in the world's history is clearly outlined. A very good
description of the country and peopie is given by the
writer. He concludes his article with a strong appeal
for the proposed Bagdad railway, claiming that this
transcontinental line would be for the best interests of
Syria. M. Beaujean has an article on wireless telegra-
phy, referring especially to its use in the army. The
progress of this system, its great advantages, and its
chief defects are clearly pointed out by the writer.
Stimmen aus Maria Laach (April): In an article on the rela-
tion existing between legal punishment and the notion
of moral responsibility, Rev, V. Cathrein, S.J., complains
of a tendency on the part of many modern jurists to
belittle or wholly ignore the great principles of sound
ethics in dealing with the problem of criminal legislation.
Father Cathrein's purpose in writing is to prove that
all just punishment presupposes guilt, and that guilt al-
ways presupposes free will and moral responsibility.
The subject of . " Catholic Charity " is briefly treated in
a paper contributed by Rev. H. Nix, S.J. ^This num-
ber contains also an article on "Soul and Brain," by Rev.
J. Bessmer, S.J.; " Die Sternenfahrt des Gilgamesch," by
F. X. Kugler, S.J., and the concluding installment of
Father Plotzer's series : " Anglicanism on Its Way to
Rome ? "
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420 Library Table. [June,
Rassegna Nazionale (i6 April): Mario Foresi publishes two
autograph and unedited sonnets of Petrarch obtained from
the late noted antiquary, Sir William Rudship. ^Trans-
lates Lord Halifax's prefatory letter to Lacey's "Har-
nack and Loisy " (reviewed in this issue of the Catholic
World). E. S. Kingswan, commenting on the Smoot
case, hopes that the agitation it excited will prove to be
a prelude to a similar agitation against that species of
successive polygamy known as " divorce."
Rivista Internazionale (April) : G. Toniolo writes about Spencer's
influence in contemporary schools of sociology, and ad-
vances the thesis that the selfish struggle for existence
and supremacy produces a first stage of civilization that
may be called '' pagan "; but that to this a higher and
truer civilization succeeds through the operation of the
Christian ideals of justice and charity, force yielding to
right, license to reason, violence to conscience, oppressor
to victim, so that it may be said that Abel not Cain is
the final victor, and that, as Benjamin Kidd positively
demonstrates in his Principles of Western Civilization^
social evolution coincides with Christianization.
Civilta Cattolica (i6 April): Keeps on refuting Loisy, and in
view of the fact that " upon an inaccurate concept of the
Kingdom (of Heaven) Loisy builds his erroneous Chris-
tianity," presents the true concept and constructs true
Christianity thereon. An article on Rationalism dis-
tinguishes between that system and reason, which con-
demns it ; declates it is unnecessary for Catholics, who
have the truth, to answer the doubts and objections of
the enemies of revealed religion, who neither have nor
seek after the truth; asserts that Harnack sums up
Christianity in a set of propositions *' which are a curi-
ous mixture of puerility and malice " ; and affirms that
the words of parish priests and the explanations of the
catechism suffice to keep the Catholic people faithful
and safe from the errors spread about so insidiously by
Protestant rationalists. Describes what is being done
for the Italians in the diocese of New York, and quotes
the words attributed to the Apostolic Delegate on the
work of educating the Italian children: **Let us try
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1904.] Library Table. 421
with all our power to make them good Americans with-
out ever letting the love of Italy disappear from their
hearts."
Razon y Fe (May) : P. Ferreres, concluding the long series of
articles on real and apparent death, insists on the fact of
latent life enduring for a considerable time after all signs
of animation have disappeared ; and he states that since
the beginning of decomposition is really the only sure
sign that death has come, the last sacraments should be
administered in many cases where they are usually
omitted. P. Baixauli sketches the history of Church
Music and comments on the Motu Proprio, saying;
'' His Holiness does not condemn modern music and its
legitimate developments, but demands that, like the
Gregorian Chant and classical harmony, it should possess
the characteristics proper to ecclesiastical music : sacred-
ness, good taste, universality.'' Perez, Nobo, and Hilarion
are cited as models for modern composers of church
music, and a few examples of their work are presented.
P. Amado goes into the pedagogical office and princi-
ples of old monasticism.
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422 THE Columbian Reading Union. [June,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
AT Cliff Haven, N. Y., on Lake Champlain, the Summer-School will hold
its thirteenth session during nine weeks, from July 5 to September 2.
The work of preparation assigned to the Board of Studies is nearing com-
pletion, and the report from the chairman, Rev. Thomas McMillan, C.S.P.i
contains the following announcements relating to the schedule of lectures for
session of 1904:
First Wttk^ July 5-8, — Course of four lectures. Subject, The Mediaeval
Drama, its origin, development, and purpose, by Mrs. Margaret S. Mooney,
head of the Department of English at the State Normal College, Albany,
N. Y.
Evening lectures on American Humorists, by Mr. W. P. Oliver, of
Brooklyn, N. Y. City.
Second Week, July 11-13. — Five lectures on Practical Phases of the dis-
cussion with Socialists, by the Rev. W. S. Kress, of Cleveland, Ohio,
Evening lectures on Detroit as a Catholic centre, and the evolution of a
Novelist, by Miss Mary Catherine Crowley, of Boston, Mass.
Studies from an Old-Fashioned Library ; Some Books, a Few Readers
and a Tradition, will furnish subject matter for two lectures, by Miss Helena
T. Goessmann, M.Ph., of Amherst, Mass.
Third Week, July 18-22. — Five Lectures by the Right Rev. Monsignor
Loughlin, D.D., of Philadelphia, Pa., on The Historical Study of the Council
of Trent.
Evening lectures by James J. Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., of New York City.
General Subject, Recent Biology; (i) Evolution and Adaptation, (2) Heredi-
tary Influences and Environment, (3) Instincts and Darwinism, (4) The
Argument from Design in Biology.
Fourth Week, July 2^-2g, — Five lectures by James J. Walsh, M.D.,
Ph.D., Lecturer on Experimental Psychology at St. Francis Xavier College,
New York. General subject, Experimental Psychology, (i) Application of
the E-xperimental Method in Psychology, (2) Seeing, (3) Hearing, (4) Feel-
ing, (5) Memory and Suggestion.
Two evening lecture recitals by Mr. Camille W. Zeckwer, of the Phila-
delphia Musical Academy.
Two lectures by the Hon. M. H. Glynn, of Albany, N. Y.
Fifth Week, August /-j. — Five lectures on the Great Western Schism,
by the Rev. Joseph M. Woods, S.J., Professor of Church History at Wood-
stock College, Md.
Two evening lectures on Anglican Orders, according to the decision of
Pope Leo XIII, , by the Rev. Bertrand L. Conway, C.S.P., of New York City.
Lecture recitals by Mr. Camille W. Zeckwer.
Sixth Week, August 8-12, — Five lectures on Philosophy in America dur-
ing the Nineteenth Century, by the Rev. John T. Driscoll, S.T.L., Diocese of
Albany.
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1904] The Columbian Reading Union. 423
Evening lectures on the Neo-Celtic Movement, its Purposes, Ideals, and
a Study of its Development, by the Rev. Henry E. O'Keeffe, C.S.P., of New
York City.
Evening lectures on Irish Wit and Humor in Ireland and America, by
Mr. James Jeffrey Roche, Editor The Pilots Boston, Mass.
Seventh Week, August 15-ig^ — Five lectures on Spanish Literature, by
Professor J. D. M. Ford, of Harvard University. In this course an endeavor
will be made to outline certain main features of the development of Spanish
letters. To this end five topics have been chosen for discussion :
(i) Old Spanish epic verse; the material extant in poetic form and that
preserved in the Chronicles ; the relation of the Spanish epic to the French
epic (the chansons de geste) and to the Spanish ballads.
(2) The beginnings of Spanish prose ; the literary activity of Alfonse X.
and of Juan Manuel.
(3) Spanish lyric verse of ancient and modern times; the rise of lyric
composition in Castilian and its relation to Provencal and Galician verse;
court poetry; the introduction of Italian models; the verse of the mystics;
the patriotic ode ; the romantic lyric; later lyric verse of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury.
(4) The rise and glorious development of the drama in Spain ; the earliest
dramatic composition extant ; Juan del Encina and his successors ; the drama
of the Golden Age as exemplified in the plays of Lope de Vega, Calderon, and
the contemporaries ; French classicism in the Spanish theatre ; the romantic
drama ; the psychological play and other recent forms.
(5) The Spanish novel from its origins to the present century; the Old
Spanish tale ; the Amadis and other books of chivalry ; the pastoral romance ;
the picaresque novel and the novel of adventure ; the Don Quixote of Cer-
vantes ; the tale and novel of manners ; the existing novelistic movement as
illustrated by the works of Valera, Pereda, Vald^s, Galdos, Pardo Bazdn, etc.
Evening lectures by the Rev. John P. Chidwick, of New York City, on
Glimpses of Catholic Missionary Life in a Trip around the World; The Friars
in the Philippines ; Cities of Japan ; customs and manners ; Japanese Tem-
ples, Art, and Religion ; account of the present crisis in the history of Japan.
Eighth Weekf August 22-26, — Five lectures on the American Consular
Service and Trade Relations with Foreign Countries, by Professor J. C.
Monaghan, of the Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C.
Illustrated Course of evening lectures on the Architectural Monuments of
Venice, Florence, Rome, and Paris, by Barr Ferree, President of the Depart-
ment of Architecture of the Brooklyn Institute, Honorary and Corresponding
Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
These lectures, treating of great buildings or groups of buildings, are
designed to give the auditor more than the dry facts of architectural history.
The buildings are easily the most interesting in the world, and the lectures
deal not only with the structures themselves and their builders, but with their
decorations and the men who did them — the painters and sculptors — and the
great events which have taken place in them. The entire subject is treated
with special reference to the human interests that are indelibly associated with
great architectural creations.
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424 The Columbian Reading Union. [June,
The lectures are illustrated with superb lantern pictures made especially
for the course from new and original photographs and from prints, documents,
etc., in private collections. This wealth of inaccessible material adds greatly
to this unique series of lectures.
Ninth IVeekf August 2g-September 2, — Five lectures on Recent Phases of
discussion relating to Morality, Religion, Ethical Culture, etc., by the Rev.
James J. Fox, S.T.D. (Catholic University), Professor of Philosophy at
St. Thomas College, Washington, D. C.
Evening lectures by the Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy, of Altoona, Pa., on
Reading Circles in relation to the Summer-School.
Readings by 'Miss Mary Canney, of New York City.
Conference on methods of advancing Catholic Educational work in
Parish Schools and Sunday-Schools, under the direction of the Rev. Thomas
McMillan, C.S.P., to whom all inquiries bearing on this department may be
sent, addressed to 415 West 59th Street, New York City. Special attention
will be directed to the misleading and unreliable statistics relating to Catholic
Schools as usually given in the reports of public officials.
Reading Circle Day, August jo, — Programme to be arranged by Warren
E. Mosher, A.M., Editor of the Champlain Educator , which is especially
devoted to the advancement of Reading Circles.
special Lectures Jot Teachers, — The picturesque environment of Lake
Champlain, together with the distinguished abilities of the specialists chosen
for the lectures, will secure for those in attendance a most favorable oppor-
tunity to combine pleasure and profit. Some of the informal discussions
after the lectures in the beautiful pine grove overlooking the lake at Cliff
Haven will be found much more delightful than the ordinary meetings held
for self-improvement during the school year.
Under competent teachers instruction will be given in Sloyd and physical
culture.
Lessons in Music. — Mr. Camille W. Zeckwer wiU arrange for music les-
sons at Cliff Haven. At his recitals in the auditorium he will include selec-
tions from leading musical composers in America and Europe. He is pre-
pared to teach Piano, Organ, Violin and Theory, including Harmony, Coun-
terpoint, Canon, Imitation, Fugue, Composition, and Instrumentation, at
summer rates. Mr. Zeckwer is Director of the Germantown Branch of the
Philadelphia Musical Academy ; Organist and Director of St. John's Roman
Catholic Church, Philadelphia, and Director of the Manheim Orchestra.
Mr. Zeckwer is known as a composer of piano pieces and songs. Post-office
address : No. 6029 Main Street, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa.
A varied programme of athletic sports has been arranged by Mr. James
E. Sullivan, including Rowing, Swimming, Archery, Basket-Bail, Golf, Base-
Ball, etc. As the director of the World's Fair Athletic Exhibit at St. Louis
Mr. Sullivan has been honored with the highest recognition that can be given
in America. He has a number of medals and trophies to show for his
prowess. But he holds another class of records, for which there is no
material evidence. He is a charter member of the Pastime Athletic Club,
organized in 1878, and famous as the nursery of athletes. He was president
and captain of its teams until 1888. Then he transferred his allegiance to
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1904.] The Columbian Reading Union. 425
the New Jersey Athletic Club of Bayonne, and served a long term as presi-
dent there. He was an officer of the National Association and in the Athletic
Union ; a member of the first board of governors of the Amateur Athletic
Union, and is at present the only active member who has been active since
the formation. He has been a member of all the championship committees,
and most of the time president. He has never missed a championship meet-
ing, and has been judge or referee in every great intercollegiate meet in the
£a£t for twenty years. He was assistant American director at the Olympic
games in Paris in 1900, and director of athletics at the Pan-American Expo-
sition in Buffalo. He founded one of the pioneer exclusively sporting papers
in the United States, and is still an editor as well as a publisher of the official
books on all sports.
The following is taken from an article written by the Rev. Thomas Mc-
Millan, C.S.P. :
In nearly every case the realization of what the Summer-School stands
for is much more fully impressed by a visit to its home at Cliff Haven than
by any description on the printed page. The anticipation is far surpassed by
the reality. The present writer has had the honor of taking an active share
since the very beginning of the movement in the work of preparing the pro-
gramme of lectures and studies. Considerable attention has been given to
the encouragement of the work for self-improvement undertaken voluntarily
by the Catholic Reading Circles throughout the United States. It is now
conceded that the directors and members of these reading circles have been
the chief factors that made possible the beginning and continued success of
the Summer-School. They contributed to the movement from their varied
experience in educational work without any inducement of professional ccm-
pensation. Each one is expected to be a volunteer, eager and willing to do
loyal service in the cause of Christian truth. For every lecture the allowance
of money is made merely nominal to cover expenses. In the absence of any
large endowment fund this spirit of generosity must be relied on to continue
the work for the future.
A practical example may best serve to illustrate the bond of union be-
tween the Catholic reading public and the Summer-School. The former
director of the Fenelon Reading Circle, Borough of Brooklyn, New York
City, Rev. M. G. Flannery, was invited to communicate some of his extensive
knowledge on the subject of Christian art, in the form of lectures. He was
also requested to furnish a list of books of reference, so that the readers might
continue the study in their own homes during the winter months. Another
useful purpose of this list was to guide the selection of books in the numerous
town libraries supported by public funds where Catholics can claim equal
rights.
There was much discussion at the inception of the movement as to
whether the Summer-School represented a real need of the Catholic body ;
and whether it would serve to develop and strengthen the intellectual forces in
defence of educational institutions. The late Brother Azarias was requested
to prepare a statement bearing on this point for the Catholic Congress at
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426 THE Columbian Reading Union. [June, 1904.]
Chicago ia the year 1893, in which he stated that the primary import of the
Summer-School is :
To give from the most authoritative sources among our Catholic writers
and thinkers the Catholic point of view on all the issues of the day in history,
in literature, in philosophy, in political science, upon the economic problems
that are agitating the world, upon the relations between science and religion ;
to state in the clearest possible terms the principal underlying^truth in each
and all these subjects , to remove false assumptions and correct false state-
ments; to pursue the calumnies and slanders uttetcd against our creed and
our Church to their last lurking place. Our reading Catholics, in the busy
round of their daily occupations, heedlessly snatch out of the secular journals
and magazines undigested opinions upon important subjects, opinions hastily
written and not infrequently erroneously expressed ; men and events, theories
and schemes and projects, are discussed upon unsound principles and assump-
tions which the readers have but scant time to unravel and rectify ; the poison
of these false premises enters into their thinking, corrodes their reasoning;
and unconsciously they accept as truth conclusions that are only distortions of
truth. . . . The mission of the Catholic Sumnur-Sckool^ therefore, does
in all propriety, and in all justice, take a place in our Catholic system of
education.
By his own lectures at the Summer-School, Brother Azarias refuted many
erroneous opinions relating to the history of education. Professor Herbert
B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins University, in the Report of the Commis-
sioner of Education for the United States, 1898-9, rendered a deserved tribute
when he affirmed that Brother Azarias in his printed essays << proved con-
clusively to American readers that the mediaeval Church did not neglect
either primary or popular education. All was given that the times really
needed or demanded. The rise of Colleges and Universities cannot be
explained without reference to the Cathedral and Cloister Schools of the
Middle Ages. . . . The gymnasia of modern Germany were based upon
mediaeval . . . foundations, upon confiscation of ancient religious
endowments."
The approval given June, 1894, by our Holy Father Pope Leo XHL, was
most encouraging to those who had undertaken amid many difficulties the
work of starting the Summer-School. During the following year the Apos-
tolic Delegate, now Cardinal Satolli, made a personal inspection of the site
chosen, and sent a cordial letter in approbation of the movement. Since that
time Cardinal Gibbons, Cardinal Martinelli, and the present Apostolic Dele-
gate, Archbishop Falconio, and many other prelates have been among the
honored guests. The former president of the Summer-School, Right Rev.
Monsignor Conaty, D.D., was chosen Rector of the Catholic University, and
is now Bishop of Los Angeles, Cal. Right Rev. Monsignor Lavelle, V.G.,
after many years of devoted service to the work of the Summer-School, has
received merited distinction from Pope Pius X. within the present year.
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Vol. LXXIX. JULY, 1904. ' No. 472.
THE RECOMMENDATION OF CATHOLICISM.
BY REVEREND JOSEPH McSORLEY, C.S.P.
fRULY significant of the general temper of the
present epoch is the unprecedented number of
books, pamphlets, articles, and sermons now
propagating an idea of religion intended to
replace the old belief in supernatural Chris-
tianity. As the best scholarship of the day has been largely
devoted to this cause, it is not surprising to find that a con-
siderable measure of success has come to reward effort and to
stimulate fresh endeavor. Men even claim that an omen of
ultimate triumph is hovering above the marching army of
progress; and they speak not without at least a show of justi-
fication. For it seems not unreasonable to believe that the
methods which served to reconstruct science in the past may
safely be relied upon to fashion the religion of the future ;
and that this present movement will be confronted by no
greater obstacles than those which once made spectral analysis
and wireless telegraphy foolish as the tales of fairyland. In
short, an incipient revolution has rarely been more promising
or more powerful than the current reaotion against revealed
religion. Meanwhile, directly in its course, blocking its pro-
gress, defying and waving it back, stands the Catholic Church, —
to challenge what rationalism affirms, and to stake her right
to life on the permanent value of what nearly all the rest of
the world has relegated to the shadows of benighted antiquity.
Claiming to wield a supreme authority, she defines doctrines,
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VOL, LXXIX.— 28 Digitized by GOOglC
428 THE RECOMMENDATION OF CATHOLICISM. [July,
she imposes laws, and she proclaims that by a supernatural
commission she is entitled to exact belief and obedience from
all mankind.
Justification for her action in assuming this attitude and
pre-empting this authority over souls, the church certainly must
present, under penalty of being regarded as ignoring all reason
and defying all right. In truth, centuries of apologetic have
had precisely this end of self- vindication in view. Historical
demonstration of the accuracy of Scripture, analysis of doc-
trinal passages, verification of prophecies, enumeration of mira-
cles — in these various fields her numerous and ardent contro-
versialists have been long engaged. Recognizing man's right
to seek, and her duty to provide, motives for believing, the
church, in addressing herself to the world, offers evidence of
her divine origin, which many a time has won earnest seekers
to the conviction that Catholicism is indeed from God.
To-day, however, and almost in the very measure that this
evidence approaches its highest possible perfection of presenta-
tion, there is spreading abroad a temper of mind sure to inter-
fere most seriously with the practical efficiency of Catholic
apologetic. Nor can we deny that the mental disposition thus
unfavorable to the extension of Catholicism has been in the
past, and will be in the future, bred and fostered by principles
which have made strongly for the general progress of the
world. Is it not to the growth of the scientific temper that
" the wonderful century " just closed owes its most brilliant
achievements ? And is it not this same temper which seems
to be mainly responsible for the present set of the cultivated
mind with regard to revealed religion ? To be critical, say
practically incredulous; to shrink from committing one's self;
to keep testing and verifying, sounding and adjusting, doubt-
* ing old and venturing new hypotheses — these tendencies have
been successful in emancipating men from the bondage of
numerous time- honored illusions and putting them in control
of mighty forces before which more reverent generations were
content to worship silently. We look back to the sources of
modern progress, and we discover that criticism has been* the
great instrument of progress. Once men have dared to exam-
ine impartially, away have crumbled caste privileges and heredi-
tary divine rights and traditional superstitions of every sort,
^o we begin to doubt everything, and the leaders of thought
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.] THE RECOMMENDATION OF CATHOLICISM. 429
encourage, us. The Opus Majus bids us found certainty on
experience alone. The Discourse on Method counsels a modi-
fication of the assent given to any proposition capable of being
doubted. The first scientists of the day preach lay sernoons
on " the sin of faith/' and remind us that we must accept as
merely provisional the scientific views that prevail, whether
about the existence of ether, the character oi gravitation, or
the constancy of nature. To assume positions as workable
theories only; to sift everything; to ignore no shred of evi-
dence ; and to consider every question open until one side has
been demonstrated, and submission is a necessity of the mind —
such is the method universally recommended, and amply justi-
fied by the successes it has achieved. By following these lines
Newton improved on Kepler, and Pasteur became great, and
Ohm gave the world a law. It is as the outcome of this
method that we receive our automobiles, and submarines, and
cables, and X-ray pictures, and marconigraphs. Surely the
history of the last half century provides a sufficient motive for
men to feel sceptical about any proposition which is not actu-
ally forced on their acceptance. Yet, according to the Catho-
lic Church, it is this very spirit of rationalistic criticism which
a man must divest himself of in his search for religious truth.
The evidence of her claims he must approach not critically
but reverentially ; and he must accept as final and certain
facts which theology itself tells him he is not mentally bound to
accept.* It seems plain enough, then, that between the current
temper of the day and the disposition demanded as a pre-
requisite of Catholic belief there is an irreconcilable opposition.
All might be very nicely arranged, of course, if the church
were content to have her claim accepted as a fairly probable
one. But this she refuses to allow. What was taught by pope
and synod and theologian in other ages is repeated in our
own day ; f and it amounts to this, that probable opinion, or
conditional acceptance, or workable theory will never suffice as
a basis of faith ; firm, certain, and undoubting must be the
assent given to the facts which constitute the church's reasona-
ble title to divine authority. But this is precisely the kind of
assent which critical minds are loth to give; and which they
can hardly be expected to give on the sole strength of argu-
* Cf., e.g., Saarez, Dt Fidt, d. Hi. $ 8, n. 5, sqq.; Lugo. D$ Fidt, d. ii. $ i, n. 14, sqq.
t Cf. Densiaser's ^ndkiridicti, nn. 1038, 1488-1493, 149B.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
43t> Tkk RecommenHation of Catholicism. [July,
ments 'hotly contested by scholars more thoroughly equipped
for discussion than men ever were befofe.
Whit some will consider the most thoroughly disturbing
element of the situation is the facility with which, by means
of reprints and digests, the critical temper inoculates the whole
reading world. That in the studious, thoughtful classes of a
progressive generation many should come upon more or less
unanswerable difficulties, and grow suspicious of traditional
creed, might seem comparatively tolerable ; but the trouble
does not end there. If neolithic fossils and -Babylonian bricks
and Syrian palimpsests and laboratory plethysmograpbs* had no
other usefulness, at least they would serve as efficient catch-
words, reminding the masses of serious problems raised by
specialists and still awaiting solution. True, we have scholar
answering scholar, and learning pitted* against learning ; but no
apologist will dare assert that all along the line the fight is
won, and that a close- linked series of flawless arguments makes
faith impervious to doubt. And yet in the absence of such a
perfect apologetic many minds are pledged to hold aloof from
'' denominational attachments." In the evidences of Christianity,
writes Romanes,* " as in any other science, the lay public must
take on authority only what both sides are agreed upon."
Hence, although we revise and correct and improve our argu-
ments, in view of changed conditions, and although we totally
rearrange our defence of the faith, we have to admit that be-
sides the occasions when we succeed in producing convictions,
there are many otjiers when we are balked and helpless.
That a fairly good case can be made out for Catholicism ;
that science cannot prove miracles impossible, nor history deny
the Virgin Birth, nor psychology deny the inspiration of
Scripture, nor philosophy reduce the Trinity to a contradiction
and the Incarnation to an absurdity, — these propositions, for
the most part, are recognized by the modern mind. The fore-
most rationalists of the day f are perfectly willing to concede
that Catholicism is logical and consistent, that it is the only
possible theory of supernatural religion. How wide a chasm
yawns between these amiable concessions and assent to the
church's claims may not be realized when the Catholic is work-
ing out a paper apologetic ; but it comes home with dismaying
force when he attempts to persuade a smiling hearer that what
• Thoughts on Religion, p. i66. iE.g"., Sabatier.
digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.J The Recommendation of Catholicism. 431
has been admitted as a theoretic possibility is actually and cer-
tainly true. The mind so encouragingly slow to deny is equally
reluctant to affirm. We go over the evidence point by point;
we level hills and make rough places plain \ we provide means
of transportation and certificates that our road has been the
path to peace for many; and when we have done> then, with
no shade of animosity, and almost with visible regret at the
necessity of expressing disagreement, our listener replies : " But
how can I be sure of it with so. many gaps in the evidence ? "
In a word, we have only proven the fact of revelation to be
credible ; we cannot force an admission that it is indubitably
true.
It will scarcely be necessary to remind the reader that this
condition of mind in no sense belies the Vatican Council's pro-
nouncement as to the validity of proofs based on miracles and
prophecies. The church never declared that these, or any other,
proofs would make dissent a rational impossibility. Rather has
she always been inclined to insist on the insufficiency of mere
argument, to postulate as essential the assistance of divine
grace, and to make appeal to that piety and affection without
which she considers it unlikely, if not impossible, that a mind
can take the first step towards faith.
The lesson brought home to us, therefore, is simply this :
after logic has done its best and science exhausted its re-
sources, something must still be done before the church's title
to a divine authority will be sufficiently recommended to the
men most thoroughly imbued with the temper of the age.
Feeling that now the world is in possession of a wider (futlook
than of old; that to be philosophical forbids one to be parti-
san; that they 4re viewing the course of history "with larger
other eyes than cur^/' the critics instinctively and persistently
refuse to take sides in "sectarian disputes." So« after all our
classical proofs have been presented, we find ourselves facing
still unconquered minds, and wills not yet ready to command
the acceptance of propositions which the very first canon of
criticism bids them be wary of.
The man who has long admitted the consistency and rea-
sonableness of Catholicism may, then, have need of a further
motive before accepting it as certainly true.* Upon one ques-
* This seems to have been the attitude of Romanes towards Christianity at the period de-
scribed in Thoughts on Religion ^ p. 141.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
432 The Recommendation of Catholicism, [July,
tion, it appe&rs, must depend all chanee of our ever providitig
that motive : Can the critic be brought to look upon the church
as no longer an object of mere speculative interest, but a thing
with which the most precious goods and the most sublime reali-
ties of life are inevitably bound up ? There are propositions to
the truth of which men never fasten their souls' high hopes,
and to the finality of which, therefore, no moral motive bids
them commit themselves. When Fresnel or Hertz propound
theories, the listener cares to know only if acceptance will ren-
der calculations fruitful and devices operative. When Laplace
is corrected by Lord Kelvin, no scientist hopes that the new
conceptions may never be improved upon. Those who appro-
priate the benefits of the Euclidian geometry, concern themselves
little as to whether its postulate be true or false. That the
theory of revelation should be approached in another spirit, and
that here the will should determine an assent beyond the power
of the evidence to force, this, it would seem, requires beyond all
else a deep conviction that somehow things which give value to
life, the objects of imperishable hopes, and the ends of quench-
less ambitions, are linked itiextricably.with the verdict passed
upon Catholicism as certain or unproven.
Thus, paradoxical though it seem, we must look \o lead
certain minds, first to an acceptance of Catholicism as some-
thing involved in their own dearest certainties, and afterwards
to the decision that their wills shall come into play and deter-
mine that whatever the church implies shall be held as certain.
The conviction that she is not and cannot be a fraud springs
then fif>m what is rooted deepest in their souls, from those be-
liefs that for them make up the music and sunshine and very
atmosphere of life. Accordingly as a msln's attitude toward
reality is that of a philosopher, a mystic, an artist, or a philan-
thropist, he will proceed along a different path. But in each
case his affirmation of Catholicity will result from a perception
of its being essential to faith in the value of life. The man
will believe because he has found the church to be possessed of
qualities which irresistibly fix the ardent will, however free
they would of themselves leave the cold and critical intellect.
In this winning over of the individual we may very confi-
dently Anticipate the help of divine grace, illuminating the
niind, moving the will, awakening and deepening the emotions,
so that what before was reckoned among the indifferent possi-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 The Recommendation of Catholicism. 433
bilities of history now takes a place among such centres of
high affection as faith in the principle of progress, belief in a
hereafter, trust in the value oi purity, confidence in the honor
of one's mother.
Some strong light from heaven that reveals the church's
title to be regarded thus shall win for her allegiance and
devotedness of a kind that cold argument could never hope to
justify. Hence the pertinence of prayer, the call to petition
God for those we are laboring to convert, the duty of engag<-
ing saints to further all our efforts, the expediency of induc-
ing the souls on whom we work to pray that all which will
help them towards nobility and holiness and God may be
g^ven them at whatever cost. On the assumption that Catho-
licism is divine, such prayer must do much to make honest
msn appreciate the moral and spiritual efficiency of the church's
doctrines and institutions.
To say and to believe that God's secret, uncovenanted graces
will descend upon the earnest seeker and develop in his soul a
new appreciation of Catholicism does not, however, relieve the
apostolic laborer of the necessity of toiling ardently at the
work of planting and watering. He must seek out and utilize
the opportunities that nature affords to grace; he must study
the tendencies and cravings of each individual mind that comes
under his observation ; he must learn how best he may help
each one to realize the value of Catholicism. When once he
has become familiar with the personal tastes and affections of
each, he will be able to do much towards transferring Catho*
licism from the merely intellectual realm into the region of
things loved and venerated. This really amounts to an asser-
tion that Catholicism has to be recommended by a careful use
of the argutnentum ad hominem. For we should not suppose
that this instrument of persuasion is represented only by the
negative form which provisionally accepts a man's opinions for
the purpose of deducing the absurd implications they involve.
It may also be employed positively, in such wise as to show a
man that what he already believes and loves, involves the
further truth which we are at pains to have him accept. Such
procedure, moreover, is in happy accord with the common sense
of the present day, which recognizes very clearly that the best
method of propagating any creed is to lay bare the bonds link-
ing it with some favorite principle or some cherished hope of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
434 The Recommendation of Catholicism, [July,
those we address, and thus to develop an antecedent wish that
the thesis under discussion may be proven true. Among the
good omens in the religipus world at this very moment, we
may surely number the cultivation of this method of persuasion
by a growing proportion of Catholic apologists.
As the pertinency of an apologetic must vary with the
view-point of the person addressed, so the efficiency of each
argument is a quality to be determined practically. Whether
or not such or such a presentation of the case is advisable
must be dfscided by experienced observers, rather than by
scholars of monumental learning. Hence the apologist must go
for direction to those who are most constantly and intimately
in touch with unbelievers. In the defence of religion, as in its
propaganda, deep research is of course an imperative necessity ;
but of equal importance is. a familiar acquaintance with the needs
of living men. If for his treasures of erudition the scholar must
pay the price of living in seclusion, then only a docile attention
to what missionaries have to tell can give him a realization of
actual needs, and keep him from pouring his life into a tome
that will issue from one student-closet to be buried in another,
and that, however carefully elaborated at the desk, will never
be heard of on the street. Perhaps it may be called a second
promising feature of the present mental awakening that the
modern savant is coming to conceive of his vocation as primarily
and essentially a public service, and that nowadays professional
scholars, and scientists, and theologians recognize that to be
profound is less of a glory than to be useful. To-day ^he vigilant
observer of actual conditions rather than the subtle explorer of
eternal fitnesses is allowed to dictate the tasks to be accom-
plished and the methods to be employed; for the world has
grown to esteem it as a poor boon to be enriched daily with a
new volume presupposing what questioners do not accept, and
offering evidence that, having been a thousand times presented,
has a thousand times encountered the same obstinate check and
the same uncompromising rejection. So apologists agree that
what cannot successfully be recommended in the old way, be it
ever so good a way, must be recommended in a new fashion ;
that proofs and arguments, congruities and probabilities which
will surely be waved aside had best be exchanged, if possible,
for something less pretentious, less closely spun, and more
practically efficacious; and that the availability of a method
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Recommendation of Catholicism. 435
must always depend less on what has been said or done in the
past than on what is needed at the present.
True, all this means that the apologist's labor shall be
never-ending, and that so long as the sum of human knowledge
keeps increasing and men's attitudes keep changing, the scope
of his vocation must enlarge. Not merely to remember and
repeat, but to listen and learn, to sympathize and co-operate,
to pursue indefatigably and in every form the sweet duty of
helping truth to germinate in the souls of men, such is the
task, or rather the privilege, of every apostolic spirit bearing
the title of the Faith's Defender.
A conviction that the true apologist is thus unselfish forms
the sufficient excuse of all who, though able to accomplish but
little themselves, undertake to indicate a new riddle to be
solved, an old question still awaiting its answer, or a neglected
class of souls yet unprovided for. Those whose call it is to
spread the faith are, of course, thoroughly anxious to be made
acquainted with every vulnerable point of their own defence,
with the full strength and exact situation of their antagonists,
and with the most effectual way of reaching and subduing
opposition. How unfortunate and hopeless would be the con-
dition of Catholicism were a stigma attached to those who
specified the weaker points of our apologetic, or pointed out
strong objections, or indicated lacks in our existing literature !
Surely great gratitude is the desert of all who give such warn-
ings; for there will ever be a real danger that in the dialecti-
cal onset and the clash of contradictory theses our champions
may fail to see and to provide for very serious domestic
needs.
What the watchers report is this, then : that a great army
is marching to our gates; but it is an army of pilgrims, and
they are seeking peace. They want the truth that liberates,
the hope that vivifies, the charity that makes one. Religion
means for them the perfecting of humanity, and Catholicism
can win their allegiance only when it proves itself capable of
ennobling men as no other influence can do. To one the
church must be revealed as the great social saviour, to another
as the guardian of the family, to others as the soul of the
finest philanthropy, the inspiration of art, the charter of
democracy, the personification of Calvary's selflessness, the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
43^ The Recommendation of Catholicism. [July,
bond of human brotherhood, the principle of religious unity,
the enduring basis of civilization and high morality, the
supremely efficient instrument for the attainment of a holi-
ness dear to the aspiring souls of the world's greatest men.
Thus, and only thus, we are informed, can the great host
about us be won to Catholicity. They will never come to it
unless convinced that it symbolizes, vitalizes, and conserves
these best gifts of Heaven ; but in whatever measure each mind
is peculiarly sensitive to the appeal of this or that gift, in
such measure will sympathy and affection be aroused for the
guardian of that gift, and in the same measure will sympathy
and affection determine a favorable verdict on the church's
claims.
To the manifesting of such characteristics as attributes of
Catholicism much attention must, therefore, be devoted ; motives
thus presented being quite certain to sway some minds that
have stubbornly resisted the impact of logical demonstrations.
With one class of .earnest seekers more than others will an
argument of this sort be especially successful, namely, with
those to whom spiritual perfection is the constant and supreme
ambition of life. In a sense, persons of this kind are the most
worthy of solicitude as giving promise that with the church's
help they will come very near to the realizing of that divine
and beautiful plan which we name God's vocation of souls.
At any rate, to them the church owes much ; and it is very
instructive to reflect that she can fulfil her obligation towards
them only when recognized by them as a luminously divine
fact of which their minds cannot be rid nor their consciences
freed. Show them Catholicity as the condition and the means
of true holiness, and they will throw in their fate with the church,
willing to accept whatever her divinity would imply, brought
to the subjecting of mind and heart to her, because to disallow
her claim would be to eliminate from the world of reality that
which makes most strongly of all for the sanctiiication of
humanity. This is the characteristic of a class of souls who
very aptly have been named " the outside saints." Their
spiritual integrity is guaranteed even by their attitude in this
very question ; their hesitation to go forward does but har-
monize with the most noble sentiments and most lofty aspira-
tions of our nature ; and if they turn away from us with their
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Recommendation of Catholicism. 437
demands unsatisfied they will be rejecting us out of motives
worthy of all respect so long as the dictates of a pure con-
science shall be deemed to possess authority.
Now, although it would not be true to say that nothing has
been done to provide for the wants of souls like these, this
much is plain : that the spiritual value of Catholicism is a point
far from sufficiently dwelt upon in our books and sermons ; that
a hundred thoughts and a thousand words are devoted to other
topics, while to this is grudgingly given one; that with all our
zeal, our industry, and our eloquence there lies upon us a stil)
unaccomplished duty of showing by writings, by words, and by
deeds the supremacy of Catholicism as a means of human en-
noblement and sanctification. 1
Scarcely any work, then, would seem more timely at the
present moment than an exhaustive picture of the advantages
possessed by Catholics in the struggle for spiritual perfection.
Not one of us but feels sure that the material is ready for the
artist's hand. That Catholicism lays down the principles and
makes the applications, and provides the models and affords
the inceiltives, and achieves the successes and records the expe-
riences necessary for the constructing of such an apologetic,
we can hardly doubt. For if the teachings, institutions, and
general influence of the church do not rank first among the
various visible influences that are sanctifying souls« then it may
fairly be asked — but not easily explained — why the church is
upon earth at all? A time-honored relic, a venerable establish-
ment, an interesting teller of ancient stories, a logically coherent
and wonderfully permanent society, all this she may be \ but
unless she be supremely efficient in helping the soul to grow
in the true likeness of God, it remains inexplicable how she
can lay claim to a divine authority ; and the apologist must
be hopelessly embarrassed when he attempts to provide the ilite
of humanity with a sufficient motive to induce them to buttress
up the church's claim with the support of their reverence and
affection.
Not a few at present openly declare that the spiritual effi-
cacy of Catholicism is the chief of all the motives capable of
influencing the modern mind to accept the authority of the
church on evidence which in a purely scientific issue would
never induce an irrevocable assent. That ideal of the Christian
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
438 THE RECOMMENDATION OF CATHOLICISM, [July,
Church which dwells in the heart of the saint is constituted
above all by the power to make for righteousness, to elevate
and to sanctify the soul. Not unlike this is the ideal enshrined
in every bosom that pants with the thirst of the fountains of
God. In fact, one might almost question the value of a con-
version effected with any other sentiment than a sense of the
church's spiritual efficiency being dominant and supreme.
Thus there comes into view a consideration which renders
it no longer a burden to faith that God has left the divinity of
the church an open question for the merely critical mind For
why should it be supposed that He will force men into an
assent, unwilling and unappreciative ? Why should we presume
that to prize virtue and to pursue holiness is of less value as
a guide to faith than to analyze or to argue well ? And by
what warrant do we expect to fashion a perfect apologetic
while, as members of the church, we fail to exhibit in holy liv-
ing the best proof of her divine origin, the least contestable
evidence of her spiritual efficacy ? There, it would seem, is the
heart of the whole problem ; and is it not lawful to believe
that until we her children become holy, the church's title to
authority and her power to cast a spell over the minds and
hearts of men will always be partial and incomplete and de-
pressingly imperfect ?
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.] HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. 439
HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT,
THE CHIEF FOUNDER AND FIRST LEADER OF THE CENTRE
PARTY.
BY REV. GEORGE F. WEIBEL, S.J.
III.
^HEN the first direct attack was made on the lib-
erties of the Church in the "Pulpit-paragraph,"
proposed and defended by Lutz, Mallinckrodt
rose and refuted clause by clause the measure of
oppression. " Mr. Lutz maintains/' he said, " that
the state must round off and protect its territory. This is quite
true. But is not the church entitled and obliged to a like course
of action? Since when is the church an institution of the
state ? Did the Emperor Octavian or, perhaps, Nero or Dio-
cletian found the church ? Ddes she not rather derive all
authority from her divine commission from Christ, who sent
his Apostles into the world, bidding them ' Go and teach/
without the sanction of kings?" A little later the new School
Laws were discussed. Over fifteen years before, Mallinckrodt
had expressed his views — the only tenable views of any Catho-
lic in matters of education. Pleading in the Prussian House
that a Jewish teacher of religion for the members of that faith
should be appointed in a gymnasium, in the course of his
remarks he thus addressed the assembly :''... But if
you create such non- sectarian institutions, your efforts will soon
result in making not only your schools, but your scholars too,
undenominational. By refusing each creed its own religious
instructors, ' you 'dechristianize the Christian pupils, and surely
you do not make the Jewish ones better Jews." On another
occasion he said on the same subject: "And now, gentlemen,
allow me to ask you for a candid answer to a question. Do
you really believe that such irreligious establishments will give
us men grounded in religious convictions, be they Christians or
Jews, Catholics or Protestants, — men who, faithful to God, will
keep the faith pledged to their fellow-men, men who under Jill
circumstances will rigidly adhere to the dictates of conscience ?
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
440 Herman Joseph von Malunckrodt. [July,
Will not those institutions train up a generation that, mistaken
as to its supreme end, will wander aimlessly through, life, like
a rudderless ship torn from her moorings and adrift in mid-
ocean ?" After such antecedents, Mallinc:krokt was naturally
expected to inveigh vigorously against the new School Bill.
'' Gentlemen," he said in the course of the debate, " whither is
the administration drifting ? and whither does it purposely tend ?
These are two questions to which I am not in a condition to
furnish a reply. But I am greatly alarmed that the answer
which the future will give will not be the one expected, that
the actual result will differ widely from the original intent. At
the moment when the government summarily requires the dic-
tatorship over the school, the Hon. Virchow, the leader of the
Left, advocates compulaory education. Gentlemen, the govern-
mental move from the Right to the Left, so clearly manifested
in these proceedings, forces us to advance with caution. . . .
The president of the ministry, if I am not greatly mistaken, in
more than one line has chosen for his models not only the
Emperor Napoleon, but also some prominent Italian statesmen.
This circumstance renders mtf all the more suspicious. It im-
poses upon me the duty to warn you, gentlemen, against accept-
ing a bill which in reality is nothing short of pure dictatorship.*'
To vary the monotqny of useless discussions of laws which
a hostile majority had determined on passing, Bismarck, regard-
less of the dictates of common decency, offered peace to the
Centre on condition that it would exclude Windhorst from its
ranks. The champion of the party returned an answer honor-
able both to the speaker and to the illustrious victim of the
chancellor's special hatred. ''The president of the cabinet has
offered us peace," said Mallinckrodt, " on condition that we rid
ourselves of that dangerous member, Windhorst. In this barter,
gentlemen, two parties are concerned ; first, the Hon. Repre-
sentative from Meppen; . . . secondly, thjc Centre Party —
I speak in the name of the latter. Gentlemen, we wish for
peace as sincerely as any man in this House ; but when peace
is offered on the condition that we sacrifice one of the mem-
bers — yes, even a single one of our companions- in- arms — this
we deem an insult to our honor; such a proposition we reject
immediately and most energetically. No, the temptation is npt
strong enough to caus^ us to succumb. We ar« proqd to
possess amofig u$ a member like the Hon. D^pmy ffoii)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 441
Meppen. Gentlemen, in acquiring him the Centre has secured
a priceless pearl, and this pearl has found its proper settirg."
In June, 1872, the Jesuit Law was under consideration. The
Protestant Friedberg, commissioner of the government in pro-
posing the measure, solemnly protested that nothing was more
foreign to the bill than a spirit of hostility to the church ; on
the contrary, it was to be a law of peace. The answer to such
bitter mockery came swift and crushing. After having torn to
shreds the specious pretences of the speaker, Mallinckrodt con-
tinued : '' Gentlemen, this bill is simply a declaration of bank-
ruptcy on the part of the Legislature. I for one have never
seen, neither in the past nor in* the present, any legal enact-
ment that offended so grossly against the most primary re-
quisites of the legislative science." In the same discourse,
referring to what the governmental commissioner has styled the
mildness of this law of peace, Mallinckrodt replied : '' Gentle-
men, the right of personal freedom is guaranteed to the vilest
of evil-doers, in so far as he cannot be interdicted any special
place without previous legal condemnation. The Jesuits thus
far have not been condemned in court; no sentence has been
pronounced against them ; no, not even a hint has been given
that, in the twenty- five years during which the Jesuits have
labored on German soil, one single transgression, one single
breach of the law, in any one member of their society, has been
laid to their charge. And to-day, the Imperial government has
the effrontery — pardon the expression — to propose a decree of cut-
lawry whereby men whom hundreds of thousands, nay millions,
in the land revere for their virtue and esteem for their public
services are placed in a position inferior to that occupied by the
ordinary criminal ; a measure whereby they are deprived of
the right of claiming a hearing prior to condemnation. . . .
No, gentlemen, this is no verdict ; this is the tyranny of party
spirit."
No sooner had the sons of Loyola been banished from Ger-
man soil than the enemies of the church, in conformity with time-
honored tactics, demanded the sacrifice of all religious orders.
The Jesuits had been condemned to a severe exile simply because
they were Jesuits. The other religious were to share the same
fate because of affiliation to the Order of St. Ignatius. Even the
devoted women who wore out their lives in prisons, hospitals,
and schools, and who but a year before had shown such heroism
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
442 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [July,
on the battle-field — even they had become an impediment to prog-
ress in civilization, a dangerous element in the state. The hum-
ble nun, however, found a worthy champion in this new " Che-
valier sans peur et sans reproche " !
''Gentlemen, please consider your action," exclaimed Mal-
linckrodt during the discussion. ''When determined to expel
the Jesuits you said to yourselves : the Prussian constitution
presents difficulties to the execution of our plan ; we must take
the Imperial Legislature for our base of operation. Then you
went to work, proposed and passed a law for the whole empire.
By its aid you rudely forced those men to leave their native
land. To-day you do not even deem it necessary to recur to
the help of a law. No, the arbitrary caprice of a ministry is
sufficient for you to fully justify your course. All preceding
ministers of worship may have declared that the constitution
guarantees the religious sisters free access to the school-room;
the state in former days may have granted them the right of
corporation; this is all the same to you. The minister of in-
struction has said the word : ' The sisters must be excluded
from the class-room : the ultimate reason for it, my good
pleasure.' And you all loudly applaud the oracle.
" Are you aware, gentlemen, of your own rapid progress ?
What is it finally that thus urges you on ? Is it a political
question, a reason of state? Now, what are your political
grounds ? Name those reasons of state ! Or perhaps you in-
tend to chastise the members of the Centre Party by destroy-
ing the legal existence of the poor school sisters ? Is this
noble, gentlemen ? Is this just ? Can such conduct stand the
scrutiny of the historian ? Must not history blush for shame
when compelled to enter such deeds on her scroll ? I ask
again, gentlemen, what your motives are. Is your peace so
terribly disturbed by the mere fact that outside of your own
schools, and within the bare walls of her modest cell, the
school sister says an ' Our Father ' more than you ? Indeed,
gentlemen, prayer must have become quite odious with certain
classes of people. This circumstance alone can furnish a
reason for the latest innovation. In former days, at the open-
ing of the 'Landtag,' prayer was first on the order of the
House. To-day such superstitious practices are out of date.
Heretofore children used to begin their class-work with a
devout ' Our Father.' I suppose this too must cease."
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1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 443
As has been remarked,- Mallinckrodt fuJly realized the utter
futility of his efforts before that brazen wall of deep-seated
prejudice and blind party-passion, so, skilfully exploited for his
own ends by the real ruler of the empire. Nevertheless he
kept on fighting the great battle for " Truth, Freedom, and
Justice." Nowhere did our zealous champion appear to better
advantage, nowhere did the time-serving majority dread him
more, than in questions touching the interests of the church.
On such occasions the mighty stream of his eloquence, welHng
up from a sorrow-stricken heart, would overcome all obstacles
and sweep everything along in its resistless course. Under its
action the opponents saw the ground torn away from under
tb^ir feet, and were carried along in spite of themselves. Sel-
dom, if ever, did they dare interrupt his discourse. Never, on
the other hand, not even in the heat of an argument, would
he allow, a hasty word or unguarded expression to escape his
lips. There they would sit, those would-be civilizers, listening
to the vigorous denunciation of their deeds, the detailed diag-
nosis of their own political distemper. They had become so
accustomed to recognize the moral superiority of the Catholic
leader that they mechanically submitted to the sort of spell he
exercised over them. . And truly matters were seldom minced
to suit their unhealthy palate.
Thus, when the first skirmishes were over, and new laws
of oppression were under consideration, Mallinckrodt time and
again tore the mask from the hypocritfcal lawmakers,, who
pretended simply to defend state rights against the encroach-
ing power of Rome.
" Gentlemen," he remarked, " the royal government has
openly declared war. It endeavors to gloss over the iniquity
of its action by asserting ^hat hostilities have been forced upon
it To justify this assertion the minister of worship is pleased
to state that it was first made by a man whose word is worth
consideration (Bismarck). Gentlemen, allow me to be candid.
The dictum of the man who uttered those words has, in . a
question of truth or falsehood, no weight with me. I deny the
state'nient most emphatically. The bald assertion that the con-
flict in which the government admits itself to have engaged
has been forced upon it by the church, is, as a matter of fact,
false. On the contrary, the government has of its own accord
taken a hostile attitude, and this not against private indivi-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
444 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [July,
duals, not against the Centre Party, nor against bishops, . . .
but against the Catholic Church."
At the beginning of 1873, when the constitution was to
undergo an alteration whereby the church was to become more
and more the humble handmaid of the state, the indefatigable
Mallinckrodt was again in the field. ''The amendments to the
constitution," he said, "have been styled a re- establishment
of the true relations between church and state — a regulation
that should be adopted as becoming a great people and a
great nation. So complete and systematic a settlement as is
proposed to-day has never yet been attempted. Now, gentle-
men, do consider this new, complete, systematic settlement,
which culminates in the freedom granted to the minister of
worship to use at will the police for the enforcing of church
laws ; and then try to picture to yourselves the edifying spec-
tacle of a leader of the Liberals prostrate in the dust and
worshipping — the police."
The '* Kulturkampf " kept ragfing on with increased fury.
The disenfranchis^ment oi the Catholic Church was followed
by those infamous enactments known as the May Laws.
Shortly after came amendments to them, calculated to secure
their end more effectually. The Catholic champions met every
emergency, their courage and power increasing with each new
danger. Mallinckrodt branded those tyrannical measures as the
abortive fruit of liberalism, desire of state supremacy over the
church, and naked absolutism. Those were the three allies
banded together, bearing aloft a banner with the inscription
"State Omnipotence." It was simply the rehabilitation of the
pagan principle of state. ". . . And we, gentlemen," he
continued, "we are defending the principle of a Christian
state against heathendom, defending Christian freedom against
the inroads of the powers of this world, defending historical
right against revolutionary wrong, and — I do not exaggerate,
gentlemen — we are defending the crown against those who are
its supposed protectors."
Further on in the same debate he uttered these grand
Christian sentiments : " One thing I know for certain : the
bishops will show themselves loyal pastors of the church ; and
the faithful will rally determinately around their chie^ spiritual
guides. . . . The alternative for us may be dimply reduced
to this : Either the church is entitled to-day to an indcpen-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 445
dent existence, and the state is not omnipotent, or the state
was omnipotent even nineteen centuries ago, and Christ com-
mitted an injustice in founding his church; and the millions
who sealed their faith with their life-blood were nothing more
than criminals. . . .
"We are well aware that heavy days are in store for us.
It may eafiily happnit^^hat our bishoprics will be bereft of their
incumbents; it may easily happen that many Christian com-
munities will look and yearn in vain for spiritual guides. But,
gentlemen, the die is cast We pannot, against conscience and
better convictions — we cannot deny what we deem most sacred ;
and we live in the firm assurance that the Lord of hosts is on
our side. We know too that men's extreme necessity is God's
best opportunity."
Indeed the Catholic necessity was extreme. Absolute trust
in God, unshaken conviction in the future assistance from on
high, formed thenceforward the aoble refrain of Mallinckrodt's
most significant political utterances. He had become fully
aware of the critical condition of affairs. No, there was not a
rift in the dark horizon; absolutely no hope for the church,
from a human stand-point. But there was every reason for
confidence in the help of the Almighty.
At the beginning of 1874 there came up before the Legis-
lature new laws purporting to rivet more securely the Church
of God in slavish bondage to the chariot of a triumphant
state. The government pretended indignation at the unex-
pected resistance to its laws on 'the part of Catholic priests
and bishops. Mallinckrodt replied : " The reason why the
clergy offer so determined a resistance to the demands of the
Prussian government is very simple indeed. The state simply
denies any independent right in the church; and exacts on the
part of the chui^ch the admission that she has no rights, that
she is bound to unconditional submission to the state. In
return for it all the minister of worship condescends to promise
a certain amount of consideration in the exercise of his un-
limited state power. Gentlemen, the church whose age is (Cen-
turies, who is older than any existing state in the world, can-
not consent to such indignities. She cannot enter on such
considerations without destroying her principle, her claim to
existence. This suicide — for such it would be — the government
will require in vain from the Catholic Church ; this suicide the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
446 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July,
government, no matter what .dire measures it resorts to, shall
never witness. . . . Even if she is forced for a time to
disappear entirely from the soil of the Fatherland, there re-
mains for her at least the possibility of a return at a more
favorable moment — a return fair and stainless. Should she allow
herself first to be dishonored, her hopes would be shattered
for ever." Then peering into that clouded future, the orator,,
sustained by faith and sound principle, continued: '| And what
will be the more remote consequences? The state may nomi-
nate bishops. Suppose such a hireling on whose shoulders the
minister of worship has thrown the episcopal cope, and who in
lieu of crozier is surrounded by a cortege of military bayonets,
an intruder into our Catholic communities ; do you really believe
that the Catholic laity will bend their knees to receive his.
blessing? This you will hope for in vain. Again, do you
think that our faithful people will rush in vast numbers into
your Protestant camps, because their own spiritual guides have
been discarded ? No, g[entlemen, this is another miscalculation.
For there is, first of all, the great difficulty of finding the
Protestant Church, even if we were to seek for it with the
lantern of Diogenes of old. So many are there of Protestant
beliefs — the one calling here, the other there — and all differ so
widely in their profession of faith. Hence I say you cannot
expect to see the Catholic people turn Protestant. Finally,
what will be the result of it all ? Nothing; no, nothing save
utter religious decay. No doubt a portion of the people will
gather in closer union to keep their religious convictions.
They will foster them even more carefully and zealously than
before. But the other portion will simply fall into moral decay,
and will not at any rate come under the influence of factors
conducive to order and authority. . . . Therefore consider
well what you are about. Gentlemen, if you continue in the
course you have entered upon you will infallibly train up a
godless population, an element of violence which will cause
such social upheavals that they will bury you in a common
ruin. You may ask me, gentlemen, where our hope lies. Well,
let me say it plainly. Humanly speaking, our only outlook is
to fall with honor — which is better by far than bow our necks
to the dishonorable yoke of tyranny. From a Christian stand-
point I say: We pray — and count finally on God, the Al-
mighty ! "
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 447
Has more Christian language ever been spoken in any par-
liamentary assembly ? Has keener foresight ever been mani-
fested by any statesman ? In a few bold strokes our Christian
philosopher drew the sketch of the present times, and the
events have fully justified his prediction. Over eighty social-
ists sit to day in the Reichstag of the German people, where
thirty years ago they were an almost unknown quantity. The
faithful Catholics, too, have made true the words of their cham-
pion and model. Catholic Germany justly glories to-day in the
union and strength and devotedness of her children.
We are not told what the sentiments of Bismarck were
when Mallinckrodt in his own inimitable way would point out
every now and then the real purpose of the " Kulturkampf "
and the utter dishonesty in high places with regard to the
means of warfare. The Iron Chancellor, then idolized at home
and abroad — if all sense of right and wrong, of decency and
honor, had not been obliterated in his breast — must have felt
ats weak and helpless as a babe in the presence and under the
flaming eye of this soldier of the Cross. No wonder that
after the death of the latter he drew a sigh of relief and
implicitly confessed his inferiority before that moral giant.
" The race between the Ultramontanes and the National Party,"
he is reported to have said, " is about equal now. Hitherto
the Centre Party has been in advance by just about the length
of Mallinckrodt."
Mallinckrodt won his last great victory in the battle of the
so-called New May Laws in 1874. ^^ ^^^ just refuted the
Speakers of the Bismarckiah majority, when he burst forth in
the following passage, which needs neither qualification nor
comment :
" Liberalism to-day has found an ally in Prince Bismarck.
Their temporary alliance, however, does not entitle us by any
means to infer a community of purpose in the two confede-
rates. The motives of Prince Bismarck find their expres-
sion principally in the reiterated utterances of the Imperial
Party — they are political considerations, of far greater im-
port to their patron than any interest of his in purely eccle-
siastical or, on the whole, spiritual questions. But then we may
ask how the accounts will balance when the allies begin to
settle among themselves. In my opinion the ruling spirit of
to-day will find a dismal shortage in his reckonings. The
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
448 HERMAN JOSEPH VON MALLINCKRODT. [July,
political advantages, the powerful supports that sustain him at
the present hour, are of far too transient a nature in compari-
son with the actuating principle, the spiritual force which is
the mainspring in this warfare. Gentlemen, this principle ener-
gizes on the Left, whilst the Right is betrayed into a fatal
error by thinking that they are simply acting conformably to
the Conservative platform in following to-day the leader of the
administration. At present the Right does not believe that in
the rear of this movement there lies aught else but a complete
destruction of the grounds on which Conservatism has stood
heretofore — on which alone it can find a solid footing. It is
simply the weakening, the sapping of the foundation of human
society with which we are threatened.
" Such, in brief, on the one hand, is the process of disintegra-
tion in all the districts represented by our opponents. . . .
And what do you see on the other? There you behold an
ever closer, ever firmer union of all the elements of positive
Christian faith ; and this in spite of the tyrannical measures of
the state power, in spite of all attacks of bitter party- passion.
You thought you had to fight only bishops, timid, wavering
bishops; you counted on a clergy flocking in crowds under the
shelter of your aegis. Gentlemen, your sanguine expectations
have betrayed you into the saddest of errors. Even the short
experience gained thus far bears witness to the fact that the
priests adhere loyally to their spiritual rulers.
" You thought also, and you expressed it openly, that at
the most your attack would bring you into conflict only with
the clergy. Let me disabuse you of this, gentlemen ; you have
to deal with the Catholic laity as well. Any man that has
eyes and is willing to use them properly can find innumerable
occasions to convince himself fully of this fact. You see in
our western provinces the firm resolve, the calm determination,
the iron will, with which thousands of men at the first sign,
and at the doors of the dungeons that are to swallow their
beloved pastors, are prepared to rush to the feet of their re-
vered spiritual guides, in order to bid them a loving yet sad
farewell. Thus they give them the consoling assurance that,
although their fettered hands are no longer able to wield the
pastoral crozier, the supreme pastors may rest convinced that
the religious loyalty of their flock shall never fail them. And
if the time should arrive — and we foresee that it must arrive- —
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 449
when numberless communities, in consequence of the present
governmental proceedings, will be stripped of all spiritual sup-
port and guidance, even then the Catholic people shall perse-
vere in loyal fidelity to Holy Church.
'' Gentlemen, had it been given you to witness all this, I
do believe that even at this late hour you would realize that
the mighty conflict is not so much a struggle between indivi-
duals ; no, it is the war of antagonizing spiritual prrnciples.
It is the battle of Christian faith in deadly conflict with infi-
del philosophy.
"The temporary appearance on the stage even of a Prince
Bismarck is but an ephemeral manifestation. It is quite true
his is a personage of vast resources and power. But in the
midst of this world-stirring war of conflicting principles he is
as weak as the trembling reed. Truly, gentlemen, if you enter-
tain the hope of ever being able by means of those wretched
laws of expatriation to quell the fury of the combat, you are
utterly unaware of all the power that abides in Christian con-
viction.
" The peculiarity of suffering is that it begets the willingness
to suffer. When we see our bishops in chains at home, pi;
wandering exiles in foreign lands, do you think that we shall
be lacking in readiness to embrace a similar fate ? And if our
priests have followed, and day by day follow in the footsteps
of their bishops, you may be certain that the faithful laity
will not decline to share a like honor. As to enactments of
repression, gentlemen, neither dungeon nor exile will achieve
your purpose. You must resort to sharper weapons. Gentle-
men, please reflect on the kind of weapons you intend to forge.
As for us, we shall lovingly meditate on our motto : ' Per Cru-
ccm ad Lucem ' — Through the Cross to Joy !"
Such was practically the last great utterance of our champion
of the Cross against the mighty onslaught of modern infidelity.
This last grand speech in reference to the laws against Catho-
lic bishops was, as his friends and opponents acknowledged, the
most important parliamentary achievement since the beginning
of the conflict. Such was the verdict of a hostile journal edited
by a Jew.
With these words Mallinckrodt resigned his charge into the
hands of his people, the key to his life into those of history,
and his mission into those of God. What was then, it may be
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
450 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July,
asked, in the light of that testamentary utterance, the dominant
note in the grand harmony of bis existence ? " It was " — we
quote again the enemy's testimony — '' the single idea of the
church, the idea which filled the mind of this extraordinary and
wonderful man." This answer of the Frankfort Journal is fully
endorsed by the anti-Catholic Spehner Gazette : " Mallinckrodt
served his party with such disinterestedness, and was so indifferent
to his own advancement, that it would be well if all political
parties could show many such characters — meii who live exclu-
sively for one idea, and sacrifice for it every temporal advan-
tage."
Yes, the mainspring of Mallinckrodt's incredible power and
efficiency lay in the strong and living faith that Christ is the
Lord and King of all mankind; in the firm conviction that the
kingdom of Christ was the real issue of the present world-
stirring battle between Christianity and Liberalism ; in the
unshaken confidence that in the gigantic conflict of these
two spiritual forces the Cross of Christ, the labarum of light
and civilization, through trials and difficulties, would lead the
faithful Christians to glory lor ever more. " Per Crucem ad
Lucem " — ^Through the Cross to Joy. For this faith Mal-
linckrodt lived ; for this faith he toiled and battled ; for it he
died.
We might rest content with this sketch of our hero. In
justice to that noble life, as it unfolds before our gaze in pano-
ramic beauty, we must touch upon another of its grand fea-
tures.
It was not only the fearless public profession of his faith,
nor the struggles he underwent for its sake, that rendered
Mallinckrodt's name a household word in every Catholic home
of Germany. The thought of Christ and His Cross penetrated
every fibre of his being, xuled and shaped the actions of his
every-day life. The glory of the parliamentary arena, along
with the halo of a saintly private life, was the adequate cause
that secured for Mallinckrodt a large place in every loyal Catho-
lic heart. The former made him an object of admiration ; the
love of 14,000,000 Catholics he won through the latter.
Well did an esteemed Catholic magazine write of Mallinck-
rodt " that he was the type and perfection of a true, honest,
devoted Catholic." He was in very truth a lay-apostle, a man
fired with the purest zeal for the triumph of the Cross, the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. 451
glory of God. In a word, he was one of those Christian men
for whose multiplication in the church the Catholic world has
been requested and encouraged to pray by the late supreme
Pastor of Christendom.
Mallinckrodt's secret of strength and internal consistency of
character lay at the very fountain-head of all Christian life —
the Holy Eucharist. Devotion, child- like and ardent, to the
Eucharistic Christ, in sacrament and sacrifice, formed the charac-
teristic feature of his religious existence, from the day of his
first Communion in the old Carlovingian city to the moment of
his saintly death in Protestant Berlin. A student at the great
universities, as jolly and mirth- loving as the gayest of the
members of his '' Burschenschaft," he made it a rule to attend
Mass daily and receive the sacraments at stated times. Thus
strengthened from within, he at the same time created for him-
self a religious atmosphere that shielded him from without
against the approach of evil. Again, when near thirty, and
following a course of scientific agriculture at Hohenheim near
Munich, every Saturday evening he would walk four or five
miles to the city, to go to confjession and in the morning to
Holy Communion. In the early days of his parliamentary career
he had taken up his lodgings in a Protestant home. The in-
quisitive landlady was not long in finding out that her distin-
guished boarder rose early every morning to hear Mass in a
distant chapel. As years rolled by this devotion intensified in
Mallinckrodt. Finally, during his last four years — the long,
iieroic passion of that Christ-like life — we are told that in addi-
tion to his regular frequent Communion, when he was to de-
liver one of those momentous discourses he would at early
dawn assist at Mass and approach the Holy Table.
To him the greatest festival of the ecclesiastical cycle was
the feast of Corpus Christi. Its public demonstration of faith
in that Living and all Vivifying Presence was so entirely in
conformity with his sublime conception of the Christ- King. He
•himself reveals this as his innermost thought in a letter to his
sister Bertha. " I really do not know why I should begin these
pages at so late an hour," he writes, ''especially as I hardly
know what news to give you. Still, to-day is Corpus Christi.
And you know well, it is my feast of predilection." Then,
recalling memories of Corpus Christi celebrations they bad wit-
nessed years ago when travelling together, he continues : " I see
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452 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July,
on the market-place of Habelschwerdt the old men with their
kettle-drums; from the far-off lake of Halstatt I hear the chant
'of the devout congregation, and the slow, regular dip of the
oars as the procession moves along its watery course; away in
the Austrian capital I watch the emperor marching in proces-
sion around the great Church of St. Stephen. All the while I
love to think that such a day of parade gives the Almighty
some little pleasure, and inclines Him to pour down on His
people unseen showers of special blessings."
Three years before his death, when he had already quaffed
a portion of the bitter chalice, he found delight in the cele-
bration of Corpus Christi in the Church of St. Hedwig, at the
capital. " This has been a truly happy day for me," he wrote ;
"you know somehow or other I find a special devotion for
Corpus Christi.'*
One of his greatest enjoyments, however, was the partici-
pation in the Eucharistic procession. As chi^f magistrate in
Protestant Erfurt, as landlord at Mittenheim and Nordborchen,
it was his delight to mingle with the common people, and with
bared head and burning taper to accompany his Liege Lord on
his triumphal march. The spectacle of this prince of eloquence
fleeing the imperial city and forgetful of his parliamentary
triumphs, present at the Corpus Christi festivities in the quiet
Westphalian valley, was not lost on the simple villagers. There
Mallinckrodt and Windhorst, or some other of the leaders whom
he would invite for the occasion, gave the grandest proof of
loyalty to their cause by showing themselves truly faithful ser-
vants of their Master, Jesus Christ.
The martyr- President of Ecuador, and also the immortal
Daniel 0*Connell, were distinguished for their devotion to the
Blessed Mother of God. In this noble trait Mallinckrodt too
was their worthy peer. So accustomed had he grown to reciting
the rosary that iii his last days, when already exhausted by the
burning fever, he would ask the Gray Nun who tended him to
say the beads aloud that he might at least answer pentally,
since the doctors had forbidden all exertion. Again, when his
saintly sister Pauline arrived at the sick-bed, the dying man
recognized and warmly welcomed her. The first greetings over,
he turned to her with the remark: "You might well say the
rosary for me." Even during wandering moments the beads
could be seen gliding between his emaciated fingers. In the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904-] Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt, 453
family circle he had aiwajrs led the way in the soieiQiiizatioxi
of the month of May. In fact, the May devotions for the Mal-
linckrodt home had become a family tradition, that was not
allowed to be infringed on under any consideration.
Thus we might continue enumerating manifestations of that
strong supernatural vitality which pulsed in that noble breast,
and found daily new outlets for its wholesome superabundance.
One or two instances will suffice for our purpose.
Mallinckrodt's influence for good through works of charity
is almost incredible. Many a golden deed history has snatched
from oblivion ; many more the recording angel of God alone
witnessed and faithfully entered in the Book of Life. For
twenty years Mallinckrodt was the financial adviser of his sister
Pauline, the venerable foundress of the Sisters of Christian
Charity. This position implied not a little trouble, and not
rarely large demands on his private earnings in order to
keep the accounts in proper condition. At the cost of no
small personal sacrifices, also, Mallinckrodt was instrumental
in the founding of several Catholic congregations, in dis-
tricts where for centuries Protestantism had reigned supreme.
He was one of the great men who stood at the cradle of those
well-organized and now flourishing undertakings in Germany —
the legitimate boast of the Fatherland, an object of wonderment
and emulation for Catholics of all countries. The Catholic
press, the various associations — the Pius-Verein, the Bonifatius-
Verein, the Gesellen-Verein, the yearly Katholikentag, — Mal-
linckrodt was helpful by some means or other in the organiza-
tion or furtherance of them all. There was none to which he
remained a stranger, none that did not enjoy his patronage and
the support of his purse or his eloquence.
We have called our hero a lay-apostle. Indeed, the aposto-
lic flame burned bright and strong in his golden heart. The
hostile Frankfort Gazette reproached him in 1869 with dream-
ing of a reconquest by Catholicism of the Protestant world.
Mallinckrodt fully deserved that reproach — if reproach there
was. Full of delicate charity for the separated brethren, he
was longing and praying for the day when, acknowledging their
error, they would return to the One Fold under the One
Shepherd. This his heart's ardent desire he showed on more
than one occasion.
One of his old-time opponents in the Prussian House, Von
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
454 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July,
Gerlach, the former leader of the Conservatives and a sincere
Protestant, had been invited to a banquet given by the Centre
Party. After a number of masterly toasts of parliamentary
notables, in answer to an allusion of Gerlach touching their
former opposition, Mallinckrodt made the beautiful rieply: "I
not only take up the gauntlet thrown by our esteemed guest,
>. . . but I assure him in all candor that our sincerest wishes
have ever been that in spiritual cotnbat we might entirely con-
quer him and his worthy confederates."
Grander, and on a more solemn occasion, the same thought
fell from his eloquent lips. After having exposed in the Reichs-
tag the secret working of the government towards a united
National Church, he exclaimed: ''I do not object in the least
to those tendencies (of religious unification in Germany). On
the contrary, I deem the desire for religious union perfectly
justifiable. My friends and I foster similar wishes. Gentlemen,
you will never confer a greater favor on us than if you all
unite some day and return in fall loyalty to the bosom of
Holy Mother Church. Let me assure yoii, gentlemen, we do
not only wish for this happy result; we do more, we earnestly
pray for it."
But there is a greater test of the Christian's supernatural
life, one that presupposes eminent perfection in virtue, the one
pointed out by the humble Saviour Himself — humility.
The mere mention of lowly thought and humble sentiment
in a man of Mallinckrodt's type seems to grate on our worldly
notions. And yet we must for truth's sake assert it ; Mallinck-
rodt was truly humble. No doubt he was aware of his
exalted position; he saw the admiring throng crowd his pas-
sage; he realized the import of the triumphs he achieved in
national affairs. But as the Rev. Father Mueller, in his funeral
oration, declared : '' Unselfish as Mallinckrodt was, he loved the
word of the Apostle: 'By the grace of God I am what I am.*
This is why the judgment of man was not able to affect him.
For him blame had no sting; praise, no balm." We have
touched upon this special characteristic of his oh a previous
occasion. Humility in so great a man, however, is so charm-
ing a feature that we may be forgiven for delaying a moment
on its consideration. Under the immediate shock of the unex-
pected death of their leader, one of his companions- in- arms
wrote from Berlin: ''Filled with admiration for the eminent
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1904. J Herman JOSEPH VON Mallinckrodt. 455
qualities of this great man, but especially wondering at his
utter unselfishness, I confess my . inability to describe to you
the extent of the loss we have just now sustained.". All those
who knew Mallinckrodt from personal acquaintance were struck
with this moral prerogative. . ''He did not wish to count for
anything/' says one of his intimate friends, " and therefore he
never spoke complacently of his own achievements." Another
writes: "In Mallinckrodt were united a manly character and a
saintly life. There appeared through it all an absence of self-
assertion such as I have never witnessed in any living man."
Th^ meptibqrs of the Centre ^Party had become so fully aware
of the modesty of their incomparable leader that they scarcely
ever dared congratulate him on his parliamentary triumphs. A
sort of religious instinpt held them back and hushed their
words of praise.
Bpt the actions of the man will give better testimony in
this matter than the words of friends. Those who saw him in
Parliament, preserving a wonderful calm and serenity with but
an occasional smile flitting . across his finely chiselled lips,
whilst his opponents would level at him and his party the
shafts of their bitter animosity, those who hei^rd the polite and
firm, but ever kind reply to personal attacks of the enemy
were either forced to renounce all explanation ot such chival-
rous conduct, or had tp admit that for modesty, meekness,
self-control Mallinckrodt had not, his equal.
Nor was it all inborn virtue with him. We have seen him
as a young man of twenty- nine quoting in familiar letters the
Following of Christ and speaking of patience and self-conquest
with the ease of a master. One of his spiritual guides assures
us that Mallinckrodt^ favorite rule of life was the grand dic-
tum of the Imitation ■: " And this must be our business, to
strive to overcome ourselves and daily to gain strength over
ourselves and to grow better and better." And that other
passage that summed up all the spirituality of a St. Ignatius:
" Tiie greater violence thdu offerest to thyself, the greater pro-
gress thou shalt n^ake."
. These lofty principles Mallinckrodt knew how to reduce to
practice. One day, whilst conversing with a clergyman on
some speciaj topic, our p^rliamentariaQ got vexed at the deter-
mination with which the. reverend interlocutor proved and
sustained a view contrary to his pwn. In the heat of the dis-
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456 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July,
cussion an inconsiderate remark dropped from his lips. On
arriving at home that same evening Mallinckrodt related the
incident to his wife. The latter expressed surprise at what she
deemed in her husband a reprehensible action. Suddenly Mal-
linckrodt seized his hat and cane and insisted on going to see,
though night had fallen, the clergyman in question. He offered
an humble apology for his hastiness of the morning. And to
punish himself for his fault he walked the distance of three
miles both ways.
When at Bonn he was asked one day by a classmate why
he had given up smoking, he replied that he needed the
money for other purposes. He was spending those hard-
earned savings in works of charity. Later on, in his forties,
although exempted from fasting by reason of his incessant
labors in the House and on special commissions, he would
rigorously observe the Lenten regulations. When finally com-
pelled by ill-health to discontinue adhering to the letter of the
law, he nevertheless kept true to its spirit. During Lent he
would not even allow himself the enjoyment of a cigar.
We may aptly conclude our remarks on the spiritual life of
our hero with a quotation coming from the pen of Mother
Pauline, the worthy sister of so great a brother: "His striving
after perfection in virtue and holiness was truly incessant.
His first step in these whole-souled endeavors was a scrupu-
lous fulfilment of all personal duties. This it was that secured
for him the esteem of his fellows and won the affection of his
nearer acquaintances. He has lived a life deeply Christian,
strongly supernatural — a life abounding in good and noble
deeds. His kindly feelings and cheerful disposition, along with
a deep sense of justice and consideration for others, made his
daily intercourse most agreeable to all'. In him manly strength
for the endurance of sufferings was- enhanced by self-control
based on spiritual motives ; whilst his courage and trust in
God were superior to all adversity."
Mallinckrodt had shown himself great in life; greater was
he in death. Worn out with continual labor for God and his
church, the Christian warrior succumbed when he seemed at
the zenith of his efficiency. It was during the late hours of
the morning of May 26, 1874, when the summons came. The
previous day the dying hero in the heat ol fever fancied him-
self still in the halls of the Reichstag. Incoherent words and
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I904.]
HERMAN Joseph von Mallinckrodt.
457
broken sentences escaped his lips every now and then as he
lay on his bed of pain. On a sudden pealed forth loud and
clear the words : " I have wished to live in peace with all men ;
but justice was to have her due." It was the echo of that
other dying champion of church rights against imperial encroach-
ments, who centuries ago exclaimed from his Salernian exile :
•* I have loved justice and hated iniquity ; therefore I die in
exile."
A few moments before breathing his last^.during a lucid
interval, Mallinckrodt asked for tablet and pencil. Then, with
dying hand he wrote in unsteady characters the last testament
of his public life :
** For the Germania** ;
and a little below he traced the words :
" Freedom, Truth, and Just — "
Paper and pencil slipped from his faltering hands, whilst bis
great soul went forth to finish the last word before the Throne
of Eternal Justice.
The Tomb of Mallinckrc»dt.
Such is in brief the story of the man who so powerfully
helped to lay the foundation for the strongly organized
Catholicism which exists in Germany to-day. Last August
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458 Herman Joseph von Mallinckrodt. [July.
Catholic Germany celebrated the great jubilee of the fiftieth
'' Katholikentag." Mallinckrodt's name with those of his
renowned successors, Windhorst and Lieber, were in the minds
and on the lips of a loving, grateful posterity. In view of
that solemn occasion, as also of the successful efforts made
here at home towards more compact union of Catholic thought
and Catholic endeavor, we have deemed it worth the trouble
to bring before the Catholic community the memory of this
typical patriot, leader, and Christian — Herman Joseph von
Mallinckrodt.
NOTE.
Pauline von Mallinckrodt was born in 18x7 at Minden, in Westphalia. At tbe age of ten
she came under the influence of the illustrious convert and poetess Louisa Hensel. It was this
teacher who sowed in the heart of her pupil " the seed of all her later happiness." St. Leon-
ard's Academy of Aix-la-Chapelle, that nursery of great women, brought Pauline von Mallinck-
rodt in contact with three companions who, like herself, were to exert a vast influence on
Catholic life in Germany and elsewhere. They were Clara Fay, the future foundress of the
Sisters of the Holy Child ; Frances Schervier, later on distinguished as superioress of Francis-
can Nuns ; and Ann, de L'Hommoeu, known for her successful efiforts in introducing into
Germany the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. A few years after the death of her father, Pauline
determined to carry into execution her long-cherished resolve of giving her life to the poor
and the ignorant. In 1849, at the advice of her former spiritual guide, Right Rev. A. Claes-
sens, auxiliary bishop of Cologne, and with the fullest approval of the ordinary of Paderbom,
she founded in the last-named city the Sisters of Christian Charity. Her litde congregation
throve and increased. Soon it spread beyond the confines of Germany. In 1873, following
the pressing call of several American bishops and pastors, a colony of sisters landed on our
shores, and under the personal supervision of Mother Pauline established their North American
mother house in the Mallinckrodt Convent at Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania. A little later their
work was extended to ^uth America. The venerable foundress twice made the voyage to
North and South America, and visited every house of her Congregation. A year after her
second voyage, April 30, 1881, she died.
To-day, according to the Catholic Directory^ the Congregation of Christian Charity, com-
monly known as the Mallinckrodt Sisters, numbers in the United States over 650 Sisters and
Novices, directing over 55 educational^or charitable institutions.
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Spandrels on the Palace op Machinery, by M. B. Wilson.
"... There is a tempest In every good head in which some g^eat benefit Cor the
world is planted." — Emersim.
{APPILY , for this new world between the waters,
there has been a tempest in a great many heads
which have finally commingled, producing one of
the grandest fairs the continents have ever seen.
Art has met the demands of industry, the artistic
has combined with the real, and the St. Louis Exposition stands
a poetic leaf in history written in stone and bronze.
According to the chief of sculpture himself, Karl Bitter, the
colonnade as designed by Masqueray, and the Festival Hall
by Gilbert, are in effect something to which an adequate parallel
can scarcely be found.
The dominating idea of the entire Exposition is life and
motion; and the basis of the scheme of sculpture symbolizes
the history of the land purchased from France. The keynote
is joyous and active, and while there is some portrait statuary
used, it is employed in a subsidiary way.
All the avenues of the Exposition have received elaborate
ornamentation. At the northern end of the main avenue is a
colossal group entitled the "Apotheosis of St. Louis." Mr.
Charles Neihaus has placed at the base of this statue a figure
representing the city of St. Louis, and spirits in the form of
winged youths whisper to her things the great globe has wit-
VOU LXXIX.— 30 nr^r>.n\o
Digitized by VjOOQIC
46o
The Sculpture at St, Louis.
[July.
Guiding Spirits of St. Louis, by C. Neihaus.
nessed since the life of this sainted King of France descended
to us in legend and history.
On the same axis with this group is the towering Louisiana
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Sculpture at St. Louis. 461
Purchase monument by Karl Bitter. His work sings songs of
praise for itself, and is the point at the Fair around which most
of the interest centres. It rises to a height of one hundred
feet, and is crowned by a figure of Peace standing upon the
globe. At its base the principal sculptural feature consists of
a group entitled "The Signing of the Purchase Treaty." In
this group are the three prominent actors in the Purchase —
Robert Livingston, James Monroe for the United States, and
Marbois, acting for Napoleon and France. On the tall shaft
cleavfng the air above them these words of Livingston are
engraved :
" We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our
whole lives; the instruments which we have just signed will
cause no tears to be shed ; they prepare ages of happiness for
innumerable generations of human creatures. The Mississippi
and Missouri will see them succeed one another and multiply,
truly worthy of the regard and care of Providence, in the bosom
of equality, under just laws, freed from the errors of supersti-
tion and the scourges of bad government."
The statuary may be divided into two classes — works hav-
ing historical significance and those of a purely allegorical
character. The historical sculpture is principally represented in
the form of portrait statues grouped in connection with the
buildings devoted to the material side of the Exposition. These
works recall the memory of the discoverers, soldiers, pioneers,
and statesmen prominently associated with American history ;
and the statues immediately mentioned are the best exponents
of their class.
We give first place to that of the beloved Pere Marquette,
by Cyrus Dallin, one of Boston's sculptors. Mr. Dallin has
entered into the true feeling of Father Marquette, the great
Jesuit who penetrated into the heart of the barbarous region
of the Mississippi, and to the burning zeal of the missionary
added the knowledge that rendered his discoveries invaluable.
The Black Robe, as the Indians called him, holds aloft the image
of the crucified Saviour. The spirit of a grand missionary life
is forcefully portrayed in this statue.
Another is of Horace Mann, by H. K. Bush-Brown ; and here,
while a pedagogue of much learning is portrayed, we have the
purely humanitarian view. The affectionate shoulder-clasp which
the educator bestows upon the lad beside him, and the
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462
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
[July,
The Signing of the Treaty, by Karl Bitter.
confident understanding between them, are charmingly ex-
pressed.
The statue of Thomas Jefferson, the President at the time
of the Purchase, was modelled by Charles Grafly. That of Na-
poleon, by Daniel Chester French, is a perfect expression tech-
nically of the splendid work of this well-known sculptor.
We pause before the statue of Pierre Laclede, the principal
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I904-]
THE Sculpture at St. Louis.
463
Napoleon, by French.
founder of St. Louis, who has been so truly represented in his
Continental dress by Jonathan Scott Hartley. Mr. Hartley gives
to the world through his work the best that is in him. He
is an artist in the broadest and fullest sense, and pictures the
sweet but strong nature of the Frenchman in an inimitable
manner.
Mr. Augustus Lukeman, who modelled the statue of Robert
Livingston, shows that he also is a fine technicist in his art. He
has modelled several strong pieces for the Fair, but this statue
of Livingston is perhaps his best effort, and shows exceptional
power and fine execution
The equestrian statue of Louis Joliet, by A. Phinister Proc-
tor, and one of De Soto by C. E. Potter, were selected as repre-
sentative of the two nations connected with the history of the
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464
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
[July.
region of the Louisiana Purchase, and have been modelled 4)y
two of our best sculptors.
A statue having all the strong characteristics of Benjarcin
Franklin, by John J. Boyle, is another in the list of fine his-
torical sculpture, together with the statues of Bienville and
Merriweather Lewis, modelled by Charles Albert Lopez.
These are a few of the portrait statues at the Fair. Every
building on the grounds has received a plentiful allotment.
Architects made provision in pediments and tympani, in span-
Laclede, by J. S. Hartley.
drels and on towering constructions, for sculptural decoration ;
and this is most fitting. Sculpture represents the noblest thought
and highest culture of a nation. The most intelligent observers
from all lands will visit St. Louis to compare, criticise, or ad-
mire, and they will receive revelations not only concerning our
sculpture but also of the progressive life and resources of the
. Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.]
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
46s
Physical Liberty, by McNeil.
western world. Those who are not artists, the general public,
will understand something of the creative faculty which in its
highest manifestation ennobles the artist, because it is, to a
certain degree, the common possession of us all. In the grand
basic design, in statuary groupings and single pieces, they will
recognize an interpretation of their own thoughts and feelings,
heretofore dormant or unexpressed. To mdn in general the
work will be a message in harmony with their better nature,
awaken in them an exalted sense of pleasure, and carry them
from a knowledge of the world of finite things into the realms
of the Ideal and the Infinite.
The strongest exponents of decorative sculpture are the
spandrels modelled by the sculptor Melva Beatrice Wilson for
the Palace of Machinery. They are colossal male figures repre-
senting power and strength; they wear the short leathern
apron, with the tools of trade in their hands, while immense
cogwheels, the heart of the machinery, form a unique and
suggestive background. The figures are boldly heroic in out-
line and are to be numbered among the classic pieces of sculp-
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466 THE SCULPTURE AT ST. LOUIS. [July,
ture at the Fair. Miss Wilson shows in her technique the
fruit of years of academic study ; and it is to be deplored that
work so worthy of perpetuation should perish with the close
of the Exposition.
Allegorical sculpture has been used where adornment was
needed in connection with and in the vicinity of structures
devoted to ideal missions like the Festival Hall and the Palace
of the Fine Arts. It has been chiefly grouped^ however, around
the most gorgeous feature of the Fair, the magnificent Cascades
which terminate the decorations and give expression to the
idea that the sway of liberty was extended by this Louisiana
Purchase from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Here the
climax of sculpture is reached in the Cascades, gardens, and the
Terrace of States. The Court of Honor at Chicago and the
Electric Tower at the Pan-American live in memory as things
of exquisite beauty, but here they are surpassed in majesty.
The entire decoration of the main cascade is the work of H.
A. McNeil, an American sculptor who has all the technique of
the Parisian, with the wonderful study of the Roman school.
This grand cascade of McNeil, picturesquely named " Liberty
Fountain,'' combined with the fountains of Martiny and Konti,
are a message of surpassing grandeur to all. The magic of it
as a whole — of the Cascades, the Festival Hall, the Arts Palace,
the Colonnade of States, and the statuary trimming the build-
ings and decorating the grounds, — the magic will overpower
the beholders, and they will find themselves in one of those
rare states of transport in which is grasped something of the
power of genius.
The diverse groups of statuary on this main Cascade repre-
sent Law, Physical Liberty, Justice, Truth, and Patriotism, and
are to be regarded as one piece representative of liberty, as a
compliment to America, and illustrative of the characteristics
of her people.
One of these separate groupings — Physical Liberty — is won-
derfully expressed in the race of the North American bison
and the Indian, the two strong and powerful first inhabitants
of our country. The graceful running motion of the Indian
shows how little effort is required for him to keep up with the
buffalo. Between the principal groups representing Justice,
etc., are placed happy little conceptions of boys riding dol-
phins.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.]
The Sculpture a t St. Louis.
467
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I^^^^^^^^^^^B^k ''^K ^^P^^^
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Martiny's Fountain.
At the base of Liberty Fountain, to the right and left, are
two smaller Fountains of Venus and Neptune, by Philip Mar-
tiny. The figures are modelled standing in a wave chariot,
while the sea-horses are garlanded with roses and ridden by
tiny sea-cupids.
Immediately back of the main Cascade is Festival Hall,
which is filled with fine sculptural adornment, the principal
group being Mr. Martiny's Apollo and the Muses, which
stands above the entrance gate and is flanked by a group of
Dance by Michael Tonetti and Music by Augustus Lukeman.
Mr. Martiny is a brilliant technicist, and this piece is a worthy
example of his skill. He is lineally descended from the famous
Italian painter of the Siennese school, Simone di Martino. He
received academic training in Paris. This Apollo quadriga ex-
hibits in every square foot artistic conception in music and
color and shifting light.
The imposing structure behind Festival Hall is the beautiful
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
468
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
[July.
Spirit of the Atlantic, by Konti.
Palace of the Fine Arts. The men with a "tempest in their
good heads" have decided to make it a permanent monument
in stone, marble, and bronze to the Purchase Treaty. On this
building all the sculpture is in limestone, marble, or bronze,
and modelled by our best- known artists.
Sculpture is the work of Daniel Chester French ; Painting, of
Louis St. Gaudens ; Truth, of Charles Grafly ; Nature, of Philip
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.]
THE Sculpture at St. Louis.
469
Martiny ; Inspiration, of Andrew O'Connor. These five statues
are in marble, placed on the pediments of the Art Palace.
Three medallions carved in limestone are portraits of three
of our noted American men, representing, respectively, St.
Gaudens, Sculpture ; La Farge, Painting ; Hunt, Architecture.
Having an artist symbolize a special art is the highest ccmpli-
Boy and Cub, by Konti.
ment that could be paid him, and it is pleasant to know that
two of these men are alive to enjoy the honor.
Flanking the Art Palace on right and left, her able aides-
de-camp, is the Colonnade of States. This colonnade, like a
chain moulding together the three units of the composition,
forms a frame for fourteen giant, seated female figures, sym-
bolical of the States and Territories which have been carved
out of the Louisiana territory. Each figure is framed by an
Digitized by VjOOQIC
470 THE SCULPTURE AT ST. LOUIS, [July,
(jLfADRl^JA. LlESRAL AUTS ButLDlJiG, JIY C. A. LOPEZ*
exedra composed of eight Ionic columns crowned by a massive
architrave.
At the extremities of the Colonnade of States, on • either
side of the Cascade of Liberty and Fountains of Venus and
Neptune, are the side cascades, modelled by Isidore Konti,
which are emblematic of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The mechanical part of the fountains is alike, but the statu-
ary adorning them is very versatile in treatment. The Atlan-
tic is typified by the figure of a young man. In garments of
graceful folds, he stands upon turbulent waters, and an eagle»
symbolic of power, soars above him. This is very beautiful in
composition, but we regret to say that it is deficient in force.
There is "beauty in strength," so that we know the two are
not antipodal; and had they been combined, Mr. Konti might
have been congratulated upon giving to sculpture a piece
worthy to take its place with the best in Greek art.
The Pacific Ocean is represented by a female figure, who
also rides the crest of the waves with a sea-gull, its wings out-
stretched beside her; the perspective, composition, technique,
the exquisite poise and the undulating motion of this figure,
is in exquisite harmony with the undulations of the waves,
and gives to this group a foremost place. The fountains and
their accompanying pieces — Navigation and Commerce — for the
Pacific, and a boy playing with a bear cub and a girl with a
stormy petrel, for the Atlantic, are worthy of serious attention.
The Palace of Education has some fine sculptural subjects
by Robert Bringhurst; also the Palace of Transportation, by
Zolney, and the Palace of Electricity, by Augustus Lukeman.
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I904-]
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
471
Destiny of the Red Man, by A. A. Weinman.
The quadriga for the Palace of Liberal Arts is modelled by
Charles Albert Lopez. This young sculptor is a member of
the family distinguished in Cuban history. All the genius and
fire of his race has been combined with years of thorough
academic study in the United States and Paris. The centre
group of his quadriga is full of triumphant dignity, and those
flanking it are alive with the poetry of music and motion.
Besides the decoration on buildings and cascades, many
groups of animals native to the United States have been
erected near the landings on the Grand Plaza and in all places
where adornment could be strongly expressed.
Casts of numerous vases and figures made from originals
abroad, of purely decorative nature, are used in connection
with the floral display and landscape gardening. These are
representative of the decorative art of past generations.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
472
The Sculpture at St. Louis.
[July.
Griffin, by A. P. Proctor.
It is said that a Universal Exposition is the coronation of
civilization. It is truly a valuable agency in promoting a
more intimate acquaintance with the achievements of different
peoples and a furtherance of Art among the nations of the
globe.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A Belated Wooing, 473
A BELATED WOOING.
BY MARY CATHERINE CROWLEY.
JT was a sultry afternoon of midsummer, but
through the Probate Office, in the new Munici-
pal Building, a refreshing breeze blew from the
river, and the clerks bent resignedly over their
desks, knowing that the spacious room where
they worked was the coolest place in Detroit.
Outside, in Cadillac Square, the stretch of green that con-
nects the building of the courts with the City Hall was bright
with flowers, but on the asphalt pavement of the Campus the
sun beat down with the dazzling light that recalls to any one
who has braved the Roman climate at this season the yellow
glare of the Piazza Vaticano or del Popolo on a July day.
For more than two hundred years the Campus has been
the common of the people. Even before the coming of the
white settlers, when the place was still a forest, the red men
were wont to gather here to hold their councils, to plan their
fierce wars, or to smoke the pipe of peace. Here Indian
lovers wandered through the trails made by the hunters and
warriors of the tribes, and as the moonlight stole through the
overarching branches of the trees, the gentle Ojibway maidens
listened to the old, old story that yet is ever new.
But love often strolls as happily through the dust and heat
of the city's streets as it ever did beneath the green boughs
and rippling brooks of the woodland; and, since the world is
quick to recognize a lover, among the throng of passers-by in
the Campus many glances were cast at a gray-haired gentle-
man and a placid faced, elderly lady, who having with some
difficulty crossed the network of trolley tracks that are like a
snare to entrap the unwary, took their way down the centre
of the green -bordered path of the square, as though it were a
royal carpet spread beneath their feet.
The man was tall, and still erect, though his years must
have been at least three score. His complexion was fresh, his
features clear-cut, the nose being slightly aquiline, and he
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474 A Belated Wooing, [July,
carried himself in a soldierly manner. His clothes were of
broadcloth, and a soft gray felt hat, i^et a trifle at an angle,
silk gloves of the same color, and a spray of syringa blossoms
in the lapel of his coat, completed his festive air.
The lady who walked contentedly beside him was not more
than two or three years younger than her handsome old cava-
lier. She was short and a little thick- set; her hair, which she
wore turned back over a high roll, had many threads of silver,
but her eyes were bright and vivacious, and the smile, which
some comment from her escort brought to* her lips, revealed
girlish dimples in her round cheeks. Her gown was of the
color of a dove's plumage, and had a little dove- colored fichu
or scarf. Of the same quiet hue was the bonnet, whose silken
strings she had untied because of the heat.
'' Your gown is as pretty as a poem, Marie,'' said the old
gentleman fondly, as they walked on.
^'I am glad you like it, Phil. I cut it by a fashion-paper
pattern, and set every stitch in it myself," she answered with
a naive pride in her own industry and skill, albeit the prac-
tised eye of a 'Madies' tailor" would at a glance have char-
acterized the latter as hopelessly amateurish.
"You always were clever, dear," continued her knight
gallantly. " My word, what dainty frocks you wore when you
were a girl I Sometimes you looked like a rose, all in red — "
"Pink, Phil, pink!"
^^ Rose color, anyhow! Again, you were a marigold in
orange."
" No, no, lemon color," she objected.
"Often you were a lily- of-the- valley in green."
" Philip, I never wore green in my life," she laughed. " I
was too pale for it when I was a girl, and now it is too
bright."
"Well, it was blue then; yes, I remember, it was blue,"
he went on serenely. " And I suppose you put all those
cobwebby things together too ? "
"Yes, I did, Phil. I was apt with the needle in my best
days."
" Pouf, pouf," he interrupted with affectionate protest.
"Madam, your best days artf just beginning."
She rewarded him with one of the sweetest of her dimpled
smiles, and, as he glanced down at her, the delicate flush that
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] A BELATED WOOING. 475
his compliments called to ber faded face reminded him of how
easily she. used to blush with pleasure at his praise in the
long ago.
Now the congenial companions reached the Municipal Build-
ing, and mounting the broad marble steps, traversed the cor-
ridor, and entered the Probate Office.
The clerks looked up from their tasks. On this dull after-
noon, when even the buzzing of the flies was somniferous, a
diversion was delightful.
" There is a picture," said Tom Hackett to his neighbor,
as the elderly visitors advanced up the room. "How politely
the old codger steps aside to let the lady pa^ss first; how
deferential she is to him. No doubt they have travelled the
path of life together for many years, yet one can see at a
glance how fond they are of each other.''
" Ah, good afternoon ; come to deposit your will, have you,
sir?" As Tom spoke he advanced from his place and bowed
to the strangers.
His inquiry, natural though it was, rather disconcerted the
gentleman.
" Well, no, I was not exactly thinking of wills or last testa-
ments to-day," he stammered, while Tom upbraided himself as
a blunderer. " The fact is, we have come to see if this is any
good at the present late date ? "
So saying, he took from the breast-pocket of his coat a
folded paper yellow with age, and handed it to the clerk.
Tom opened and glanced over it with business-like brevity.
" Why, this is not a will," he exclaimed ; " it is a marriage
license, and, as I live, dated forty years ago ! It was issued
in 1 86 1 to Philip W. Brendin, aged twenty- three, and Marie
Roy, aged twenty, by Judge Jones, the first Probate Judge of
this county. You have probably brought the wrong paper,
sir ! How did you manage to keep the license ? By Jove, it
has never been used ! "
Raising his eyes, he stared blankly at the couple before him.
" That is all right," said the old gentleman pleasantly. " Is
the paper any good, I asked ? "
"I think so, sir; but you have made a mistake in- the
department," explained Tom. " The desk of the license-clerk
is in another room ; I shall be happy to pilot you there. Vou
are, I suppose, Mr. Brendin, and this is — Miss Roy ? "
▼OL. Lxxix.^31 ^ J
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
476 A BELATED WOOING. [July,
"Yes, yes," replied Brendin hastily as the lady inclined her
head. "And may I inquire your name, young man?"
" Hackett," answered Tom.
"What, not the son of Tom Hackett, the lumber- man of
Alpena ? "•
"That is my father's name too, and he was engaged ia
lumbering up North before we came to the Strait."
Mr. Brendin grasped his new acquaintance by the hand.
" Your father was my dearest friend, boy," he said warmly.
'* Is he in good health ? "
"Hale and hearty as ever in his life," Tom responded.
" Glad to hear it, glad to hear it ! " reiterated the old gentle-
man.
*'Tbm Hackett always urged me to marry," he continued
reminiscently. " I 'd like him to know that I am going to have
the knot tied at last. He will be interested to hear my life-
long romance, so I will tell you about it. You won't forget to
repeat the story to him ? "
" I will try to remember every word of it," promised Tom,
now greatly interested, for he saw that Brendin was something
of a. character.
" Very good. Were you ever in love, boy ? "
The young fellow's countenance crimsoned to the roots of
his sandy hair.
" I see ; you will be wanting a license yourself soon," went
on his amiable tormentor. " Well, about this paper. Forty
years ago this lady and I were engaged to be married. She
was the prettiest girl in Michigan, and she lived down near
Monroe. She belongs to an old French- Canadian family of
these parts. A few years earlier I had come over the Allc-
ghanies from Virginia 'to seek my fortune, and when I met
Marie I was sure I had found it. I was right; but, you see,
fortune sometimes dodges one nearly all one's life.
"The day was fixed for the wedding. Marie had all her
. sewing done, she said ; the wedding cake was made, the guests
were invited, and I obtained the licence. With all our pre-
parations, however, until shortly before the appointed day we
had never decided who should marry us. When the question
came up, Marie, being a Catholic, declared that, of course, no
one but a priest should perform the ceremony. I, being a hard-
shell Baptist, wanted a preacher of my own way of thinking.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A BELATED WOOING. 477
Marie was so conscientious and I so stubborn that neither of
us would yield. Thus it happened, young man, that the
wedding did not take place; but I kept the license, with the
hope that it might be of use some time in the future, if Marie
changed her mind, or I did.
"That was the first year of the Civil War. In a desperate
mood, but still, I trust, with some motive of patriotism, I
enlisted and went to the front with a Michigan regiment.
" If I had left a loving bride at home, weeping away the
sight of her pretty eyes because I had to go, no doubt I
would have been killed in the first battle. But despite the fact
that I was a poor de*il who had no one to love or to pray for
him—"
" Now, Phil, I have told you that I prayed for you every
day," interposed the old lady sweetly.
"In spite of the fact that I had no right to expect any
one to love or pray for me," continued Mr. Brendin, correct-
ing himself — "I fought through the war unscathed, except for
a shot through the shoulder, where the bullet is yet.
" I came home, to find my sweetheart (this lady), but friends
told me that another suitor and a rich one had gained her favor.
" I had made up my mind to surrender on her terms, but
this news sent me up into the northern peninsula, among the
pine woods. The soldier boys who came home were all looked
upon as heroes, as well as those who gave their lives for our
country, and I was made something of, because my wound
meant that I had saved the colors of our company in a sharp
skirmish. But no word of congratulation on the gaining of
my laurels came to me from Marie, and so disappointed was I
that I did not wait to see her."
Here the visitors, led by Hackett, reached the license office ;
but the clerk being engaged, they seated themselves on a bench
by the wall, and, having found in Tom a willing listener, the
chatty old gentleman proceeded with his story.
" With a few hundred dollars that came to me as a legacy
I bought a piece of timber land," he said, "and that was the
beginning. Up there in the solitudes I prospered, boy ; true, I
saw few people except the rough men of the lumber camps, but
the years were golden ones to me. It was there I knew your
father ; he was of a different stamp than many of the men. For
a long time I was too engrossed with my work and business
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
478 A Belated Wooing. [July,
plans to think of taking a wife, but I supposed Marie had
married her other suitor, who was of her religriou, and possessed
a fine farm on the river.
"I did not come to Detroit for years; my business took me
to Chicago instead. After awhile I began to tell myself that I
might as well marry, instead of knocking around the world
alone. But I could not find any one like Marie, and no one
else seemed to suit me."
At this point Mr. Brendin paused to glance at the lady,
who laughed in a dignified way, shook her fan at him in mild
protest, and rising, devoted her attention to the study of a
portrait of one of the former judges of probate, that hung
above her head. ^
''And how did you make it all up in the end, sir? " inquired
Tom. Young lover and old had met on the equal ground of
romance, that .fascinating '' field of the cloth of gold."
Notwithstanding his gentle companion's appealing glance,
warning him to be less communicative, Mr. Brendin talked on
with the loquacity of one launched on the all-absorbing theme
pf the love that has influenced his life.
, '' Well, it did come about in a strange manner," he admitted.
^' It is years since I left the woods, and I 've lived in Chicago
and on a ranch in California; but I still own timber in the
northern part of this State. Last summer I went up to look
after it and spent Sunday at the camp. It happened that the
night before a Catholic priest, travelling through che region,
asked hospitality of the men. He said he was preaching round
in the neighborhood, looking out to see if any of his people
were up there. Now, on Sunday in a lumber camp there is
nothing doing but drinking and gambling, unless the men get
into a quarrel, when things are lively enough. There were no
Catholics in our camp; but, for the sake of the novelty, the
men asked the priest to stay and preach to them.
"This he did, and I went to hear him with the rest. We
gathered in a clearing ; the men sat on logs or tree-
stumps, or on the ground, and he stood on the platform they
had built for a dance awhile before. My word, but he spoke
to the point; no shilly-shallying, not too much fire and brim-
stone, but it seemed as if he flashed a search light into every
man's heart ! Did n't reveal him to hi« fellows, you understand,
but just showed every man his own conscience as it was.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904. J A Belated Wooing, 479
''The next day the priest and I travelled on together for
some hours, and before we separated I promised to call on
him in Chicago. I did go more than once, and soon I began
to see many things in a different light, and found that upon
some matters I had been wrong-headed all my life. The up-
shot of it was, my boy, that I became a Catholic."
Young Hackett had listened with ever-increasing interest.
" I too am a convert," he here interjected.
" Then you know all about it," said Mr. Brendin beamingly.
"Well, some time after I had joined the church the thought
came to me that I would like Marie to know. 'The husband
whom she has loved and made happy all these years will surely
not grudge me the opportunity to tell her of my conversion,' I
said to myself. ' And she, in her gentle charity, will be glad
for my sake.'
" So I came to Detroit, made inquiries among former
acquaintances, and found, to my astonishment and happiness,
that Marie had not married at all. Down I went to Monroe
by the next train. She was living in her old home still, and
the place seemed little changed, except that the trees about
the house are taller and cast a deeper shade, and the vines
about the gallery are thicker than in the evenings when we
used to linger there, oblivious of the hum of mosquitoes.
" Marie received me cordially, but when I turned the con-
versation to old times she showed a coldness that discomfited
me. Beginning at the wrong end of my story, and without
telling her of my conversion, I blurted out :
" ' Marie, like a worthless penny I have come back to you,
after all these years. I thought you had married long ago;
to my joy I find you free. I love you far more dearly than
I did when we were both young, although I gave you all my
heart then. No other woman has ever had my love. In the
years since we last met I have had much time to think. I have
come back to you to say, that if you will marry me now, I
shall be more than willing to be married by the old cur^ here,
or any one whom you may select'
" Of course I was far too presumptuous," pursued Mr.
Brendin with a side glance at the lady, who pretended to be
deaf to what her old lover was saying, since she could not
check the exuberance of his spirits.
" So confident was I that the one obstacle to our union
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48o A BELATED WOOING. [July>
was removed that I expected her to say * yes ' without de-
mur/' he acknowledged. " But, bless my heart, no matter how
well a man thinks he knows a woman, she will surprise him
after all.
'' Instead of answering demurely that she was willing to
become my wife, that she had waited for me .all these years,
as I know she did (here his eyes twinkled with sly humor) —
instead of this, Marie flared up.
" ' During the years that have gone by I too have had time
to think, Philip Brendin,' she said. ' And if you want to know
the result of my reflections, here it is : You have taken almost
a life- time to make up your mind to be married in the Catholic
Church, and you have yielded at last only because you could
not win me in any other way.'
'* ' Marie, you are mistaken ; I thought you were married/
I interrupted ; but she would not hear me.
" ' What kind of a life would I have with a man as bigoted
and prejudiced as you are,' she went on earnestly. ' No, no, I
shall pray for you, as I have always done ; but (and here her
voice broke a little) I have lived to thank God, Philip, that He
has saved me from the trials and dangers of a marriage with
one not of my faith. And so, if you please, we will remain
only friends, — but, I hope, we shall be good friends always/
" ' What if I told you that now, even to win the one woman
who is all the world to me, I would not be married by any
one but a priest ? ' I said, looking into her sweet eyes that,
bright with unshed tears, told me her heart was still mine.
' What if I told you that now, thank God, we are both of the
same faith ? '
"For a moment Marie looked at me, in dazed amazement.
Presently, as those tears fell in a glistening rain, she smiled,
and in that smile I read the answer she could not just then
speak."
" And what happened next ? " queried Hackett, good-
humoredly twitting the old gentleman.
'* Well," answered Mr. Brendin, pulling himself together,
" I did what you, my boy, or any young fellow would have
done under similar circumstances. I went over and sat beside
her and kissed her. Then, as I took her hand in mine, there
upon her finger I saw the very ring I had given her when we
were young. I had refused to take it back when we parted.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A BELATED WOOING. 48 1
How women treasure the keepsakes and the memories of their
early love ! "
''To make a long story short in the end, this lady, Made-
moiselle Roy, and I are to be married this afternoon, though I
must admit we have chosen a mighty hot day for the cere-
mony. I know that I spoiled her life and mine by my obstin-
acy, but I '11 try to make her happy during the days that are
left to us.
"There is the clerk at leisure now," he continued, mopping
his brow with his fine cambric handkerchief. " Sir, I want to
know if this license is good, or has it become outlawed or
debarred by the statute of limitations? If it is good, say so,
and we will not delay longer. If it is useless, then give us a
license that will pass muster."
The lady laughed softly at the impetuosity of her long
errant lover. The clerk, having read over the time-yellowed
paper with as much astonishment as Hackett had displayed on
perusing it, said at last:
" A marriage license holds good until used, sir, unless it is
cancelled by another; but, to prevent any question of the
legality of this one, I will make out another for you, which
you may present also."
Five minutes later the sweet- faced elderly bride- elect, and
the chivalrous, silver-haired bridegroom, departed with the
license, for which the clerk declined to accept payment, saying
that the office did not see such a romance every day. The
same evening the newspapers of Detroit contained the follow-
ing notice :
MARRIED.
This afternoon, at the Cathedral, Mr. Philip Brendin, a
wealthy lumberman of Chicago, and Mademoiselle Marie
Roy, of Monroe, were married by the Rev. Father D .
The wedding is said to be the outcome of an early romance.
For their bridal trip Mr. and Mrs. Brendin will make a tour of
the Lakes. On their return they intend to reside for a time
here in the City of the Straits.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
482 Modern electricity Akn Orthodoxy. [July,
MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY.
BY JAMES J. WALSH, M.D., Ph.D.
5N demonstrating that the science of electricity
owes its origin and the fundamental discoveries
on which it is founded to great scientists, who
were at the same time simple, faithful believers
in Christianity, it was only necessary to give some
account of the lives of the men whose names are undeniably
associated with the origin of this science. When it comes,
however, to the question of showing that the continuation also
of electrical science is due to men who were orthodox believers
in the great Christian doctrines, the subject becomes more diflB-
cult because there may be some disagreement as to whom
modern progress in electrical science must be attributed. But
no one, however partial, can possibly object that our selection
of representative physicists who are Responsible for advance in
electricity is made arbitrarily if we take those men whose
names were chosen by the International Commission of the
International Congress of Electricians to be used as terms for
the units of electrical science.
These names have become familiar, almost household words,
because of the frequency with which they are employed in the
description of electrical apparatus and industrial applications of
electricity. They include, besides Volta and Faraday, of whom
we have already spoken, the names of Ampere, Ohm, and
Coulomb. If to these we add the distinguished English physi-
cists whose special work in electricity has made their names
well known in English-speaking countries, Clerk Maxwell and
Lord Kelvin, whose recent visit to America makes him seem
almost like a personal acquaintance, it can scarcely be said
that the men selected either do not deserve a place in the list
of honor of great electrical discoverers and scientists or that
their merits as representative men of science are being ficti-
tiously exaggerated for the purpose of making a better ^showing
for the advocates of Christianity.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY, 483
ANDR6 marie AMPfeRE.
We closed the chapter of original discoverers in electricity
with Oersted. Within a week after Oersted's announcement
of the influence of electric currents upon the magnetic needle,
Ampere, working in .Paris, was able to show by a series of
most ingenious demonstrations that magnetic effects can be pro-
duced by electric currents alone without the aid of magnets.
As the result of these observations, he suggested the theory
that every molecule of magnetic matter is acted upon by a
closed electric current, and that magnetization takes place in
proportion as the direction of these currents approaches paral-
lelism. This is the principle that underlies all our modern
applications of electricity and constitutes the firm basis of
electro-dynamics. This work was accomplished in 1821.
Within the year Ampere had anticipated the invention of the
electric telegraph by suggesting an apparatus with a special
wire for each letter of the alphabet. This would, of course,
have proved a very complicated mechanism and very likely
have been extremely slow in action, but that it would have
been practicable is eaisy to see; and had it once been put in
use, there seems no doubt that improvements would soon haye
followed.
The man who was thus able to follow out so successfully
the suggestive work of the Swedish scientist was destined to
hold deservedly a high place in nineteenth century science.
From his earliest years he took a passionate delight in nature
study and in mathematics, working at hard sums in arithmetic
by means of pebbles and bread-crumbs before he knew the
figures. His father wished to teach him Latin, but desisted,
seeing his boy's wonderful aptitude and inclination for mathe-
matics. Ampere later on learned Latin for himself, in order to
be able to read the mathematical works of Euler and Ber-
noulli. He lost his father by proscription during the Revolu-
tion, and seems to have lost his faith at the same time. Just
at the beginning of the nineteenth century he wrote a book on
the mathematical theory of gambling, in which he solved a
problem that had occupied the attention of Buffon and Pascal.
In this he demonstrated that the chances of play are always
against the habitual gambler. His book attracted attention and
he was g^ven a position as mathematical instructor at the
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484 Modern electricity and Orthodoxy. [July,
Polytechnic school of Paris, where he became a professor some
years later.
After his discoveries in electricity he came to be acknowl-
edged as one of the greatest of living scientists, and was hon-
ored as such by most of the distinguished scientific societies of
Europe. His work was not ccfnfined to electricity alone, how-
ever, and late in life he prepared what has been well called a
remarkable work on the classification of the sciences. This
showed that, far from being a mere electrical specialist, or even
a profound thinker in physics, he understood better probably
than any man of his generation the relation of the sciences to
one another. He was a broad-minded, profound thinker in the
highest sense of the words, and in many things seems to have
had almost an intuition into the processes of nature, though he
was at the same time an untiring experimenter, eminently suc-
cessful in arranging experiments to answer the questions he put
to nature.
If we turn to the other side of his character we shall find
that after the first period of infidelity, brought on by the spirit
of the French Revolution, had passed, he became one of the
most sincere and devout Christians. He had his doubts, it is
true, near middle life, but after that he had the blessing of
clear- eyed faith. Frederick Ozanam lived with him for a time,
and said that conversations with him always led up to God.
Ampere used to take his broad forehead between his hands and
say, '* How great is God, Ozanam ! How great is God, and
how little is our knowledge I "
" In addition to his scientific achievements," says Ozanam,
''this brilliant genius has other claims upon the admiration
and affection of Catholics. He was our brother in the same
faith. It was religion which guided the labors of his mind and
illuminated his contemplations ; he judged all things, science
itself, by the exalted standard of religion. . . . This ven-
erable head, which was cAwned by achievements and honors,
bowed without reserve before the mysteries of the faith, down
even below the line which the church has marked for us. He
prayed before the same altars before which Descartes and Pas-
cal had knelt; beside the poor widow and the small child who
may have been less humble in mind than he was. Nobody
observed the regulations of the church more conscientiously —
the regulations which are so hard on nature, and yet so sweet
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1904.] Modern electricity and Orthodoxy. 485
in the habit. Above all things, however, it is beautiful to see
what sublime things Christianity wrought in his great soul ;
this admirable simplicity, the unassumingness of a mind, that
recognized everything except its own genius; this high recti-
tude in matters of science — now so rare — seeking nothing but the
truth and never rewards and distinction ; this pleasant and
ungrudging amiability ; and, lastly, this kindliness with which
he met every one, especially young people. We .know several
towards whom he showed the thoughtfulness and the obliging
care of a father. I can say that those who know only the
intelligence of the man, know only the less perfect part. If he
thought much, he loved more."
Sainte-Beuve, whose testimony in a matter like this would
surely be unsuspected of any leaning towards making
Ampere more Catholic than he was, in his introduction to
Ampere's essay on the Philosophy of the Sciences, Paris, 1843,
says :
"The religious struggles and doubts of his earlier life had
ceased. What disturbed him now lay in less exalted regions.
Years ago his interior conflicts, his instinctive yearning for the
Eternal, and a lively correspondence with his old friend. Father
Barrett, combined with the general tendency of the time of the
Restoration, had led him back to that faith and devotion
which he expressed so strikingly in 1803. . . . During the
years which followed, up to the time of his death, we were
filled with wonder and admiration at the way in which, without
effort, he united religion and science ; faith and confidence in
the intellectual possibilities of man with adoring submission to
the revealed word of God."
The religious exercises to which Ampere was most devoted
were the rosary and the reading of the Imitation of Christ,
Ozanam relates two incidents with regard to these which are
exemplary indices of Ampere's religious character. Ozanam
himself on one occasion was troubled very muqh by doubts
with regard to the mysteries of Christianity, and in the midst
of them went into a church in the hope that prayer would
help him, or at least that the quiet and seclusion of the holy
edifice might be an inspiration. In a quiet corner of the edifice
he found Ampere all by himself reciting his beads. It can
readily be understood what an effect the sight of this distin-
guished old scientist thus humbly and religiously employed
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486 MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [July,
would have upon the young man. Ozanam's doubts vanished
at once.
With regard to the Imitation^ Ozanam tells that Ampere,
when dying, was asked whether they should read a chapter of
the Imitation to him. He said no, that he knew it by heart,
and that he was at the very moment engaged in repeating to
himself some of the chapters which he knew by experience
would prove a source of consolation to him now.
This characteristic incident of Ampere's devotion to what
he considered his religious duty is related also by Ozanam.
The latter was, of course, a much younger man and considered
that he was under the obligation of fasting. He was surprised,
however, to find that Ampere also fasted, and very scrupulously.
Ozanam asked him whether he considered that a man doing as
much work as he was at his age was bound by the obligation
o{ fasting. Ampere's reply was the simple argumentum ad
hominem, " You fast ; why should n't I ? "
Ampere had what Americans might consider a peculiar
habit, but one that is very common among Frenchmen, or at
least was a generation or two ago, especially among those who
lectured often. Even now it is not uncommon to see beside a
lecturer's table a glass of water, into which the lecturer puts as
much sugar as is suited to his taste, making that favorite drink,
eau sucree — sugar water. Though Ampere had contracted the
habit of taking this frequently, he considered that on fast days
this was not in accordance with the strict observance of the
precepts of abstinence.
With all his pietistic devotion. Ampere was full of the
deepest human sympathy. He had the greatest enthusiasm for
the inhabitants of South America in their various struggles in
order to establish independent republican governments. News
from South America was always very welcome to him, and he
followed with the intensest interest the efforts of Bolivar and
of Canaris to obtain the independence of their countries. He
was indeed deeply interested in everything that could possibly
make life more livable for his generation. He laid down the
principles for what he considered a new science, which he
called ccenolbiologique, or the science of public felicity, a very
different thing from our modern sociology, and one that (reated
not of the rights of men, and especially of the upper classes,
as regards their fellow-men, but rather of the duties afi men
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I904.] MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. 487
towards one another, in order to secure for them what we in
America are apt to speak of as the right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness.
Ampere was much more, then, than a merely devotional
Christian, or one who sought only his own personal satisfaction
in religious feelings. He wrote a book, in which were col-
lected all the historical proofs of the divinity of Christianity,
and devoted not a little of his time to every form of effort
calculated to bring the great truths of Christianity prominently
before the men of his generation. It is no wonder, then, that
in accepting the dedication of Valson's life and works of
Ampere,* the Archbishop qf Lyons said that '* Ampere was at
once a great scientist and a great Christian."
CHARLES AUGUSTIN COULOMB.
The International Congress of electricians held at Paris in
188 K found that what was most needed {or the proper develop-
ment of the science of practical electricity, and for the ready
understanding of advances made in all parts of the world, was
a system of electrical units. Accordingly an International
Commission was formed for the purpose of deciding on such
units, giving them names and determining their value. Three
years later this commission reported their agreement on the
names and value of units, which have since been in universal
use — the volt, the ampere, the ohm, the coulomb, the farad, to
which was subsequently added, at the suggestioq of Sir Werner
Siemens, the watt. All of these names, with the exception of
coulomb, were already familiar even to tyros in electricity.
The fact that the coihmission should go back to recognize
work done nearly a century before by Charles Augustin
Coulomb, a French investigator, shows to what extent the repre-
sentative electrical scientists of the world valued Coulomb's
work. The coulomb is the unit of quantity of electricity, and
is defined as that quantity which traverses the section of a
conductor in a second when a current o{ the strength of an
ampere is passing through it. It is not as much used as are
the other terms, volt, ampere, and ohm, but it is an important
measure of electrical energy, and when first applied was thought
to be of greater use than has proved to be the case.
The name was applied because of the value of the original
•Ztf VUetles Travaux d' Andri AfarU Ampire, Par C. A. Valson. Lyons. 1886.
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488 Modern Electricity and Orthodoxy. [July,
work which Coulomb had performed. It was he who dis-
covered the remarkable law in reference to magnetism that
magnetic attractions and repulsions are inversely as the squares
of the distances. Like most of these early investigators, Coulomb
owed something of his success as an original observer to his
capacity for mechanical demonstration of his ideas. He proved
his law by means of two methods, that of the torsion balance,
which is very familiar to all students of physics, and that of
oscillations. In the use of the torsion balance due allowances
were made for the earth's magnetism at any given point, and
the method of demonstration as it came from Coulomb's hands
is as complete as anything that has since been attempted.
The method of oscillations was quite as ingenious, and depends
on the use of the ready expedient of considering that a magne-
tic needle oscillating under the influence of the earth's magne-
tism may be considered as a pendulum. Coulomb first caused
a magnetic needle to oscillate under the influence of the earth's
magnetism alone, and then under the combined influence of the
earth's magnetism and of a magnet placed at varying distances.
The very simpHcity of the methods and instruments employed
stamp the discoveries that resulted therefrom with the hall-mark
of genius.
Coulomb had done some excellent work in other depart-
ments of physics besides that of electricity. He made a series
of investigations with regard to the circulation of sap in trees,
and some valuable investigations with regard to heat. When
about forty years of age he obtained the prize of the Academy
of Sciences in Paris by his treatise explaining the Theory of Simple
Machines comprehending the Effects of Friction and the Stiffness
of Ropes, He had been for many years a military engineer, and
afterwards was employed by the government in a number of
important works in France.
While stationed at Paris he was sent as royal commissioner
to report with regard to a system of canals which it was pro-
posed to construct in Brittany. He was perhaps the most dis-
tinguished living authority in hydraulic matters at the time,
and he disapproved of the plan that had been adopted, insist-
ing that it would heap up expense and give no good results.
Bribery and threats were both of no avail, and finally influence
was brought to bear with the authorities and he was thrown
to prison. He remained firm, however, in his declaration,
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1904.] Modern Electricity and Orthodoxy. 489
and refused to give any other verdict with regard to the pro-
posed plans. Before long those who would have had- to pay
the heavy imposts consequent upon the badly laid plan came
to realize that his honorable firmness in the matter had saved
them great and almost useless expense. As a result he was
liberated, and was presented, as a testimonial, with a hand-
some watch, so arranged that very small divisions o{ time
might for scientific purposes be readily ascertained. Not long
after this he was made a member of the Legion of Honor
and a member of the .Academy of Sciences.
When the Revolution broke out he found himself out of
sympathy with the men who were at the head of the movement,
resigned his position, and retired to his estate at Blois, outside
of Paris. Notwithstanding the storm of rationalism that swept
over France, he retained his belief in Providence and would
not allow himself to be carried away by the fanciful ideas of
the Revolutionists. Biot, in his Scientific and Literary MisceU
lanies, published in Paris, 1858, said that "Coulomb lived
patiently among the men of his time, only withdrawing him-
self from their passions and their errors, maintaining always
the justice, the calmness, the firmness, and the dignity that
became a great man of science.''
GEORGE SIMON OHM.
After the great founder of electro-dynamics comes very
naturally the man to whom we owe the law with regard to
electrical resistance, which enabled his contemporaries and
succeeding generations to plan their electrical machines in such
a way as to secure the best possible efficiency. George Simon
Ohm, after whom the unit of electrical resistance was named
because of the discovery of the law, is one of the characters
in the history of science of very great human interest because
of his self-made career and his sympathetic qualities. He was
bom at Eriangen, in South Germany, just before the beginning
of the last decade of the eighteenth century, and his father
was a locksmith, but an artisan of broad intellectual qualities,
who trained both his sons in mathematics as well as in his own
trade. The father devoted himself to higher mathematics later
in life. Both his sons became distinguished professors in
mathematics, the younger one, Martin, dying as the professor
of this subject at the military school at Berlin.
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490 MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [July,
George Ohm began as a teacher when he was about twenty-
eight years of age, in a gymnasium under the control of the
Jesuits at Cologne. Here he remained for over twelve years,
receiving great encouragement in his work from the faculty of
the school, and it was here that he made his ground-breaking
discovery. In 1825 he announced a mathematical formula that
would express the resistance encountered by an electric cur-
rent which he had deduced from experimental observations.
His training as a locksmith enabled him to make the apparatus
necessary for the experimental observations. Too little was
known about electricity, however, and his first formula proved
incapable of responding to all the phenomena.
He was the first to recognize this himself, however, and in
1826 he published Bestimmung des Gesetzes nach Welchem die
Metalle die Contacki Electricitaet Leiten — ^The Determination of
the Law according to which Metals Conduct Electricity — which
represents a further stage of his investigation. Finally, in
1827, he published Galvanische Kette Mathematisch BearbeiUt —
Galvanic Circuits Mathematically Investigated — in which he
definitely settled for all time the law of electric current con-
duction as far as regards resistance.
It is a rather interesting teflection that while Ohm's theory
of electrical conduction involved the assumption that the free
electricity was spread over the whole cross section of the con-
ductor carrying the current, and this theory has now given
place to the one which declares that the free electricity is all
distributed on the surface of the conductor, yet the law which
he deduced has remained unshaken during all the subsequent
developments of electrical science. The application of the law
to conductors of two and three dimensions was an immediate
generalization which followed Ohm's work, and which he him-
self foresaw. Progress with regard to non-constant, or charg-
ing and discharging currents, has only served to establish his
conclusions all the more firmly.
It was not alone in electricity, however, that Ohm showed
his wonderful genius for original investigation. As the result
of his work with regard to electrical resistance he became
professor of physics at the University of Munich, and there
established the law of acoustics, which is also known under his
name. At the time that this law was announced it was
opposed by many prominent investigators, and was practically
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1904.] Modern Electricity AJSTD Orthodoxy, 491
set aside as being almost preposterous, since it was so differ-
ent from the accustomed method of presenting the subject.
When Helmholtz came, however, to solve all the problems
that had been disturbing fundamental principles in this depart-
ment of physics, Ohm's law was accepted. As Eugene Lom-
mel said in an address delivered at the public meeting of the
Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences of Munich, held March 28,
1889, in honor of the one hundredth anniversary of Ohm's birth :
"Eight years after Ohm's death Helmholtz completely
revolutionized acoustics and the theory of music by that
classic work. The Science of the Perception of Sounds which is
based on Ohm's law. 'This law states that the human ear
perceives only pendulum-like vibration as a simple tone.
Every other periodic motion it resolves into a collection of
pendulum-like vibrations, which it then hears in the sound, as
a series of single tones, fundamental and overtones.' " *
Ohm was a deeply religious man who, towards the close of
his life, when he came to write the preface to the first volume
of his Molecular Physics^ which was to be his master- work,
the fruit of his mature mind, states with the simple, earnest
faith that Beems more mediaeval than modern, that a second
and third volume, and even a fourth, will follow this first, if
God prolongs his life. Once when he found that a discovery
which he thought he was the first to make had been antici-
pated by a foreign scientist, though he was on the point of
publishing an article with regard to it, he refrained, consoling him-
self with the words : " This gives me an occasion to realize the
fullest sense of the proverb, ' Mstn proposes and God disposes.'"
He was, besides, an extremely lovable man and made many
close friends. " Nature had given him," says his friend
Lamont, " such a pleasant disposition and unselfishness to such
a degree as are seldom seen. These valuable qualities form
the groundwork of his character, and were the guiding influ-
ences of his intercourse with those around him."
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL.
Professor Clerk Maxwell, whose untimely death at the early
age of forty- eight, just a quarter of a century ago, proved a
serious loss to the world of science, was a man who well de-
served the expressive encomium that ** for more riian half of
* Translated by William Hallock for the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.
VOL. LXXIX.-32 ,.g.,.^^, ^^ Google
492 MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [July,
his brief life he held a prominent position in the very foremost
rank of natural philosophers." He was a precocious genius,
and before the age of twenty made several important contribu-
tions to physical science. Indeed, one of them, a short paper
on the mechanical method of tracing Cartesian ovals, was
communicated by Professor Forbes, of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, while its author was still in his fifteenth year.
His original work touched every department of physical
science. When he was twenty- eight he obtained, in 1859, ^^
Adams prize in Cambridge for a very original and powerful
essay on the Stability of the Motion of Saturn's Rings. He
published a series of valuable investigations connected with
the perception ol color and with the significance of color-
blindness. The mathematical ideas he introduced into this
subject did more, perhaps, than any other investigations to put
this question on a scientific basis. For this, when he was
thirty, he received the Rumford medal. He showed his
mechanical skill by devising a set of very ingenious instruments
for conducting these investigations. His work on gases would
alone have given him a place among the great physicists of
the century. He worked out the mathematics of the Kinetic
Theory of gases and placed that subject on an absolutely scien-
tific plane. His work with regard to the laws of gaseous
friction proved him an able experimenter, capable of devising
means to answer the questions he put to nature, as well as a
great mathematician. In a word, his was no subjective mind,
but one as thoroughly objective as any of the most experi-
mental of scientists would demand.
Far more important, however, than any of these works was
what he accomplished for electricity. His great treatise on
Electricity and Magnetism contained the germs of ideas that
have been fruitful sources of suggestion for his own and for
our generation. Scientists united in declaring it one of the
most splendid monuments ever raised by the genius of a sin-
gle individual. Maxwell showed how to reduce all electric and
magnetic phenomena to stresses and motions of a material
medium. To him we owe the first suggestion of electricity as
a strain in the ether, and he did away with the necessity for
considering that electrical action is action indistans. Dr. Peter
Guthrie Tait declared in his sketch of Maxwell, ''there seems
to be no longer any possibility of doubt that Maxwell took
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1904,] MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. 493
the first grand step towards the discovery of the true nature
of electrical phenomena."
While Maxwell was thus the leader of scientific thought in
England, he was in private life one of the simplest and most
beautiful characters that the world of' science has ever known.
Occupied with the highest problems of mathematics and of
electrical theory, every day, in his position as professor of
experimental physics at the University of Cambridge, he went
home at evening to lead his family at evening prayers. He
was a regular attendant at church services and was a monthly
communicant. He was especially known as a liberal con-
tributor to all the charitable efforts of the parish, and con-
sidered it his dtfty to give freely of his time also, in order
that works of charity might be better directed.
His religious feeling showed itself very clearly in his last
illness. Feeling his end approaching, he acknowledged his
belief in the Incarnation, in the Redemption through Christ,
and in the power of the Holy Ghost. During the days before
bis death he was often heard to repeat these lines from
Richard Baxter, the famous Anglican divine:
" Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live ;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And that Thy grace must give."
Clerk Maxwell's life was written by Lewis Campbell and
William Garnett* It contains the following paragraph with
regard to Maxwell's death, and his religious feelings not only
at the approach of death but also for many years before :
" He was a constant, regular attendant at church, and sel-
dom, if ever, failed to join in our monthly celebration of holy
communion, and he was a generous contributor to iall our
parish charitable institutions. But his illness drew out the
whole heart and soul and spirit of the man ; his firm and un-
doubting faith in the Incarnation and all its results; in the
full sufficing of the Atonement; in the work of the Holy Spirit.
He had gauged and fathomed all the schemes and systems of
philosophy, and had found them utterly empty and unsatisfying
— ' unworkable ' was his own word about them — and he turned
with simple faith to the Gospel of the Saviour."
•London, 1882.
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494 MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [July,
Maxwell, far from being a self-centred, forbidding genius,
was one of the most companionable of men. His friends were
enthusiastic about his kindness of heart and congeniality of
disposition. On this point the national dictionary of biography
said : " As a man Maxwell was loved and honored by all who
knew him; to his pupils he was the kindest and most sympa-
thetic of teachers, to his friends he was the most charming of
companions, brimful of fun, the life and soul of a Red Lion
dinner at the British Association meetings; but in due season
grave and thoughtful, with a keen interest in problems that lay
outside the domain of his own work, and throughout his life a
stern foe to all that was superficial or untrue. On religious
questions his beliefs were strong and deeply rooted." The words
which close one of his lectures, given not long before his death,
express faith in "Him who in the beginning created not only
the heaven and the earth, but the materials out of which the
heaven and earth consist," have often been quoted.
In closing the sketch of Maxwell which Mr. Tait wrote for
the EncyclopcBdia Brittanica he • said : '' In private life Clerk
Maxwell was one of the most lovable of men, a sincere and
unostentatious Christian. Though perfectly free from any trace
of envy or ill-will, he yet showed on fit occasion his contempt
for that pseudo- science which seeks for the applause of the
ignorant by professing to reduce the whole system of the uni-
verse to a fortuitous sequence of uncaused events."
LORD KELVIN.
Lord Kelvin is undoubtedly the greatest of living physicists.
He is especially distinguished for a number of practical appli-
cations of electrical principles in the development and perfec-
tion of the submarine cable. It has sometimes been said that
without his work in this chapter of applied science submarine
telegraphing would have been delayed for several decades at
least, and very seriously hampered in its development. Lord
Kelvin is, however, much more than a practical scientist. He
is a great theorist, who has thrown more light on many of the
unsolved problems of physics than any one in our generation.
In one of his recent talks he made it very clear how valuable
has been the hypothesis of the existence of an ether for the
explanation of the conduction of light and electricity. He more
than any other has made it clear that the assumption of the
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1904.] MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. 495
existence of ether is a true theory, and not a mere working
hypothesis. To most people this very genius (or theory would
seem to contradict the notion of his being deeply religious. It
is, however, only shallow theorists who find contradictions be-
tween their theory and orthodox religious thought.
One of Lord Kelvin's important discoveries which illustrates
very well the practical character of his scientific genius is the
compass which is now almost universally used on board steam-
ships. With the construction of iron vessels there came many
difficulties because of the inevitable magnetic qualities in the
ship's hull. Thousands of suggestions and inventions were made
to ameliorate the conditions and do away with the possibilities of
error which thus arose. Lord Kelvin, then plain William Thomp-
son, suggested the use of a light needle with a very light card,
most of the material out ntartheperiphery, and small amounts
of metal for correcting purposes. The light, long needle was slow
in its swing, thus being a better guide, while its lightness made
it less wearing upon the pivot, and consequently more lasting
and less likely to be disturbed by friction. These qualities
secured for his invention almost universal adoption.
In the character of Lord Kelvin as a man one finds many
things to recall his friend and fellow- laborer in science, Clerk
Maxwell. Especially is this true as regards his attitude towards
practical Christianity.
Only last year Lord Kelvin made it very clear that he
believed not only in a Creator, but declared emphatically th^t
our modern science, far from being atheistic or materialistic in
its tendencies, actually affords evidence of the existence of a
Creator. As he put it : " Science positively affirms creative
power. It makes every one feel a miracle in himself. It is
not in dead matter that we live and move and have our being,
but in the creating and directive power which science compels
us to accept as an article of belief. Modern biologists, he
asserted, are once more coming to a firm acceptance of the
existence of a vital principle. They know God only in his
works, but they are absolutely forced by science to admit and
to believe with absolute confidence in a directive power — in an
influence other than physical, dynamical, electrical forces."
He further affirmed that there is nothing between absolute
scientific belief in creative power and the acceptance of the
theory of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. Is there anything,
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496 Modern Electricity and Orthodoxy. [July,
he asks, so absurd as to believe that a number of atoms, by
falling together, can of their own accord make a sprig of moss,
a microbe, or a living animal ? In confirmation of this he
related a story of his experience with Liebig, the great chem-
ist of the middle of the nineteenth century, with regard to
nearly this same question. Lord Kelvin was very proud to
have the opportunity to meet Liebig, who was at that time
the great master-worker in chemistry. In the course of a walk
which they took together, Lord Kelvin asked Liebig if he
thought it possible that the flower which he plucked by the
roadside could possibly have come into being by chance. To
which Liebig at once replied that he would as soon think that
a book of botany describing tl}e flower had come into exist-
ence by a chance arrangement of letters and words, and chap-
ters and pages, as that the flower itself had thus come into
fortuitous existence.
Lord Kelvin, like Clerk Maxwell, was one of those men who
win hearts and make fast friends. Both of them were of the
sort who deeply enjoy and prize friendship. Lord Kelvin has
said that his ideal condition for happiness is to live among
friends. On the other hand, he has not hesitated to say that
his idea of " a treasure of which no word can adequately
describe the value is the good will, kindness, sympathy, friend-
ship, and encouragement for more work of sincere friends."
Something of the wonderful respect for the man that is com-
naon in the scientific world may very well be gathered from
the reception accorded to him here in America.
He was welcomed as the Dean of living physicists, but he
was welcomed still more as the genial companion, the kindly
friend, the loving master whom many disciples have learned to
honor, the great scientist to whom workers could turn at any
time confident of appreciation of their work, with readiness to
help by suggestion, to encourage, and yet kindly to point out
flaws in logic or demonstration.
It is no wonder, then, that Father Karl Alois Kneller,
S.J., in a recent number of the Stimtnen aus Maria Laach,*
the periodical of the German Jesuits, says : " When the half-
educated man is carried so easily through the streets in elec*
trie cars, which are lighted so brilliantly by electric lamps,
* Siimmen aus Maria Laack^ igoj. Herder, Freiburg. " Ergaeazungsband, xxi..
Ergaenzungsheft, 84 and 85." It is to this article that we owe many of the details witli regard
to the religious attitud<^ of these great scientists.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Modern electricity and Orthodoxy. 497
when from his room he is able to talk to friends who are
hundreds of miles away and to recognize their voices, — when
he considers these wonders, how readily will a contemptuous
smile cross his lips for the old woman who still says her
prayers on her rosary, or even for the sermons and for church
services. How easy it is for him to despise old times and to
consider that anything that previous ages have given us is
practically obsolete ; that even Christianity itself cannot be
excepted from this condemnation. Is it not, however, only his
own precious ignorance and superficiality which make him
think so ? and is not his contempt really an index of his own
lack of correct knowledge ? The great intellectual men, to
whom above all we owe our modern scientific advances, have
been satisfied to take their places as humble Christians and
to bow before Christianity. The skilled hands which first, on
the experiment table, demonstrated the existence of the latent
forces of electricity have often been folded in prayer, and men
like Volta and Ampere have also been proud to say their rosaries.
" However it may be, then, in other branches of science, this
much is certain, that in the department of electricity, which
has attracted the greatest attention on the part of the popular
mind, the supreme authorities cannot be used as a cloak by
those who would be but too glad to cover up their own
hostility to Christianity by the examples of distinguished
scientists."
HUMBLE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND CONCEITED PSEUDO-
SCIENCE.
After this sketch of the lives of the prominent electricians
of the nineteenth century, so many of whom were at the same
time distinguished physicists, it may be hard to understand
how the impression should have gained such general acceptance
that physical science tends to unotthodoxy, or that there is an
opposition between science and religion. The lives of the
greatest men of science, far from proclaiming this, show ex-
actly the opposite. And this is true not only in electricity but
in astronomy, in biology, and even, God save the mark! in
much suspected medicine.
The greatest scientific geniuses, on close inspection of their
lives, are seen to be what in derision is sometimes called
mediaeval in their adhesion to the great principles of faith.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
498 MODERN ELECTRICITY AND ORTHODOXY. [July,
Whence, then, has come the idea that science and scientists
are almost inevitably associated with neglect of religion and
unorthodoxy in thought ?
The explanation has often been given, but will have to be
repeated often and often again. The very great scientists are
honest, simple-minded, humble men. Those who take the im-
portant steps into the unknown which represent great dis-
coveries realize how little they know. They are like St.
Augustine on the sea-shore, after, according to the legend, he
had seen the angel trying to drain the ocean with a spoon,
and had realized the aptness of the symbol to his own position
with regard to the limitless expanse of knowledge. Following
in the footsteps of thought and often a long way from the
greatest scientists, come the mediocre minds who more than
make up in conceit what they lack in intellectual power. They
must attract attention, and they find it hard to do so. Long
ago Horace said that neither the gods nor men, nor even the
booksellers, had any use for the mediocre poets, and the
world has not very much use, even in the present day of
skilled advertisement and the press agent, for mediocrity.
There is an easy way, however, for the mediocre scientist
to attract attention. He simply makes the announcement that
the last discovery does away with certain of the old religious
principles, and makes religion generally something that old
women may cling to, but with which sensible men in the midst
of modern scientific progress cannot rationally and with entire
candor have anything to do. The number of these is legion.
But it is as well to say at once that no one of them has ever
made a really ground-breaking discovery. Theirs is not the
type of mind that is likely to make discoveries. It requires a
simpler, an honester and less self-conscious intelligence.
With regard to this we shall quote once more an expres-
sion of Professor Guthrie Tait, the distinguished physicist to
whom we owe the details of Clerk Maxwell's discoveries and
lovable character. Twenty-five years ago Mr. Tait, rendered
impatient by the claims of pseudo-scientists with regard to the
significance of their discoveries and their bearing upon great
religious principles, said in an address, delivered as one of the
vice-presidents, before the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science, the most representative body of scientific
men in the world : *' On the other hand, there is a numerous
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND. 499
group, not in the slightest degree entitled to rank as Physicists
(though in general they assume the proud title o{ Philoso-
phers), who assert that not merely Life, but even Volition and
Consciousness, are mere physical manifestations. These oppo-
site errors, into neither of which is it possible for a genuine
scientific man to fall, so long at least as he retains his reason,
are easily seen to be very closely allied. They are both to be
attributed to that Credulity which is characteristic alike of
Ignorance and of Incapacity. Unfortunately there is no cure ;
the case is hopeless, for great ignorance almost necessarily
presumes incapacity, whether it show itself in the compara-
tively harmless folly of the Spiritualist or in the pernicious
nonsense of the Materialist."
IN THE HOLLOW OF HIS HAND.
BY M. H. LAWLESS.
HAT if the moon in jubilee of silver
Of her one last reflected beam were shorn ?
What if the sun's last gold and crimsoYi setting
Should prove his funeral pyre before the morn?
*What if the law to worlds and planets given
Came to the end of its propelling force :
Stars and planets overturned and shaken.
And spheres cast headlong from their olden course ?
Beyond dead suns would still survive their Maker,
Beyond spent law the force that bade it cease.
Beyond destruction a new transformation
Of crash and chaos into order, peace.
And midst the terror and the devastation
Of worlds, no soul shall ever go astray, —
They, born of Love, obey Love's gravitation,
And to Love's Centre find at last their way.
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500 The Story of a famous Church. [July,
THE STORY OF A FAMOUS CHURCH.
BY BERNARD ST. JOHN,
Author of " Tht Blessed Virgin in the Nineteenth Century:*
jN hearing the words, the Vieille £glise des Cannes^
no Parisian doubts as to what church they apply.
The building is in the Rue de Vaugirard.
Set as it is in the great conventual block to
which it belongs, there is no convent church or
chapel in the French capital that can compare with it in the
matter of a certain kind of celebrity. The celebrity to which it
lays claim is not based on intrinsic beauty or on general historic
interest, but on one page in its history which tells us that little
more than a century ago stones in its precincts were dabbled
with the blood of a hecatomb of martyred priests. Yes, it is
the massacres of September 2, 1792, that rendered the old
Carmelite Church of the Rue de Vaugirard for ever famous.
With its contiguous buildings it goes to form a fine archi-
tectural block, grand, massive, imposing, and moreover intact,
showing us just what it was in pre-Revolutionary times. The
old monastic garden, too, is as it was before the breaking of
the great wave of Revolutionary fury over France. We say it
is just as it was. This is true after allowing for the lopping
off of a certain portion of its ground in order to admit of the
opening of fresh thoroughfares. Thus, where at the present
day, in the Rue d'Assas and the Rue de Rennes, vehicles
whirl and Parisians hurry along, of* yore barefooted Carmelites
trod the ground with feet on their own soil. Altogether these
Carmelite premises form a little world apart, pervaded by a
very old-world air indeed, and completely shut in from public
gaze by tall houses around.
Before the moment in its history when the spot suddenly
acquired vivid and sanguinary interest, the Carmelite church
and convent we are considering could only point to two cen-
turies of previous history. The pile had been founded by the
first barefooted Carmelites who came to France. These
pioneers formed a very little band, and made their appearance
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.1904.] The Story of a Famous Church. 501
on French soil soon after the glorious St. Teresa had reformed
the order of which she was to become the most shining light.
The newcomers were well received. Ground was given
them in the Rue de Vaugirard, on which they began at once
to build a church, the foundation stone of which was laid 161 3,
with great ceremony, by the Queen Marie de Medici, who,
history tells us, used a silver trowel on the occasion. The
church becoming quickly almost as we see it now, was shortly
afterwards the scene of several days' religious rejoicing. It
was illuminated, and fireworks, at the queen's expense, were let
off at the top at eleven o'clock at night. This was in honor
of the canonization of St. Teresa. • #
Two centuries of uneventful, unostentatious history followed.
The monks were not only holy but useful, and became de-
servedly popular. This may in a measure account for their
not being interfered with at the first outbreak of the
Revolutionary storm when, in 1790, the National Assembly
voted the suppression of the religious orders and the confisca*
tion of their property. These measures began at once to be
put into execution, as similar measures voted in France more
than a hundred and ten years later are now, thanks to M.
Combes, President of the Council, being carried into effect in
the most summary manner possible before our eyes.
Our Carmelites, left alone as we say for the moment,
proved so amenable that their premises shortly afterwards were
made to serve as the seat of the Revolutionary " District " of
the locality. " Districts " soon giving place to " Sections," we
read of the ^^ Section du Luxembourg^* instead of the ^'District
des Carmes.** The horizon had become more lurid.
We are at the end of August, 1792. By this time the
Carmelite monks of the Rue de Vaugirard had disappeared,
and their church was serving as a prison. In the course of a
few days upwards of a hundred and sixty priests had been
located within it, charged with no other offence than that of
having refused to subscribe to the Civil Constitution of the
Clergy. They were kept penned together in the sacred precincts,
like sheep literally awaiting their slaughter. There they ate, sat,
and slept ; there they watched and waited. Each morning they
fell on their knees and offered their sufferings to God and their
lives as a sacrifice. One priest sat on a chair in the same posi-
tion without being able to move for nearly twenty-four hours.
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502 The Story of a Famous Church. [July,
At length, sanitary conditions becoming intolerable, it was
found necessary to let the prisoners spend some time each
day in the garden. They were assembled there on the after-
noon of September 2.
Rumors from the outside world reached them. They knew
something of the political atmosphere without. Gambetta's
famous axiom, "Z^ Clericalisme voila Vennemii^' of nearly a
hundred years later, was being forestalled as to theory and
practice. The Reign of Terror was beginning in earnest
with the shouts of '' Mort aux Pretres T* (Death to priests).
These shouts were being echoed by an infuriated populace,
with women to the front. The Paris Commune was already
whetting its fury with the blood of priests. Yes, sacerdotal
blood was actually being shed. This the prisoners at the
Carmes did not know, although they had the direst forebodings
as to the fate in store for them. Nor did they know that
their death had been decreed that very afternoon by the
" Section of the Luxembourg,'' sitting at the neighboring
church of St. Sulpice. That day — perhaps just before the fatal
hour to which we come — the prisoners had questioned among
themselves whether in order to save their lives they might, by
a legitimate stretch of conscience, consent to take the oath of
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Their answer had been
a unanimous '" No " ! Never had a nobler non possumus come
from human lips. They waited and prayed, some seated on
the old stone seats around, some walking in groups, some
assembled in a little chapel in the garden and around a statue
of the Blessed Virgin, which at the present day by the faint
blood-stains upon it tells us something of the tragic scene we
are recording.
The aspect of the spot was one of peace. A soft Septem-
ber light was upon lilacs and lime-trees, and on the circular
pond of ornamental water in the middle.
At about four o'clock a band of armed men, straight from
St. Sulpice, rushed into the Carmelite convent. They could
not rush at once into the grounds beyond, the door leading
thereto, being locked. Frustrated for the moment, they filled
the premises looking upon the garden, howling forth their rage
the while, and thrusting through the iron bars of the windows
swords, lances, and pikes. These were the . instruments that
were to do the deadly work that followed.
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1904.] The Story of a Famous Church. 503
After a few minutes the great door was thrown or burst
open and the human bloodhounds, separating into two bands,
rushed upon their prey.
The first victim to be struck down was a solitary priest,
Abb^ Girault, who was standing or sitting by the circular
pond. He was reading — probably his Office — and took no
notice of the intruders. He was killed in a moment. Another
priest came forward as if to remonstrate. He met a similar fate.
While this was occupyinfg the attention of one of the bands
of ruffians the other band had set off in the direction of a few
priests gathered in an alley near the garden chapel. One of
these priests was Mgr. Dulau, Archbishop of Aries. He was
evidently of the prey that the bloodhounds were in search of.
"Are you the Archbishop of Aries?" said one, addressing by
mistake another ecclesiastic. No answer being elicited, he who
h&d spoken turned to the prelate and said : '' Then it is you
who are the Archbishop of Aries ? " " Yes, it is I," was the
mild rejoinder. Insults following, Mgr. Dulau continuejl:
" I have done harm to no man." " But we are about to do
harm to you," was the response. Upon this the archbishop
received a sword thrust in the head. He remained motionless.
Another stroke followed which clove his skull. As he was
instinctively raising his hand to the injured part the hand was
struck off. A few seconds afterwards he was left dead on the
ground.
The next great act in connection with this frightful two-
hours' tragedy took place in the little chapel, in which a good
number of priests had taken refuge. They were there on their
knees, and had already given each other absolution. They
were gathered around the statue of the Blessed Virgin already
alluded to. They were struck down as wild animals that
it was necessary to kill in as short a time as possible.
Mgr. de la Rochefoucauld, Bishop of Beauvais, was of the
number. This prelate received a mortal wound ; but his death,
to be preceded by a mock trial, was reserved for an hour or
so afterwards. His brother, the Bishop of Saintes, was among
those around expecting every moment to be sent into eternity.
These two were united by the strongest bond of fraternal affec-
tion; one did not wish, to be left on earth without the other.
The chapel, witness of the awful scene, saw its walls, floor,
and stone benches not only sprinkled but streaming with blood.
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504 THE Story of a Famous Church, [July,
While this had been going on within four walls, similar
scenes on a smaller scale had been enacted in different parts
of the garden.
Presently a voice of command called from one of the win-
dows of the convent, summoning within the executioners and
their victims. The priests were hounded into the church, and
there closely packed, like cattle, in the choir and sanctuary.
The wounded Bishop of Beauvais was presently brought in by
his assassins. The Bishop of Saintes, there before him, had
been fervently praying that in this hour of anguish he might
not be separated from his brother.
By this time the Marseillais murderers had been reinforced
by the infamous Maillard and the band under him, who had
just slaughtered twenty-one priests of the neighboring abbey
of Germain- des-Pres. A mock Revolutionary tribunal was
quickly erected in the passage leading from the church to the
garden. The victims Were called out, two at a time, judged,
condemned, and then massacred at the bottom of the steps
outside. The premises being now jtist as they were then, we
are enabled to see exactly how everything was done.
As the condemnatory process proceeded, the name of Pierre
Louis de la Rochefoucauld, Bishop of Saintes, was called out>
and almost directly afterward that of Fran9ois Joseph de la
Rochefoucauld, Bishop of Beauvais. ^'Here I am," said the
wounded prelate: *'but you see I cannot walk. In charity
help me to go whither you would that I should go." The death
of one brother preceded that of the other by a few minutes.
At the end of two hours the slaughter was over; a hun-
dred and twenty priests had been massacred and about forty
had effected their escape. One had managed to conceal him-
self in the church between two mattresses; but, betrayed in
the end by his breathing, shared the fate of the hundred and
forty others.
A good part of the remains of the murdered priests were
carted away the next day to the cemetery of Vaugirard; the
rest were thrown into a well in the convent grounds long to
be known as the " Puits des Martyrs."
A portion of the Carmelite premises were then let to an
enterprising restaurateur^ one Langlais by name, who opened
on them what was to be known as the ^'Bal des Tilleuls."
Thus lewd women and ribald men danced on ground saturated
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1904.] The Story of a Famous Church. 505
just before with sacerdotal blood, and which had hardly had
time to dry. But this was not to last. The "Reign of Ter-
ror" had but begun.
Shortly afterwards the Carmelite convent was again turned
into a prison, in which in less than a year — that is, from
December, 1793, to October, 1794 — more than, eight hundred
persons were located. In the course of that time numbers
were led thence to meet their death by the guillotine. Among
these was Vicomte Alexandre Beauharnais, the husband of
Josephine, afterwards the unhappy consort of Napoleon I.
The night before he was to lay his head on the block, writing
to his wife, whom he had left a prisoner at the Carmes, he
said : " Adieu. I press thee and my dear children for the last
time to my heart."
The room where Josephine Beauharnais was imprisoned,
together with the . Duchesse d'Aiguillon and others, is still
shown. When we visited it a few weeks ago it was serving as
a bedroom to an Irish seminarist. It is called the Chambre
€Us Epies (the Room of Swords), because on the night of
September 2, 1792, the Marseillaise after slaughtering the
priests, retiring thither to drink and pass the night in riot,
before beginning their orgie hung their still wet swords against
the walls. The weapons dripped, leaving indelible stains behind
them. A portion of the blood-stained wall, enshrined beneath
glass, tells the story to this day.
In connection with the convent at this period we get a glimpse
of one who was to dwell there for nearly fifty years as an angel
in human form. This was Mademoiselle Tberese de Soyecourt, a
Carmelite nun in lay.dtess, who had had to leave her convent ow-
ing to the social upheaval. Her father, the Marquis de Soyecourt,
was a prisoner at the Carmes. Debarred from obtaining access to
him, her wish was at least to see him. Through the good offices
of a menial she was introduced for a few moments into an upper
room of the building looking on the garden. There she saw
her father with the other prisoners. The marquis recognized
his daughter, pulled his hat over his eyes to hide his tears,
kissed his hand to her, and made a sign that she was to leave
the spot at once. In truth her life was in danger. The Mar-
quis de Soyecourt died by the guillotine a few months later,
his eldest daughter, Madame d'Hinnisdal, following him to the
block shortly afterwards.
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So6 THE Story of a Famous Church. [July,
Th^r^sfe de Soyecourt escaped with her life, but her. whole
future was to be shadowed and hallowed by the memory of
these events. When order was in a measure restored, she bought
a portion of the Carmelite premises and established thereon a com-
munity of Carmelite nuns, who, with her at their head, were, far
into the nineteenth century, to shed forth an odor of sanctity.
This devoted and energetic daughter of St Teresa chose for
her cell the room occupied by her father during his imprison-
ment, and allowed herself as sole luxury the melancholy pleas-
ure of looking upon this father's portrait on the wall with an
inscription in verse beneath.
In 1840, in extreitie old age, Ther^se de Soyecourt migrated
with hercommunity to another part of Paris, ceding her premises
in the old Carmelite convent of the Rue de Vaugirard to the
Archbishop of Paris, who wished to found there a school for
the higher education of priests. This school, known as the £cole
de Hautes Eudes Ecclesiastiques^ was started in 1849, ^^^ in it
we may see the germ of the Catholic Institute of Paris of to-day.
But another element was to come upon the scene and the
convent premises were for a time to be divided. In a word,
the greater part of them was to be given over by Mgr. Sibour,
then Archbishhop of Paris, to P^re Lacordaire for the nucleus
of a Dominican community which this great reviver of the Order
of Preaching Friars in France had founded.
Thus we see one of the greatest churchmen in France in
the nineteenth century, one whose name has come to be synony-
mous with heroism and lofty ideals of the religious life, takings
up his abode in a spot thrice hallowed by suffering, holiness,
and blood. Lacordaire was to add to *the place's wealth in
these respects. He made, or helped to make, with his own
hands a huge wooden cross which is still to be seen affixed to
one of the pillars of the crypt. Fastened to it, he hung for
three hours one Good Friday afternoon. There, in the same
position, he was in the habit of having the discipline administered
to him by one of his monks. It happened once that when the
monk was too timid to do the work properly the superior took
the scourge from his hand and lashed himself with it until the
blood streamed. In this manner did Henri Dominique Lacor-
daire, in the full vigor of his splendid manhood, chastise his
flesh. The crypt of the Carmelite church thus saw his blood
start and stream not infrequently after one of his brilliant con-
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1904.] The Story of a Famous Church, 507
ferences at Notre Dame, when be had enthralled and electri-
fied an audience as no other had done in France — at any rate
since Bossuet — and as probably no other bad done in Christian
Europe since Savonarola.
With the advent of Napoleon III., Lacordaire and his monks
vacated the old Carmelite premises, which were then entirely
given up to the £cole Normale EccUsiastique.
Somewhere near the yeai 1865 the opening of a new street
which had to run through a portion of the convent garden
drew attention to the well known as the Puits des Martyrs^ to
which tradition for the previous seventy years had pointed as
the receptacle of a portion of the bones of the martyred priest5
of 1792. The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. Darboy, took measures
to ascertain what was really at the bottom of the well. The
result of the investigations was the discovery of a quantity of
human remains which proved undoubtedly to belong to the
priests massacred by the Septembtiseurs. These were reverently
collected and placed in small side chapels around the central
chapel of the crypt, thus rendering the subterranean half of the
old church of the Carmelites a veritable ossuary, which was
to become from that time forward a favorite site of pilgrimage
in honor of the martyrs.
We come to the time when nominally it was to be no
longer the £cole Normale EccUsiastique^ but the Catholic Insti-
tute of Paris, that was to draw attention to the old Carmelite
premises, the foremost centre of Catholic intellectual activity in
the French capital.
More than thirty French prelates launched the Catholic
Institute of Paris into being and gave it its present form. The
Institute thus born may claim, we think, to be showing us in
its midst at the present day a revival of the once brilliant
Theological Faculty of the old University of Paris. A move-
ment of Catholic Feminism has emanated from it in quite
recent times, having for object to raise the feminine educational
standard among Catholics to the same level as that attained by
the state Lycees for girls. This movement is by far the most
forward of the kind in France.
After the changes in the old church of the Carmelites which
we have noted, we now see a building serving as a place of
worship to members and students of the new Catholic Univer-
TOL. LXXIX._33 DigitizedbyGoOgle
5o8 The Story of a Famous Church, [July,
sity. At the same time it does duty as a parish church, ^hile
not professing to be one. People from the outside world flock
to its offices and are often afforded the opportunity of listen-
ing to sermons of keen intellectual as well as religious interest.
Before leaving our subject we will glance at the church,
wrapped round and permeated as it is by its very vivid memor-
ies. It is simple in style and classic with the classicism of the
early seventeenth century Renaissance in France, and in itself
presents little of striking interest.
With the lower church — the all eloquent crypt — the case is
different. There the interest consists not only in the memories
which the place evokes, but also in what one sees around.
Before reaching the centre chapel of the crypt, which is the
Ossuary of the Martyrs, we pass through one — if chapel it may
be called — frowning, massive, supported by solid piers, and
which might well be termed a subterranean churchyard, for it
was there that the Carmelite monks of old were buried. At
the Revolution their tombs were desecrated and their remains
scattered. Not far from where their bodies were laid are the
tombs of Madame de Soyecourt and of some of her Carmelite
nuns. Here too, against one of the pillars, we see the giant
cross fashioned by Lacordaire to which allusion has been made.
And against the same pillar, but on the other side, we see the
statue of the Blessed Virgin towards which the priests assembled
in the garden chapel looked as they were struck down by the
Septembriseurs^ on September 2, 1792.
We pass on and are in the centre chapel — the ossuary —
with its wealth of human remains inviting inspection and vene-
ration. Skulls are well in view, some intact and some frac-
tured ; some even with teeth ; some showing that death had
been brought about by a sword-thrust, and others by the point
of a lance or the blow of an axe. A veritable tumulus of
bones lies behind the iron grating of each of these miniature
chapels. On occasions when the public are especially invited
to the spot, at the time of the annual nine days' celebration
beginning September 2, small pendant lamps burn, marking the
architectural lines of the building and revealing the terribly
realistic nature of these human relics. By aid of the modest
side-lights we read around, in French, such inscriptions as the
following, which we translate: "Having preferred death to the
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1904.] The Story of a Famous Church. 509
violation of God's law, they suffered death " ; and " Remember
these men, who were your guides and who preached to you
the word of God. Consider their end, precious in the sight of
the. Lord, and follow their example."
In a small chapel communicating with the central one lie
the remains of Frederick Ozanam, founder of the Conferences
of St Vincent of Paul. A plain marble slab covers them.
They were taken thither in 1855, and by night.
In another contiguous chapel we are confronted with blood-
stains, faint, worn, and but dimly suggestive of what they are.
It is the blood of some of the martyred priests that thus
speaks to us. The stones on which it is to be seen have been
reverently conveyed to their present place from the garden.
The altars around and the objects upon them tell that the
Holy Sacrifice is frequently offered in this spot. The public
are admitted to take part in the celebrations. While on these
occasions the speedy beatification of the martyrs by the voice
of the church is ostensibly asked of Heaven, the burden of
prayer of many for themselves is : Orate pro nobis.
A view of these premises would not be complete without
a glimpse of the historic garden. In a general way this spot
is forbidden ground to the public. We obtained access to it
one day with the object of writing these lines. It was a fine
spring morning ; the scene was a smiling one. A solitary
priest was sitting on one of the old stone seats by the circular
pond. He was reading. Such as his must have been the
figure of that Abbe Girault, the first victim of the Septetn-
briseurs on the spot a hundred and ten years before.
There were lilac-trees around. " They are the same," said
a voice near, for our personal information. ** Seeds or off-
shoots ? " was the response we made in the form of a query.
" No, the. identical trees," continued our informant. ** And the
limes yonder are the same," said the same voice. We looked
across at the rows of old limes pointed to. In truth they
were the same, and the lilacs were the same, and the general
arrangement of the ground was the sam^e, as when the heroic
priests of September 2, 1792, looked on the scene for the last
time. Nations have fallen and others have arisen, and cities
have had time to be born and come to maturity, while this
little spot of earth in one of the most restless and volatile
cities in the world has remained unchanged.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
Sio Our Lady of Saguenay. [July,
Oui^ IxADY OP Saguenay *
BY M. F. O'BRIEN.
fOD save us! Harken, Ruler of the deep
That lulled the waves of Galilee to sleep."
That was our prayer;
But where the lightning falchions angry gleamed
Upon the brow of heav'n, there almost seemed
No God to care.
*'Help, help us ! " Louder shrieked the awful gale,
And from the fated ship there rose a wail «
Of mortal fear;
The storm-fiend answered with a shriller breath,
There seemed in all this darkened world of death
No God to hear.
"Then all must end? " Perhaps it was His will,
Who never wrought, tho* seeming, slightest ill ;
Then be it done.
Silent we waited, waited thus to die,
Betimes strange startled by a last shrill cry
Or child's weak moan.
** Almighty God, 'tis o'er! " But lo ! a form
Reels to the deck against the beating storm.
O Mary mild.
Thy shrine was but a wreck upon the sea,
And from the deep uprose a voice to thee,
With anguish wild.
♦Vessels sailing the river Saguenay, on reaching a certain cliff where a statue of the
Blessed Virgin has been placed, are accustomed to fire three salutes in her honor. By her
intercession a ship's crew was saved from wreck, and this memorial was raised in thanksgiving.
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] Our Lady of Saguenay. 511
Man is but human, God is all divine,
Only His kingly mercy doth confine
The gulf between ;
Mother of God, and yet a child of earth,
Holy, thrice holy was thy sinless birth,
O Virgin Queen.
Where yonder crag an iron brow doth bend
To where the restless waters stealthy wend,
Behold her there,
A figure standing robed in glimmering white ;
Again I hear thro' all the awful night
That last wild prayer.
Hearken! those signals from our vessel's prow,
Thrice have I counted ; she is passing now,
And I too say.
While still I hear the wingfed tempest rave,
Madonna, hail ! Hail, Guardian of the wave
Of Saguenay !
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
512
Immigration problems.
[July,
IMMIGRATION PROBLEMS.
BY J. C. MONAGHAN,
Head of U. S. Consular Service,
THE GERMAN IMMIGRANT.
URING the thirty years ending December, 1902,
2,552,537 persons left Germany as emigrants for
various parts of the world. Of these 2,321,058,
or 90.7 per cent., came to the United States.
Of the 32,098 persons who emigrated from the
empire in 1902, 29,211, or 91 per cent., came to this country.
Thus it will be seen that no effort, however eminent its advo-
cates, or however patriotic its agents, has been able to deflect
the stream of German emigration from our shores. For a long
time a fear was felt that the Germans were going to get con-
trol of Brazil. And yet, in thirty years the total number of
Germans who emigrated to Brazil was 53,671. During those
years British America received 18,299, and all other American
countries, exclusive of the United States and Brazil, got 31,246.
It is interesting and suggestive to note that only 13,960
Germans sailed from Bremen in 1902, while the number of
non-Germans embarking at that port was 129,369. The figures
for Hamburg were: Germans, 9,570; non-Germans, 92,063.
Of these totals 68,421 were from Hungary, 67,622 from Aus-
tria, and 55,368 from Russia; 88 per cent, of the total came
to the United States.
Writing about the character and occupations of German
emigrants, ConsuUGencral Mason says: "They have long been
recognized as among the most valuable elements that our
country has derived from any foreign source during the past
half century. The comprehensive and rigidly enforced compul-
sory-education system of this country, and its fine equipment
of primary, intermediate, and industrial schools, render the
working millions of Germany the best- educated people of their
class on the continent of Europe, with the possible exception
of those in Switzerland. When they emigrate they do so with
an intelligent purpose and a good understanding of the country
to which they are going. There is no disposition on the part
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904. J Immigration Problems. 513
of the government to encourage or promote their emigration.
On the contrary, whatever official influence is exerted at all is
to retain them at home, or, if they must emigrate, to direct
their course toward one of the German colonies, to Brazil, or
to some other country than the United States, where their
identity as German subjects is so soon and inevitably merged
in their new allegiance."
It is hardly necessary to add anything to this estimate.
But I would like to call attention to a line or two in which Mr.
Mason refers to the attitude of the German press in regard to
emigration. He writer that " it is generally more or less openly
opposed to all emigration except that to Brazil or the German
colonies in Africa or Asia, and the Kolanial Zeitschrift, organ
of the colonizing interest, speaks eloquently and persistently
from the one unvarying text that German subjects should emi-
grate only to countries where they can enjoy full privileges as
citizens while retaining their German nationality, and which
countries draw their principal supplies of manufactured goods
from the Fatherland."
If each immigrant entering our gates is worth all the way
from $500 to $5,000, the German average will be far up
towards $5,000. No people that have come to the United
States have^done more towards its upbuilding than have the
Germans. Many regret their falling off in favor of other?.
That, however, was hardly to be helped. Nor is there any
good reason to regret the change. Those coming now will
never do less for the Republic than was done for it by the mil-
lions that came to us in the nineteenth century.
The German stream is to continue to come, for the increase
of population in Germany is nearly a million a year. I would
not be surprised to see a large number of these make their
way towards Argentina, Brazil, Chili, Peru, and other South
American states. Once the South German catches the fever
that leads men to leave the old land for foreign parts, he will
be attracted by the conditions in the countries named. Hun-
dreds have gone thither, and other hundreds are sure to follow.
As the United States fills up, the other lands, offering oppor-
tunities equal to or better than anything we will then be able
to offer, except perhaps to experts, will attract thousands where
to-day they attract only hundreds. Besrdes, the welcome with
which the German is met here is hardly any warmer than the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
514 Immigration Problems, [July»
welcome that awaits him by the Amazon, the La Plata, the St.
Lawrence, the Murray, and the Congo. Hans has a happy way
with him, one that endears him to the organizers of colonial
enterprise. He is a willing worker. He never tires. He is
always fairly well educated. In many cases he is an agricul-
tural or industrial expert.
Die Wocke, a leading German paper, has a leader in its
issue of April 9, 1904. It deals with ''Das Deutschthum in
Ausland " — Germans in foreign parts. It calls particular at-
tention to the General German Protective School Union, or
Association. The object of the society is to aid German emi-
grants in the lands to which they go. It looks upon every
land into which Germans enter as a field for its activities. It
aims to aid the exiled German to establish schools and organ-
izations for the (" Erhaltung des Deutschthums in Ausland ")
securing of German influence in foreign parts. It is composed
of government officials, merchants, retired officers, professors,
writers, etc. It has branches in every part of the empire. It
carries on correspondence between the home land and the
foreign land. It publishes and sends forth books for use in
the German schools established in foreign lands. In several
paragraphs dealing with the society's efforts to perpetuate the
spirit of the German race in America, Die Woche says : " If we
wish to contribute to the maintenance of the German spirit in
the United States, we must remember that it cannot be done
by means of money.. It must be done by Wort und Schrtfi —
i.e.y by literature, by means of friendly and intellectual contact."
The empire's daily press will be doing a good work when
it gives more attention to the individual lives of the German
Americans; for a movement is on in America. There one
finds German papers, German houses, and German Turnvereins;
the German language and literature are everywhere in evi-
dence, etc. There is promise of great progress along the lines
of German culture in the universities, common, private, and
parochial schools. One finds it in every educational institution,
from the kindergarten to the seminary. The German genius
is pressing westwards. In San Francisco, fdcing the Pacific, is
Rietschel's statue of Goethe and Schiller. They look forth
from a land in which the Germans have done much, towards
the East, in which the race is reaping a rich reward for its
enterprise, enthusiasm, and energy.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems, 515
ITALIAN IMMIGRATION.
Any one who is dealing with the problems presented by
the movements of immigrants is in duty bound, after devoting
a great many paragraphs to German and Irish immigrants, to
give a fair if not an equal number of paragraphs to the
Italians and Slavs. When one is told that more than a million
and a half Italians have come to this country from 1821 to
1903 inclusive, the importance of the problems presented by
this movement appears. Estimates of the amounts of money
sent back annually by Italian immigrants to relatives and
friends left in the old land, put the amounts away up in the
millions, some as high as $30,000,000. It is safe to say that
$20,000,000 is not too high an estimate. This tendency, on
the part of Italians and others, to take or send their earnings
back to the old countries, is the cause of a great deal of very
careless calculations. It is claimed that because immigrants
will save and send back, they should not be allowed to come
in. As if we did not get full value in the products of their
labor for every dollar paid out and sent back. Of course it
would be better for the country if the immigrant's earnings
could be kept in circulation here; but the fact that the immi-
grant sends it back is the very best sign of the immigrant's
value to his adopted country. That kind of an immigrant is
sure to make a good citizen. It is hardly necessary, I hope,
to suggest more than the foregoing to those who are worrying
over the losses entailed by the immigrants' remittances home.
The bulk of those Italians coming to this country are from
southern Italy. As a class they seem far inferior to their
Piedmont, Lombard, and Tuscan countrymen. The difference
after all is not very great. Most of the so-called superiority
is imaginary rather than real. All are thrifty, industrious, and
willing to work. They love Italy. They love their kith and
kin. Hewers of wood and drawers of water they were at
home; builders too of public works, railroads, docks, and
wharves. Hewers of wood and drawers of water they are
here. Experts in building lines, they are eagerly sought by
American builders and contractors. Every effort made by the
Italians who come to us to emancipate themselves from pov-
erty and dependence ought to meet with encouragement. The
Italy of to-day is not the Italy of yesterday. The country,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
5 1 6 IMMIGRA TION PROBLEMS. [July,
long handicapped, industrially and commercially, because it had
no coal, is again taking its place among industrial states, be-
cause the Alps and the Pyrenees are literally pouring power
into its mills. By the migratory movements Italy as well as
the United States is bound to be benefited. Movements of
this kind have always resulted in benefit to both parties. It
would be hard to estimate the effects of America on Ger-
many's commercial and industrial life. It is to affect Italy in
the very same way.
HOW to HELP THE IMMIGRANTS.
In connection with Italian immigration, it may not be out
of place to call attention to existing evils under which immi-
grants suffer and to the efforts that have been made to minim-
ize or eradicate them. Immigrants from Continental Europe
are, as a rule, ignorant of English, and English, after all, is
the language of this country. For fifty years the people who
have come in at our gates have been the victims of the vilest
kind of parasites. Young girls have been lured into dens of
infamy. Indeed, there are those who maintain that European
victims are systematically procured for the brothels of New
York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia,* and Chicago. Heartless
men hire out their countrymen for wages wickedly below what
the poor laborer is worth. Cases have come before the courts in
which workingmen were most wantonly defrauded of their wages.
IMMIGRANT AID SOCIETIES.
Every large seaport into which immigrants are pouring
has its " Immigrant Aid Association." These are based upon
a belief that before they were established the immigrant was
robbed, plundered, led astray or imposed upon. Effective as
are most of these associations, they have only partially suc-
ceeded. Even now the number of immigrants who fall victims
to the boarding-house agent, the money-changer, the padrone,
the " friend who will find work for them," etc., is enormous.
Among the organizations aiding immigrants the "Society for
the Protection of Italian Immigrants," founded two years ago
by American citizens, is doing excellent work.
It was organized —
'*(i) To afford advice, information, aid, and protection of all
kinds to Italian immigrants.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems, 517
(2) By assisting, wherever possible, such immigrants as are
unfamiliar with the language and customs of the country to a
practical knowledge thereof.
(3) By learning the character of the labor for which each
individual immigrant is best fitted, and endeavoring to procure
for said immigrant employment at his particular trade or call-
ing, or at some remunerative occupation, that he may not,
through want of work, become a charge to the state or a bur-
den to society.
(4) By investigating and remedying, if possible, all abuses
to which Italian immigrants are exposed and all wrongs inflicted
upon them.
(5) By familiarizing immigrants with their rights and duties
under the State and Federal constitutions, and securing for
them the entire enjoyment of their constitutional rights."
A writer in the Outlook of April 16, 1904, calls attention
to the dangers run by immigrants after they pass from the
protection of the United States immigration agents into the
hands of the crooks and the sharpers, who wait like wolves for
their victims at the Battery Landing. He cites an instance in
which of 36 immigrants, under the care of agents of the Italian
Immigration Society, referred to above, 19 fell victims to the
runners and crooks.
If the percentage of victims among protected immigrants is
more than 50 per cent, what must be the loss among the un-
protected ? Is it strange that the immigrant's ideas of America
undergo a change before he has had a chance to learn even a little
of the real America. And after all isn't this the thing con-
demned, a part of the real America ? Is not American society
responsible for these parasites ? Has New York, or the United
States, no responsibilities ? They certainly have.
CITY AND COUNTRY.
Of all the evils associated with the problems of immigra-
tion one of the greatest is connected with the immigrants'
desire to remain in the large cities. Could some method be
devised for getting them to go to the country, out into the
farming villages, north, south, east, and west, the assimilation
would be better. It might not be quicker; it might not be
as quick. Congregated in the country districts with their own
pastors or priests, the foreigner soon clamors for his own
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
5i8 Immigration Problems. [July,
schools/ his own paper, and his own club. Give him these.
No harm has ever come from it. The Scandinavians and Germans
of Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska,
insist upon their right to perpetuate their languages and religion.
To this end they have forced the school boards of the West to
put the German and Scandinavian languages into the schools.
When able to do so, they have built their own schools. Is
there a better type of citizen, north or south, than the farmers
of the Northwest ? The very fact that the Irish, Germans,
Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, etc., love their native lands, and are
true to them and their traditions, is one of the very best traits
in their characters. The people who come to us and have no
love for the land left behind will be wanting in one of a strong
man's noblest characteristics. I would not be understood as
advocating a continuance of the separate schools, papers^ churches,
etc. If assimilatrion is to go on rapidly, every school, paper,
and church in which a foreign tongue figures is in some mea-
sure a hindrance.
THE IRISH IMMIGRANT.
The number of Irish immigrants from 182 1 to 1903, inclu-
sive, as recorded, was 3,979,569. During the same period Ger-
many sent us 5,138,091, England and Wales 2,766,156, and
Scotland 388,506. Persons more or less familiar with the
questions of immigration think a large share of those accredited
to England, Wales, and Scotland are undoubtedly due to Ire-
land. Thousands of Irish in Scotland and England, and even
many persons in Ireland, were in the habit of sailing from
Glasgow and Liverpool. Hence the actual number of Irish
immigrants to the United States is nearly if not quite as large
as the number from Germany.
Consul Waterman, of Dublin, writing about Irish emigrants,
says : " Generally speaking, those emigrants from Ireland who
go to the United States are a very intelligent and sober peo-
ple of a high moral character. They are, as a rule, law-abid-
*In the Columbia of April i, 1904, a German- American journal of commerce, published in
Berlin, Germany, the Rev. P. H. Gerhard, a German pastor, published an excellent article
about the German farmer in the West. In that article he says the Germans not only build
their German churches but German schools. The motive is to help the rising generation of
German-Americans to keep the German language.
Praiseworthy these efforts may be. Their success is not very great. In spite of every
•effort to keep the immigrants Italians, Germans, etc., they soon become thoroughly Ameri-
canized. The rising generation refuse to speak the old tongues. They take to English in
spite of every effort to keep them from doing so.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems. 519
ing and are capable of becoming excellent citizens, as they all
seem to have a great love for the United States. Being drawn
principally from the agricultural classes, they do not, as a rule,
belong to any trade unions, although those who have trades
usually belong to some trade society. One of the character-
istics of Irishmen is their strong conservatism." .
This last line will surprise a great many who have been led
to look upon the Irish as little less than revolutionary radicals.
It only shows the keenness with which Consur Waterman has
watched and discriminated between the superficial and the deep
currents of Irish life. That the race is really conservative is
known by all those who are at all familiar with Irish history.
Writing about the effort to stop emigration, he continues:
''The more thoughtful people in Ireland are beginning to
realize that from an Irish point of view emigration is most
deplorable. Those leaving Ireland are the bone and sinew of
the country, and their emigration means a lower marriage rate,
a much lower birth rate, and a consequent depopulation of the
country, to say nothing of the economic loss incurred in rais-
ing the people for what practically amounts to exportation for
nothing. Even calculating the coet of raising a person in Ire-
land at $200 — and this is one- fifth of the supposed cost in the
United States — emigration has cost Ireland since 185 1, when
the statistics were first kept, about $8oo,ooo,.ooo. An anti-
emigration society has been started in Dublin and is doing
what it can to stem the ftide of emigration. Its plan of cam-
paign is to show that while some of the emigrants do better
their condition, many of them do not, and that these latter
almost invariably reach a lower state of misery than is possi-
ble in Ireland, where the worst they have to face is poverty,
but poverty without the moral degradation common in large
cities. This society, which has the support of many of the
bishops and priests of the country and of the more prominent
members of Parliament, has arranged to hold an anti- emigra-
tion conference at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 in the
hope that it may do something among Irish people in the
United States to prevent them in any way assisting emigration
from Ireland and to try to get our immigration laws as strin-
gently enforced as regards Ireland as possible."
If the Irish, Scandinavians, British, and Germans fall off
while the others increase, the problem of assimilation will pre-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
5io Immigration problems. [July,
sent new but not necessarily more dangerous phenomena. If
by assimilation is meant the conversion of the immigrants into
New England Yankees, the sooner the idea of doing this is
abandoned the better. Bad as any other result might be, such
a hybrid is hardly the best possible transformation. The nation
is never again to be what it was. Nor will it be worse than
it would have been had we continued to get only Anglo-
Saxons and Irish. It may not be better. Nobody knows
what it would have been had we acted differently; nobody
knows what it will be. It will be what we make it. If each
does what he finds to be done at his own door, the reward
reaped by the Republic will be rich and rare.
In the building of the Republic the best blood of the Irish
was given. From the very earliest years they penetrated into
all parts of the country. The prejudiced predicted great evils
from the tremendous tide that came in during the forties* and
early fifties. How gladly we would welcome them now ! As
it was with the Irish so will it be with the Italians. They are
bound to come even in greater numbers. They will work as
the Irish worked, and the country will be the better for it
Thousands of the best men in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Oregon
and California, Texas and Tennessee, Maine and Massachusetts,
first saw the light by the banks of the Liffey or the Lee, the
Shannon or the Suir. In war and in peace the nation has no
more patriotic citizens. Faithful to the old land with a love
thac is heroic, they are still devoted to their adopted country.
An eloquent orator once pictured the dual love as that of a
man for his bride and for his mother. America is the immi-
grant's bride ; the one chosen from all the world. The old land
is the mother land. The man who has little or no love for
the land of his birth will bear watching. The man who is
ashamed of his country or his creed is usually a man of whom
country and creed have good reason tp feel ashamed. The
Irishman's love for the Green Isle, the German's fondness for
the Fatherland, the Italian's devotion to Italia are good signs.
CHINESE EMIGRATION.
In view of the fact that a great deal of fear is felt in regard
to the possibility of Chinese emigrants overwhelming lands into
which they are allowed to enter, it may prove interesting to
review the figures of Chinese emigration for a term of years.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Immigration Problems, 521
Most of the emigration has been along the empire's waterways.
A very large part of those that go out are from the south.
Only one province in the north, Shantung, has sent out any
very considerable number of its inhabitants. Most of these go
either to the north, into the Amur lands, or into the regions
of Eastern Asia.
The total number of Chinese outside of China is only
7,642,650. Take from these the Chinese in Formosa, 2,600,000,
till the war with Japan a Chinese province, and those in
Siam (2,500,000), and the total scattered over the world is only
a trifle more than two and a half millions, or far less than one
in a hundred; for China's population is said to be above
400,000,000. Nearly all of the emigrants from China proper
went to Asiatic places. In the last twenty- six years 1,629,947
Chinese left Amoy; of these 1,309,787 returned. 1,794,298 left
Swatow; but of these 1,307,744 returned. From Kiung-Chou
298,772 went out, and 296,233 returned. From Hong Kong
about 1,130,000 emigrated, but of these 1,090,000 returned.
In 1876, 113,269 persons left China for foreign parts, in 1886
the number was 258,341, in 1895 261,373, in 1900, the largest
number ever recorded up to that date, 383,523. The figures
do not include those for Hong Kong. Here is the danger.
While 400,000 emigrants from China .wpuld be but one- tenth
of one per cent., it would be a huge amount to add to the
eight or nine hundred thousand that enter the United States
annually at the present time. South Africa, India, the Strait
Settlements, even Central America, all tropical lands, are turn-
\vi% to the Chinese as to the one laborer capable of solving the
problem of tropical labor.
The demand for this labor is increasing. Just what South
Africa is to suffer or to gain by the introduction of the Chinese
can only be conjectured. Whether it is wise or unwise to put
the Chinese into the mines side by side with white and KafSr
labor remains to be seen. That the 400,000,000 of the Chinese
Empire could, in time, supply enough to conquer the tropic.*?
is probable. The problem is unique. The Chinese emigrant is
unlike any other. When he goes forth it is, as a rule, under
some kind of a contract that provides for sending him back
dead or alive. The significance of the figures already submitted
may be measured only after this fact is fully understood.
Whether any great waves will ever sweep again out of the
East into the West is problematic. Every effortj^j^^iij^^as been
522 Immigration Problems, [July,
made to make the vast masses of the empire move from one
part to another has failed. If a call goes up from Africa,
South and Central America, and from other tropical regions for
Chinese labor, the world's industrial, commercial, agricultural, and
consequently financial, equilibrium will undergo great changes.
Recent efforts have induced hundreds to go to Madagascar.
South Africa is trying to get light on the question of Coolie
labor. Efforts are being made to legalize their introduction
under careful governmental supervision.
The one important fact furnished by the foregoing figures
is found in the statement that of the 4,850,000 Chinese emi-
grants that left China in the last twenty- six years 4,000,000
have returned. If one allows eight per cent, for deaths, etc.,
the number now alive in foreign parts is only 450,000. The
statistician and economist who thinks a land loses by allowing
immigrants to enter who after working awhile depart carrying
*with them fairly large sums of money saved from the wages
paid for their labor, will see in the Chinese only undesirable
acquisitions. The real danger, however, it seems to me, is
not in the fact that the Chinaman or any laborer goes away
with his savings; it is to be found in the fact that they
materially disturb the labor market. If the Chinese are willing
to work in the tropics, or anywhere else, at wages far below
what white men demand, the white man's burden will be
increased by every Coolie that comes in at our gates. But the
same is true of every Hungarian, Bohemian, Silesian, or Italian
that is willing to work for lower wages than are paid to Welsh-
men, Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Americans.
Only the largest and most liberal statesmanship should be
allowed to touch the problem of labor and the problem of
immigration, for both are bound up in each other. Elsewhere
I have called attention to the large-hearted and liberal way
with which the laborers of the United States have opened their
arms to the toiling masses of all countries. If they have acted
differently towards the East, it is because they could not fore-
see what terrible consequences might arise were our gates left
open to the rapidly rising tides of Eastern immigrants. It
became a question of self-preservation ; and that is as much a
law of nations as it is of individuals. Whether we like or dis-
like indiscriminate immigration, we must look the .facts in the
face. Certain evils are inseparable from every form of immi-
gration, but the benefits have seldom been less thaiL^theievils.
1904.] Immigration Problems. 523
A glance at the list of the lands or people contributing to
the heterogeneous thing we call an American citizen will serve
to emphasize the very cosmopolitan character of our immigra-
tion. Entering our gates are the following races, or peoples:
African (black), Armenian, Bohemian, Bosnian, Bulgarian,
Chinese, Croatian, Cuban, Dalmatian, Dutch, East Indian, Eng-
lish, Filipino, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, He-
brew, Herzegovinian, Irish, Italian, North Italian, South Jap-
anese, Korean, Lithuanian, Magyar, Mexican, Montenegrin,
Moravian, Pacific Islander, Polish, Portuguese, Roumanian, Rus-
sian, Ruthenian (Russniak), Syrian, Scandinavian (Norway,
Sweden, Denmark), Scotch, Servian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish,
Spanish-American, Turkish, Welsh, West Indian.
Between what is worst and best in the long list rolls an
average tide that is sure to take care that the Republic will
never repent it of having opened its gates to those that go in
at them from so many places. In a generation or two Jew
and Gentile, Italian and Norwegian, are lost in the larger
American.
There are those who seem to think that a man is not an
American unless his father fought in the Revolution. Hence
our Sons of the Revolution. Again, there are those who be-
lieve that the real American begins at Bull Run or Sumter.
It is all vain. The immigrant who, of his own will, adopts
this land and our flag as his own has as great a claim to the
title of American citizen as the boy born among the green
hills of Vermont, the granite hills of Maine, New Hampshire,
or Massachusetts. The brave breasts of the '* foreigners " who
fought side by side with Sigel, Osterhaus, or Rosecrans, by
the side of Shields, Sheridan, and Meagher — fighting, some of
them as substitutes for the men who " maintained the Union "
by staying behind — have earned the right to be here, and
equal right have the thousands and thousands of foreign- born
volunteers who when Lincoln called to arms went out with their
native leaders to battle for the Union, to stand or fall for
liberty. We are a silly people, at times ; we do stupid things.
The idiotic effort to re-establish what deluge after deluge of
ridicule and rage has wiped away is amusing — hardly interest-
ing. The genealogical societies of the country seeking to set
up an American aristocracy are false to the first principles of
the Declaration of Independence.
VOL. LXXIX.— 34 ^ T
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524 Cousin to a King, [July,
COUSIN TO A KING.
BY LELIA HARDIN BUGG.
I'OR a week the quaint old city of Stuttlau was
to play hostess to half the crowned heads of
Europe. They had come to witness the coro-
nation of the young King of Rougaria. Never
before had she numbered such a throng within
her gates.
People poured in on every train ; suburban folk entered in
carriages, wagons, carts; peasants trudged merrily on foot.
The streets were festive with the bunting which the world
over denotes public joy; or in sombre black, public mourning.
Bunting festooned, draped, wreathed, coiled in spiral-like twists
decorated in gorgeous hues the narrow old streets, and the
broad new ones — new with that sort of made-over newness
which renders ancient thoroughfares foreign in their own law-
ful abiding place.
Modern business blocks, palaces of the nobility, town houses
of commerce, winter- summer hovels of the poor, all were in
holiday attire, yet with an aspect of staid Teuton respectabil-
ity befitting an occasion of national and permanent importance
not to be compared with the ephemeral joy of a Parisian at
the installation of a president who to-morrow might be again
merely a private citizen.
Triumphal arches made of bunting manipulated to look like
white marble, with patriotic inscriptions picked out in smilax,
spanned the thoroughfares. Flags were flying everywhere, rib-
bons in the national colors decked the manes of high-stepping
horses and the dogs harnessed to the milk- carts, fastened the
tresses of the school-girl and made coquettish the cap of the
matron. Bands were playing national airs, and the tramp,
tramp of a mighty concourse of people sent exhilarating thrills
to the finger-tips of the veriest stranger.
There might have been philosophers in the crowd to moral-
ize on the vanity of human greatness, and the fickleness of
man triumphs ; philosophers who remembered the national
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King. 525
mourning which only a little time before had draped every fa9ade
in deepest black, and burdened the air with solemn dirges.
The king was dead !
Loyal Rougarians had shown a decent and becoming regret,
tinged with a mild expectancy of speedy consolation.
The old king had been very kind in his way ; had con-
tributed to their charities, laid their corner-stones, addressed
the widows left by brave soldiers to their country in a fatherly
speech carefully prepared by his private secretary ; he had
been most considerate in throwing open to the public, free ot
charge, his famous picture-galleries, and on Sundays and holi-
days students and bank clerks, and fathers and mothers with
their children, had wandered through these splendid museums
and gazed at the pictures and treasures paid for by their
taxes; but they had lost sight of this fact, and so had the
king, and the act was regarded as a piece of fatherly kindness
which merited and received unbounded gratitude.
The old king had given them many pleasures, and on his
birthday, always kept as a national holiday, his subjects, old
and young, sat around little tables in the gardens, and drank
his health in great schooners of foaming beer, while the band
played divinely under the lindens; good housewives gave their
children generous slices of seed-cake of the kind which their
mothers and grandmothers had given to them ; women and
girls in the great vestment factories, and flower-making estab-
lishments, and book-binderies, had a bottle of real wine with
their dinners, and in the afternoons they strolled in the beau-
tiful parks or went on enchanting excursions into the country;
students paraded in uniform and made their throats sore hur-
rahing for the king, and marching until ready to drop with
fatigue before admiring parents and envious little brothers.
So in one way or another the Rougarians were glad that
they had a king and that he graciously permitted himself a
birthday.
Life was hard, very hard for too many, but it had its joys
too, and it went on from generation to generation without
much change. They lived as their grandfathers had lived
under the regent — noted for his vices and his love of German
opera; and as their fathers had lived under the king who sue-
. ceeded the regent — a weak king, who loved horses and Rhine
wine, and who did whatever his prime minister told him to do.
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526 Cousin to a King, [July,
unless he got obstinate, as very weak people have the habit of
doing at times, and then affairs of state went tobogganing
down the road to ruin.
They had lithographs in their homes of the old king and
his sensible, commonplace wife, said by admiring housefraus to
be an excellent cook. They read about the royal children, and
{rowned when their qualities were compared unfavorably with
the qualities of the little Russian or Prussian royalties, their
twenty-ninth cousins. But if one wanted to quarrel, the height
of a royal duke aged ten, or the color of the eyes of a royal
princess aged seven, were as good as anything else to fight
about, and rival factions of students had been known to quar-
rel lustily on subjects of no more importance, as they sipped
their beer on a royal birthday.
There was something very child-like in this attitude of the
people; the king was their king, and his children near and dear
to them for this reason, and there was a sort of vicarious
enjoyment in his splendor, his popularity, his importance.
After he was dead the newspapers presented him with every
kingly attribute, and among other post-mortem information had
chronicled his fondness for stewed mushrooms and the reme-
dies he had tried for dyspepsia. In reality he had been a
rather pleasing old gentleman, who loved his two daughters
and worshipped the memory of his son, a youth snatched away
on the threshold of manhood, leaving no brother to console
king or people. The king had done his duty so far as he
knew it, and, on the whole, had been a fairly satisfactory ruler.
Of course there were disaffected elements in the little king-
dom, especially in the towns ; anarchists who believed in a
general upheaval of old forms in order to build on their ruins
the new ; revolutionists who met in secret and talked of
liberty, equality, and fraternity ; there were leaders among them
selfishly plotting for their own ends, and using their followers
as so many tools; and there were other leaders with the fire
of patriotism in their veins, a fire fanned and fed by the hard,
cruel, sordid conditions crushing the helpless people; men with
brains and aspirations in frantic rebellion, like so many caged
lions, against the iron fetters of poverty, low wages, ignorance,
and heavy taxes.
. But scarcely an echo of their cries had ever reached the
palace. Now the king was dead ; his nephew was to succeed
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1904.] Cousin to a King, . 527
to his throne, his honors and responsibilities, and perhaps, in
time, to his dyspepsia. The people looked to this young man
to remedy many evils.
The day for the coronation was beautiful with the charm
of early June at its best. The birds in the graceful lindens
which lined many of the streets chirped and twittered and
trilled in a passionate joyous chorus as if they understood
that their song was the real coronation ode; the sky was
brilliantly blue with here and there a fleck of mist like a bridal
veil, and the sun arose in majestic splendor behind castle tur-
rets as if glad to add his royal gift, without which all others
would have seemed dull and gray.
From early dawn the city was astir. The procession was to
leave the palace gates at eleven o'clock ; but long before that
hour the multitude, who had paid all sorts of prices for any
sort of perching-place along the route, were seated and await-
ing the procession in enthusiastic patience.
■ Among the vast concourse of people lining the streets even
to the roofs of the tallest buildings were two Americans, Jack
Remington, a clever young broker from Chicago, and Con-
stance, his pretty wife, seated in blissful content in a little
festooned balcony.
The pair had just landed in Europe, and had come out of
their route to the quaint old city of Stuttlau in order to witness
the coronation procession ; in the words of irreverent Jack, '' to
see monarchy dressed in its Sunday clothes.''
'' This is enchanting. Jack I " cried Constance as she leaned
over the iron railing and smiled down upon a band playing the
" Washington Post " immediately beneath the balcony.
"Of course the price is something outrageous; and in
advance, too I I forget the exact number of roubles or marks
or thalers that woman had the assurance to demand — it means
plain American dollars in the end. And do look I — there is a
horse exactly like Rob Roy " — Rob Roy being Mrs. Reming-
ton's own special equine possession, now on a vacation with
the very ilite of horsedom at a big farm in Illinois.
A detachment of cavalry swept down the street, and were
cheered frantically.
" Sec that officer in white plumes ; does n't he ride superbly ? "
ejaculated Constance. " He must be a prince, or a count at
the very least ! "
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528 Cousin to a King. [July,
" The police in Chicago ride just as well and look far more
consequential/' answered Remington.
** Oh, is n't this pitiful ? — that poor old woman on crutches !
Here, give me some money — quick! Ah, she is gone; but she
could n't have found it in such a crowd.
" Is n't that house opposite hideous ? — and so disgustingly
modern I I dare say they pulled down a perfectly enchanting
old palace with high, tiny windows, and big doors, and lofty,
long, draughty halls filled with ancestral ghosts, and all to make
room for — this I Fancy a self-respecting ghost coming to a
house with electric lights and speaking-tubes. Listen to that !
The Rougarians shout loud enough to make one believe that
their king is something of an archangel.'*
" They are making the best of the occasion," answered
Jack. He did not always take the trouble to reply to his wife's
comments, or even her questions.
" There is no hope — I mean no prospect, of another corona-
tion very soon. They say the king is young and he comes
from a long-lived race."
" Is n't that picturesque ? — those girls in caps. Is that the
national costume of the peasantry ? It is so much more becom-
ing than the cheap finery of our poor people."
'' Our poor would n't wear a peasant's dress if it were as
beautiful as a Paris dressmaker's dream of heaven. Perish the
thought in a land where every woman can make a fool of her-
self if she chooses ! "
Then the chimes from a neighboring church played merrily
for a minute, and the great bell of the cathedral rang out in
^sonorous clangor, cannons boomed, and the expectant multitude
knew that the procession had started from the palace.
The splendid pageant came into view far up the street, and
the crowd broke out into renewed cheering. One was tempted
to wonder if their voices would ever get back to their normal
pitch, for they had shouted themselves hoarse hours before.
Guards with drawn swords lined the way. Outriders on
splendidly caparisoned horses advanced slowly, looking neither
to the right nor the left ; then followed the soldiers, so many
of them that Constance Remington wickedly declared that they
had been borrowed for the occasion ; the national air pulsed on
the warm June breeze and was caught up by the bands all
along the route.
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I904.1 Cousin to a King. 529
Solemnly and beautifully the pageant advanced until the
king himself was passing — the king in a splendid state carriage,
all gold and red velvet, drawn by six white horses with arched
necks and quivering nostrils, their skins shining like bridal satin.
At the sight of the handsome young man, flushed but
dignified and gracious, the people were fairly swept off their
feet; women waved their handkerchiefs frantically, and some
sobbed hysterically.
Then some poor lunatic shouted, " Down with the king I
Liberty for ever ! " and was promptly hustled off to prison.
Again tremendous cheering, and all eyes were fastened on
a beautiful girl seated in a royal carriage to the left of a sad-
eyed old woman — an old woman who looked rather pitifully
at the throng, but was playing her part too well to betray her
heart. She was the Queen Dowager, but no one minded her
now — her day was past; the shout was for the beautiful
princess at her side, a girl with soft brown eyes and auburn
hair, and a dazzling complexion, with dimples and a dainty
chin, and smiles on the rich red lips. She was the Princess
Helen, and her day was just beginning — the fair young princess
who was to marry the king.
For once a royal alliance was to be a genuine love match.
They were third cousins and had known each other all their
lives. When Helen was eighteen and Louis twenty- one they
had been thrown together all during a summer at the palace
of a great personage nearly related to both. There was no
prospect then that Prince Louis would ever ascend the throne,
a healthy cousin aged twenty, and an equally healthy uncle
under sixty, standing between him and that high destiny.
Hence he was allowed much liberty in his wooing, and he had
not been slow to make use of his opportunities. In the free-
dom from ceremony when royalty was off duty, so to speak,
he spent long, sweet summer hours with the young girl, and
their betrothal followed with the consent of all concerned.
Suddenly the crown prince died, and soon afterwards the
uncle, and Prince Louis found himself standing in the shadow
of the throne.
His marriage was thus transformed into a matter of national
importance. Still there had been no serious objections raised
to the Princess Helen, and it was generally believed that their
union would soon follow. The prime minister, however.
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530 Cousin to a King. [July,
opposed it with all his powerful might, and a king sometimes
risks a great deal when he ventures to act counter to his
ministers. Thus it came about that there was no queen con-
sort at his side to receive the anointing chrism.
The Princess Helen was evidently the people's choice.
With the passing of the last carriage the coronation was
over so far as concerned the Remingtons, who, as* private
American citizens, could have no share in the festivities that
would continue for the favored ones during the week. There
was to be a court ball, a review of the well-drilled toy army,
and a special opera festival at the court theatre, with singers
brought from Dresden and Berlin. There were to be private
banquets without number, and the decorated caf^s afforded
people a chance to get indigestion in honor of the new king,
at only a slight advance of regular prices. No one has ex-
plained why it is that public or national joy usually expresses
itself in eating, and especially in drinking, rather than in more
aesthetic forms.
Rougaria might be small, but she could play hostess to
Europe as well as the richest of her sisters, and she meant to
do her part royally. There were want and wretchedness and
bitter discontent within her borders, but these things were
hidden away. Kingdoms as well as individuals have their
skeletons, but they are not taken out and exhibited to visitors.
The Remingtons left Stuttlau on the evening train. They
meant to go down the Rhine, as far north as St. Petersburg,
and, perhaps, as far south as Constantinople — certainly as far as
Athens.
Their homeward passage was booked on the Campania for
the latter part of October, and between the first of June and
the end of October a clever couple who know how to travel
can cover a great deal of territory in an intelligible and fairly
satisfactory way.
Constance declared herself to be fascinated by Stuttlau, and
wherever they chanced to be she never failed to read the news
of the old Rougarian capital. Jack Remington accused his
wife of looking for Rougaria before turning her eyes to the
meagre despatches contained in the Paris dailies from the United
States.
The news was sometimes very disquieting. A month after
the coronation there had been a bread riot, and many people
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King, 531
were without employment. The Princess Helen sent a diamond
necklace to Paris to be sold, and the proceeds had been her
contribution to the bread fund.
The king was said to be personally very popular among
all classes, but some of the measures forced upon him by a
short-sighted ministry were turning the tide of public sentiment
against him.
"The future looks rather stormy for his Royal Youthful-
ness," said Remington after reading one of the Rougarian
despatches. "We saw him crowned — at least we saw the pro-
cession — and I rather fancy that if we live to be a sober, middle-
aged couple we shall see the crown fall off his head. He
will be in luck if his head does not fall with it."
" Oh, Jack, how can you say anything so perfectly blood-
thirsty as that ? " cried Constance in horror.
"My saying it won't make it happen any more surely. If
he'd send to the United States and get a progressive man of
affairs with brains, and take his advice, his Majesty might save
himself some trouble. Old Rhenwold is a back number, and
about as well fitted to assist a nation on the road to modern
progress and prosperity as a bat would be to lead a fire
brigade."
The first of October found the Remingtons again in Stutt-
lau. Their circular ticket included that city, and Constance
wanted to stop there for a day or two, having discovered that
carved wood and lace could be purchased more cheaply in the
Stuttlau shops than in any other market in Europe.
" How like a woman to spend fifty dollars in hotels and
carriages in order to save twenty-five dollars on a purchase of
bric-a-brac ! " put in Remington.
However, he was willing enough to accede to his wife's
wishes, for there were some pictures in the cathedral that a
Nevada silver mine could not buy, and these he had been un-
able to see during the rush of the coronation week.
They had been warned that Stuttlau was positively not
safe, and that a revolution was liable to break out at any mo-
ment; but they laughed at such a contingency, remembering
the enthusiastic and spontaneous cheering that had burst from
a quarter of a million of loyal Rougarians' throats only three
months earlier.
They went to an unpretentious hostelry in a quiet street,
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532 Cousin to a King. [July,
crossing the main thoroughfare, which had been recommended
most highly by some American friends.
'' I am so glad we came here instead of going to that tire-
some Continental/' said Constance, taking off her gloves in an
old-fashioned room looking out upon a crooked street with
tiled roofs.
"This is much more characteristically Rougarian. The
flickering little flames of yellow gas, and the rheumatic lift
which under no provocation will lift you down, and the candles
in rows in the halls, are more than worth the price of admis-
sion. And these stuffy green sausages filled with feathers that
they put on the top of your little bed make admirable foot-
warmers."
After dinner the pair sauntered out for an airing and
chanced upon a square where a gathering of socialists were
holding a meeting, making the most incendiary speeches to an
angry populace massed around a little kiosk ! The police were
evidently afraid to arrest even the leaders.
''This is the beginning of the end," said Remington half
sadly. '' I think, my dear, it would be the wisdom which is
said to be the better part of valor for us to take our depar-
ture on the first train to morrow. When these Europeans
get a notion to have a revolution they don't waste much time
on preliminaries."
Then for the first time on their journeyings they were
genuinely glad of the passports safely tucked away in Jack's
inside pocket. They had been abroad on their bridal trip and
had not thought of passports, but since their summer outing
held Russia and Turkey in prospect they had deemed a pass-
port not a bad precaution.
*'We must leave Stuttlau to-morrow," repeated Remington
as he disappeared behind the green feather ''sausage."
But the old-fashioned quaintness and the absence of the
modern electric elevator which had so delighted Constance were
destined by fate to play a mighty part in the lives of several
people.
Jack Remington, in descending the winding flight of stairs
on his way to the dining-room for the regulation cup of coffee
the following morning, slipped, turned his ankle, and sank with
a groan to the floor.
A doctor was hastily summoned, and this autocrat of ailing
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King. 533
flesh peremptorily forbade any thought of travel under at least
a week. There was nothing else to do but to submit to destiny.
Remington fumed and swore softly under his breath, and
in his forgetfulness moved his foot and swore again at the pain.
His oaths were usually by Jupiter and thunder, and his wife
counted them as harmless.
The doctor laughed at the idea of imminent danger ; he said
that the anarchists were talking too much to do any real mischief.
In less than forty- eight hours the city was in possession of the
mob. All night long it tramped and howled through the streets ;
the shops had closed their doors, and the troops were hastily
mobilized at the palace. Men went about singing ribald songs
against the king and the Princess Helen, and even the little
newsboys shouted themselves hoarse with scurrilities one could
only hope they did not understand.
And Jack Remington lay on a couch drawn up by the
window, powerless to stir, whilst a revolution surged in the
streets all around him.
The offices of the principal newspapers had been taken pos-
session of by the revolutionists, who called themselves the press
censors of the commune; and the manifestoes printed in the
biggest type procurable were the first intimation that the great
mass of the people had that there was a commune, and that
the king had been deposed.
Human nature, when it lays bare its ugly side and vomits
forth the accumulated venom of two hundred thousand in-
furiated beings, sends a shudder through the frame of society,
and it is long before it again recovers its normal heart-beats.
The most contradictory reports were flying about as to the
king; one hour it was said that he had escaped, disguised as
a pedlar, to the frontier ; the next that he was still in the palace.
The waiter who brought the Remingtons their meals in the
little sitting-room, and was not unmindful of their liberal tips,
brought them sundry bits of information. At dinner on the
third day he said that ten thousand people, many of them
women, were battering at the palace gates, and that they would
surely break them down before midnight.
For some reason for which there was no plausible explana-
tion the soldiers had not yet flred on the mob. It was rumored
that this was by command of the king, some claiming it to be
cowardice and some humanity.
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534 Cousin to a King. [July,
'' It certainly is not cowardice ; his Majesty is anything
but a coward/' said Constance, although sympathy for Louis
IX. was not just the most popular chord with the class to
which their waiter belonged.
The royal palace was but a few blocks away from the
hotel, and Constance was tingling to get a glimpse of the
mob. It seemed the refinement of torture to be in the very
midst of a revolution and yet not be able to see the tiniest bit
of it except the fragments that came under the hotel windows.
"Jack, dear, why were you so inconsiderate as to sprain
your ankle at such a very inopportune time?"
" Do you think that I 'd let you go into the streets if I
had twenty ankles ? " answered her suffering lord.
Again the night was rendered hideous by the clamor of
the unbridled multitude, and before dawn the news was flashed
over the city that the mob was in possession of the palace,
but that the king had escaped.
It was thought that he would try to reach Belgium, for it
was reported that the Princess Helen on the first day of the
outburst had gone to Brussels with only her maid in attend-
ance. It was known that her grandmother, with whom she
resided, was still at A»x-les-Bains.
The first edition of the morning papers declared trium-
phantly that the king would be a prisoner before night, for
the trains were not running out of the city, and every avenue
of escape was closely guarded.
Constance, republican to the core of her American heart,
yet felt a thrill of pity for the king hunted like a criminal in
the capital of his royal forbears, where but yesterday he had
reigned its cherished sovereign. The experience did not serve
to increase her estimate of popular applause. It seemed a
very fickle sort of temperament that could be swayed in two
opposing directions in such a very short time. If she had not
been present at the coronation, when these same people went
wild with enthusiasm for their king, she could not have be-
lieved that Louis had ever been anything but the most loathed
of tyrants.
During the day the city suddenly grew quiet, and it was
whispered that more troops were marching to the rescue of
the king. His fate was still unknown.
On the following morning Jack, who was beginning to hob-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King. 535
ble about, made his way leaning on the strong arm of the
portier, to the reading-room of the hotel. He wanted to hear
what the other men had to say about the revolution.
Constance regarded this desertion as the most flagrant hard -
heartedness. She determined that she too would see some-
thing.
She put on her hat and jacket and stole out of the entrance,
making a sort of mental compact with herself that she would
go just to the corner to get a breath of fresh air.
The streets seemed quiet, almost deserted. An old woman,
seated by a basket of chestnuts, was knitting a blue stocking,
and a cart drawn by a dog and a woman harnessed together
rattled over the uneven cobblestones.
" I don't see why I should be shut up in that stuffy hotel,"
thought Constance. " Why, the streets are as quiet as a New
England village on Sunday morning. But Jack is such a
goose about women; he thinks that we are to be handled
with care, like some costly and especially rare old china. Dear
boy ! would n't you have a fit if you knew that I *m out in
the street alone ? "
She walked on in the direction of the palace, knowing that
she dared not go all the way, yet longing for a glimpse of
those demolished gates. As she turned a corner she saw a
man with a cap drawn over his eyes, and a long military
cloak wrapped around him, walking rather hurriedly towards
her. There was something familiar in his appearance, yet she
could not recall where she had seen him. He wore enormous
spectacles, and his face was clean shaven.
In a moment there was the rush of many feet behind her, and
the cry went out, " The king ! the king ! " And with a yell of
savagery two men grabbed the fugitive and the others closed
in around them.
*^ The king ! " Ah, that was the face she could not recall I
It required but an instant lor Constance to force her way
through the gathering mob.
" How dare you, how dare you lay hands on my husband ? "
she cried, pulling at the arm of the king.
'' We are Americans, and we shall make you pay dearly for
this outrage," she cried with perfectly acted indignation. She
spoke the language very well, for modern languages had been
a fad in her own particular coterie, and since her marriage she
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536 Cousin to a King. [July,
had kept up her studies, encouraged in her efforts by her
husband, who admired clever women.
'' Go with us instantly to the American consul," she de-
manded; then she spoke to the king in English, chancing it
that he would understand ; she knew that foreign languages
form usually a very important part in the training of royal
children, probably with a view to their matrimonial alliances.
It would be most unpleasant not to be able to maintain a differ-
ence of opinion with one's husband or wife for the want of a
common medium of exchange.
Then she turned again to the mob, as if translating her
husband's words. " My husband does n't speak German," she
exclaimed ; and this was true, for Jack Remington had never
mastered the Teutonic construction of sentences. The king
was quick to take his cue, and by a telegraphic glance he
showed that he understood his role. He murmured in English,
"I am grateful."
" My husband wishes you to call a cab and take us to the
consul ; we can't be standing here all day. Or else go with us
to the Keiser hotel — we have our passports there. Do you
take us for spies ? What do we, two strange Americans, know
about your revolution or your king either? A pretty sort of
king he must be, when an American gentleman can be arrested
in the streets of Stuttlau. Where is the American consul ?
Why don't you take us to him ? "
The men looked at her as if in a daze, and loosened their
hold on the king. The leader stepped back. It was something
unexpected to face this infuriated young woman who clamored
for the American consul, and threatened vengeance. It was
not the time to get into trouble with the powerful American
government. The arrest might prove rather a serious thing
for themselves.
" We have made a mistake, lady," he said. "We thought
this gentleman was the king. We beg a thousand pardons " ;
and he slunk away, followed by his companions.
*' What an idea ! My husband does n't look in the least
like your king ! " she called, and then, taking the king's arm,
hurried back in the direction of the hotel.
*' How can I thank you, madame ? My life and more than
my life you have saved this day," began his Majesty.
''Hush! somebody might hear you," cautioned Constance.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King. . 537
'' Now you are my cousin from America. If we can get past
the portier I think you will be. safe — at least for the present."
They stepped into the hallway of the hotel, and confronted
the portier in his resplendent uniform of green and gold.
Constance, inwardly quaking like a whole forest of aspens,
chatted in her gayest manner.
'' Jack will be so delighted to see you — such a surprise !
When did you have letters from America? We expect to find
a whole pile of mail in Brussels; we didn't count on being
here over a day, but that horrid accident — how nice that we
can all go together."
By this time they had reached the stairs, Constance generally
preferring to walk up to her rooms rather than to wait for the
uncertain lift. Fortunately they encountered no one in the
hall except the timid little chambermaid from whom Constance
obtained the key to her apartments, and with a gasp of relief
she saw the king inside the door.
" Your Majesty is welcome to our poor best," she said with
a deep courtesy.
" Madame, how can I ever thank you ? " replied her royal
guest. " Kings in exile have ever found friends in Americans,
but none owes so deep a gratitude as II"
Remington had not yet returned from the smoking-room.
Constance glanced at the clock. Could it be possible that only
fifty minutes had passed since she had left her apartment ?
She rang the bell and sent the maid to summon her hus-
band, explaining, with a sudden accession of friendliness, that
a cousin from America had unexpectedly arrived, and would
be their guest until their departure from Stuttlau.
The king was shown into the adjoining room.
" Now, Jack, don't faint, or cry out, or anything ; I have
a surprise for you," began Constance when her husband appeared.
" There is somebody in the next room — a cousin fromAmerica 1 "
Their cousins would naturally be from America considering
their ancestry.
Then she went up close, and putting her arms around his
neck whispered in his ear : " The king ! "
" Hush," and her slender white hand touched his lips softly.
" Now don't be angry. I went out for a little fresh air, just
two blocks, and there was no danger," and hastily she pro-
ceeded with her explanation.
Jack being thus prepared in a measure for the unexpected
Digitized by v.
538 Cousin to a King. [July,
honor of entertaining royalty, the king was summoned into the
sitting-room.
A bed- room which communicated with the Remingtons'
apartment was assigned to the king, who would, of course, take
his meals with his hosts. There was the danger that he would
be recognized by the waiter, and very serious consequences
ensue, to the Remingtons themselves as well as to the king.
They dined late and the lights were turned very low for
this their first meal, and Constance watched in fear and trem-
bling to detect a glance of recognition on the part of the
waiter. But none came.
She ordered wine of a certain vintage, explaining that her
cousin spoke very little German, and the dinner passed off
without incident.
They lived in the seclusion of their apartments for two
days. By that time Remington was able to travel, and they
decided to make the attempt to reach Belgium. Stuttlau had
howled itself insane with fury at the escape of the king. There
seemed to be no doubt that he had escaped.
As the king had entered the hotel as Mrs. Remington's
husband it was decided that he leave it in the same character,
for the men who had attempted the arrest might still have some
suspicions and be lurking around the station to watch their exit
"Your tongue must be covered all over with little black
blisters," said Remington to his wife when they planned the
details of their departure.
" Not at all," retorted Constance in defence. " Our guest
is acting the part of an American gentleman and I am coaching
him in the role."
King Louis was armed with the passports of Mr. John
Remington and his wife, Constance. The description was not
bad. Medium height — the king was that; age thirty- two — the
king was only twenty- five, but some people look young for
their years, so that did not matter ; gray eyes — the king's eyes
were blue, but gray eyes look blue at times, and one does not
examine very closely.
Remington had never worn a beard.
** I know now why kings always have a beard or mustache,"
cried Constance. " If they have to leave a place ' suddenly,^
and under circumstances that render their identity a matter of
importance to conceal, they can shave and so help to an effective
disguise." ^ ,
Digitized by LjOOQ IC
1904.] Cousin to a King. 539
Remington transferred some receipted bills and his card-
case to the pockets of the king.
" If you should happen to forget your name and the for-
getfulness prove somewhat embarrassing, you can simply hand
the other man your 'card.**' Remington's awe of royalty,
never very great, was merging into a genuine appreciation of
a most charming companion.
''You must come and see something of the United States
until this little unpleasantness blows over,** he said hospitably.
The party drove to the station in a closed carriage, and
Remington, in the character of a " cousin George " who had no
existence, saw to the tickets and luggage.
They secured a compartment to themselves. The king
limped when he did not forget, having acquired Remington's
infirmity along with his passport. They filled up every seat
with boxes and bags, and explained to the guard that the
American gentleman was suffering from a sprained ankle, em-
phasizing the explanation with a round piece of yellow metal,
and that it would be most annoying to have any one else
enter the compartment.
There was but one more danger, and that was at the frontier.
Mr. Remington attended to the luggage at the custom-
house, and the inspector contented himself with a hurried visit
to their compartment, and a question as to whether the sick
gentleman had any cigars in his pockets. It seemed a very
long time to the three before the whistle sounded, the train
moved out of the station, and they were at last surely and
safely over the frontier.
At Brussels the Princess Helen joined them at their hotel,
and a council of state was held.
Mrs. Remington's voice decided the day. " It seems to
me,'* she said, "that since you two are unalterably determined
to get married, the sensible thing to do is to be married as
soon as possible."
The king supplemented this : " Your grandmother will
never consent now that I am a king without a throne — you
might say, almost, a man without a country ; and as we love
each other and desire with all our hearts to be married, there
is but one thing to do, and that is to be married first, and to
ask the consent of our dear relatives afterwards."
The princess became an American girl for the time, return-^
VOL. Lxxix* — 35 ^ T
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
540 Cousin to a King. [July,
ing with her friends after a year's musical study in Dresden,
although her English was quaintly foreign, and most original
in construction. However, no occasion arose for her to be any-
thing except her own charming self, and they reached the Vic-
toria Hotel in London from Brussels without incident or mis-
hap.
" Why not the Savoy ? ** said Remington.
"And run into a party of continental nobles," answered
Constance, " who would recognize the king as soon as he
alighted from a cab at the door ! The Victoria is filled with
Americans, and we can go and come without comment."
Although very tired and somewhat pale, for they had
crossed in a choppy sea, the two gentlemen hastened away
from the hotel on a very important mission.
Early the next morning the four went out in a closed car-
riage, and were driven through the gray London streets, the
air heavy with the mist from the River Thames, and drew up
before the door of the residence of the Cardinal-Archbishop of
Westminster.
They were received with due ceremony by his Eminence^
and conducted to his private chapel.
And there before the little altar, plain and simple with only
a few candles to relieve its bareness, the Princess Helen Marie
Louise was married to King Louis of Rougaria.
The bridal party were entertained at breakfast by his Emi-
nence, and the happy pair left on a special train at noon to
make their peace with their royal English relatives then sojourn-
ing in Scotland.
The Remingtons decided upon the cathedral towns as a
soporific for sorely- tried nerves.
Once again to themselves in their apartment at the Victoria
Jack Remington drew forth two crumpled and worn passports
and laid them carefully on the table.
"It is the unexpected that happens," he said. "Who could
have foretold that an innocuous-looking document like that was
destined to make an honest democrat cousin to a king ! "
" And, Jack, you behaved like a veteran diplomat," said
Constance admiringly. " How deliciously romantic it has all
been ! I 'm glad, though, that they are married and safe on
English soil. A revolution is rather exciting. We shall
probably find our pictures in all the American papers,"
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Notes on the Mosely Commission Report. 54J
NOTES ON THE MOSELY COMMISSION REPORT.
II.
^HE Mosely Commissioners as a whole, in their
joint report, express themselves as deeply im«-
pressed with the absolute belief entertained by
the American people in the value of education
both to the community at large and to agricul-
ture, commerce, manufactures, and the service of the state;
they are impressed with the spirit of enthusiasm for education
which animates both teachers and pupils; with the close con-
nection between theory and practice, and the important past
assigned to manual training ; with the liberal expenditure, botk
public and private, on behalf of education, and with the exteat
to which education is organized and co-ordinated. The Comi-
missioners do not institute detailed comparisons between Ameri-
can and English schools, although some of them recognize the
differences and find points of superiority in the American to
the English, and vice versa. One of the Commissioners, Pro-
fessor Armstrong, involves both systems in a common condem-
nation. " The entire system of education,'' he says, " both here
and in America seems to require reconstruction from bottom to
top ; it would be well, if I may say so, if we could scrap the
whole academic show, and start afresh, in order that it may be
greatly improved in quality and shortened in duration.'' ' Mr.
Ruskin has gone to even greater lengths in his condemnation
of the methods of popular education. " Modern education, for
the most part," he says, " signifies giving people the faculty of
thinking wrong on every conceivable subject of importance to
them.*' With this statement we agree so far as modern educa-
tion is dissociated from religious education. Professor Arm-
strong looks upon the professional courses in America as un-
practical. '* American education," he says, " is, for the most
part, still governed by eminently academic and conservative
traditions; in some respects it lacks depth and practical out-
look to a strange extent." In technical schools and polytech-
nics it is behind England. Evening class instruction is com-
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542 Notes on the Mosely Commission Report. [July^
paratively almost unknown. While the belief in manual train-
ing is growing, the American schools are undoubtedly behind
the English in promoting it, and are even more bookish in
their tendencies ; the nature studies are eminently superficial
and worthless. "There is a high-flown air of unreality about
Ihe instruction given in the pedagogic classes; too much pre-
tept^ too little practice ; no really severe practice. ... I
am almost led to doubt whether in matters of education our
American cousins may justly be regarded as a practical people."
Over-teaching crushes out the mental procreative power; it is
only the genius that can survive. The industrial leaders
of America are mostly men who have not had a liberal edu-
cation. Owing to the influence of the women teachers, who
have a vastly predominant influence in the education of the
young, and also to the bringing up of boys and girls together,
the virility of the men is departing. "The boy in America is
not being brought up to punch another boy's head or to stand
having his own punched in a healthy and proper manner ; there
is a strange and indefinable feminine air coming over the men."
Professor Armstrong was struck by the way in which Ameri-
cans have learned to work together and to accept and support
party rule. " They seem indeed," he says, " to tolerate direc-
tion and to subordinate their individual opinions to an extent
which we have difiiculty in believing possible — so much so that
they may be said to lack individuality."
The whole report of Professor Armstrong is worthy of
special attention because he has for many years been a keen
student of educational questions ; the present report, too, is the
outc^ome of a study made some six years ago and not merely
the record of impressions received in a visit of a few years.
Nor does he write as an admirer of English methods of
education ; in fact, he is outspoken in his condemnation of
Ihem. At the same time it is only fair to call attention to
the opinion of Professor W. E. Ayrton, once a president of
the Institution of Electrical Engineers. He, too, has visited
this country before, and therefore gives a record of more than
a superficial impression. He confined himself to the study of
one branch only of education — that of the young electrical
engineer. The conclusion he came to was that the American
system, so far as this branch of education is concerned, is in
the highest degree practical and far away in advance of any-
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Notes on the Mosely Commission Report. 543
thing attained to in England. So far from success in this depart-
ment being achieved by those who have not had a collegiate
course, he brings evidence to show that it is only by those
who have had this advantage that success can be attained — by
a due co-ordination and mutual upbringing of the two. ''The
British system/' he says, " turns out a man full of knowledge
and principles, while the American product is a business man
with scientific training. ... To America we look for that
rapid, bold, and successful application of science to industry
which has brought about the commercial invasion of the world,
while to Europe we look for those scientific imaginings and
creations which are apparently so unimportant to-day, but which
to morrow revolutionize old industries and give birth to new
ones."
The criticisms of Professor Armstrong of the general common-
school education are not without support on this side of the
water. A New York merchant, writing in the New York
Times of the 9th of January last, finds the same fault with the
instruction given in the public schools. He says that he knows
of many parents who complain that their children are crammed
with studies which are not and never will be of any use, while
they are not thoroughly taught in reading, writing, spelling,
arithmetic, geography, or the history of their country. From
his own personal knowledge he testifies that the education given
twenty years ago, before fads and fancies were introduced, was
better than it is now. The Brooklyn Eagle, too, of the ist of
February last, brings evidence to show that there is too much
government, too much centralized power, too little real edu-
cation. On the other hand, Father Finlay thinks that the
American universities furnish a model for the new universities
which are springing up in England of the way in which the
best thought of the country is placed at the service of its
industries. Father Finlay calls attention, however, to a defect
not, as we think, in the purpose but in the result of the teach-
ing in the elementary schools, which may go far to counter-
balance or even frustrate all the hopes placed in them for the
formation of a distinctive American people — in the sense, at
all events, in which the founders of the American system in-
tended. The class of unskilled laborers, "without which the
city is not built," and who by their votes have their part in
the government, are not moulded by the common-school system;
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544 NOTES ON THE M OS ELY COMMISSION REPORT. [July,
it in fact unfits them for doing the necessary work of the
country. " The schools," Father Finlay says, " do not aim at
educating the unskilled laborer for his work in life — the un-
skilled laborer of America is supplied from abroad — from Italy,
Hungary, the Slav countries, and Scandinavia, and at present,
in diminishing proportion, from Ireland. No boy in the American
school looks forward to digging and delving for hire as a means
of livelihood, nor does any girl contemplate domestic service as
her future work in life. Speaking to a contractor who had
t)iousands of men employed on the earth-works of an important
contract, I asked how many of his laborers had been educated
in an American school. He answered promptly : ' Probably not
one.' On leaving school the American boy enters an office, a
store, or a factory, or becomes apprenticed in a trade ; the
American girl becomes a book-keeper, a clerk, a stenographer,
or factory worker." There is no doubt some little exaggeration
in this statement, for throughout the country there are thousands
of schools, to which farmers and their helpers resort, which Father
Finlay had no opportunity to inspect, in which the course of in-
struction is adapted to the wants of the scholars. It is true,
however, of the city schools, and the fact indicates how great
i3 the danger that the schools will not serve that purpose of
making a nation which is hoped for.
Other points dealt with by the Commissioners are the train-
ing and supply of teachers. By the training several were not
favorably impressed. Dr. Gray, a specialist, agreeing in this
with Professor Armstrong, thinks the preponderance of wo-
men teachers has an effeminating effect upon the American
youth, having a tendency to instil sentimental views of facts
rather than to derive principles of conduct from them.
Another Commissioner thinks that something of true manliness
is lost. The reason of this preponderance they find in the fact
that the remuneration is too low except in some of the larger
cities. Co-education of the sexes, manual training as an integral
part of education, technical education, secondary education, are
other subjects with which the Commissioners deal. The chief ex-
cellence of the American system as a whole is thought to be the
freedom from the examination system — ** that octopus," according
to Professor Rhys, which threatens to strangle in its ubiquitous
coils all that deserves to be called education. Hence (and it seems
a strange thing to say of anything in America) " there is in the
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Notes on the Mosely Commission Report 545
American college," according to Professor Foster, "an atmosphere
of quiet study and scholarly work . . . undisturbed by fever-
ish bursts of crammings such as characterize British colleges and
universities."
With the exception of a paragraph devoted to the parochial
schools by Father Finlay, the Commissioners, by mutual
consent, made no report upon religious teaching in the
United States, either in common or as individuals. One of the
Commissioners, however, the Rev. T. L. Papillon, has pub-
lished in the Guardian an account of his impressions on this
subject. The American system differs from the English in this
important point, that the English system is the gift of the
upper classes to the lower, while the American is the act of
the nation as a whole, an act rendered necessary in the view
of all by the democratic system of government, education from
the very beginning of national independence being looked upon
as a corollary of self-government. It has never been a special
function of the church, as it has until recently been in Eng-
land. It has from the first been the special concern of the
statesman. President Madison laid it down that ** a well-
instructed people can alone be a free people." The Ordinance
of 1787 enacts that "religion, morality, and knowledge being
necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind,
schools and the means of education shall for ever be encour-
aged." The kind of schools necessary for good government
was unfortunately, on account of the fundamental principle that
no religion should be established by law, schools from which all
definite religious teaching was excluded, not from anti-religious
feeling but merely that all persons might be left free to choose
their own religion. The result of this exclusion is beginning to
be perceived by thoughtful Americans, and not only to be seen
but to be deplored. Mr. Papillon quotes the recent utterances of
Dr. Murray Butler. Dr. Butler, although he recognizes the evil
results flowing from secular schools, thinks that they can be
obviated by more careful religious instruction in Sunday-schools
and elsewhere ; and is unwilling to apportion the taxes to the
support of schools giving definite religious instruction of the
many various existent kinds, because the result would be to
break up the greatest single force making for the unity of the
nation. Mr. Papillon thinks that there is little likelihood of
Americans retreating from this position, inasmuch as the desire
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
546 NOTES ON THE MOSELY COMMISSION REPORT. [July.
of unity is the supreme desire of every American. It is to
this that the Protestant principle of private judgment has
brought the country. Religious education must be given else-
where, in Sunday and parochial schools. Mr. Papillon refers to
the Catholic parochial schools, and states that they have every-
where earned for themselves a name for good work, and that
notwithstanding all their difficulties they show fair results; but
they only bring a fraction of the children under systematic
religious teaching. As to the other agency, the Sunday-school,
Mr. Papillon, while praising a few of them as well organized
and efficient, proceeds to give his opinion of them in the fol-
lowing terms : " I saw enough to make it tolerably clear that
the lack of religious education in the public schools is not, and
cannot, be made up by the Sunday-school, however well organ-
ized; nor does any one profess to believe that it can." He
quotes Dr. Murray Butler : " One of the most pathetic sights in
America is the ordinary Sunday-school, taught by untrained
persons, not properly co-ordinated, with text-books the poorest
and ideas the most vague." The following are Mr. Papillon's
concluding words : '* We see in America an experiment on a
large scale of secular public education, with religious training
left to voluntary agency ; and the result so far is not encourag-
ing. But America is a land where everything is as yet un-
finished and unsettled, and almost anything is possible; and it
is something that there is in the best minds of the country
a touch of 'divine discontent' with existing conditions, and a
feeling that there is a still unsolved problem of religion in
education."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
t9( ^ XTbe Hatest Boohs* « ^
We cordially welcome a second
PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM, and enlarged edition of Father
By J. T. Driscoll. Driscoll's treatise on Natural The-
ology.* It is a book vitally
needed in our day of prevalent scepticism, doubt, and infi-
delity, and is certain to do great good in the cause of Chris-
tian apologetic. Father Driscoll in this volume, as also in his
work on the Soul, follows the comparative method ; that is to
say, in the discussion of every question, he first gives the
opinions of the great non-theistic schools of thought, and then
over against them he establishes the Christian thesis. An
excellent outcome of this method is that the general reader
will gain from it a large store of information concerning preva-
lent modes of philosophic thinking, [and will acquire a fair
insight into the history of philosophy. Father Driscoll has
been able to make this portion of his treatise especially attrac-
tive from his own wide reading in the literature of philosophy.
For, however uncompromising an adherent of the scholastic
system he is, he has fairly and honorably heard the other
side, and if he delivers many a strong criticism against his
opponents, he does so only after they have presented their
claim in open court.
In style and manner this work is adapted for popular use.
The language is simple, the illustrations are familiar, and the
discussion is not beyond the depth of an ordinarily intelligent
reader. It is well to keep this in mind in passing judgment
on the book ; for doubtless a student who has gone deeply
into philosophy would find some matters rather inadequately
treated. But as a popular apology for Christian theism it
admirably answers its purpose, and deserves a rich measure of
success.
By way of introduction to this edition. Father Driscoll re-
prints his North American Review article against Mallock.
Also he adds two appendices in criticism of the celebrated
Gifford Lectures of Professors Royce and James. This criti-
cism is all too short. It contains suggestions so striking that
*God: Bein^a CofUnhution to the Philosophy of Theism. By Rev. J. T. Driscoll, S.T.L.
New York : Benziger Brothers.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
548 The Latest Books, [Juiy»
it is to be regretted it were not lengthened. A more extended
examination of the lectures of the two Harvard teachers from
the pen of Father Driscoll is a thing we would greatly desire
to see.
M. Turmel, who has won for him-
HISTORY OF POSITIVE self an eminent name in the history
THEOLOGY. of Christian dogma, has published
By Turmel. a volume* admirably adapted to
serve as an introduction to posi-
tive theology. How timely such a work is no one acquainted
with recent theological literature needs to be told. Of late
years the historical method, universally applied in other sciences,
has been knocking loudly at the door of theology. It is still
knocking, and like the importunate noctural beggar in the Gospel,
will probably be admitted soon, despite the growls of anger
that have thus far come from the master of the house. Theology,
at present, as every one who has ever studied it is aware, is
predominantly speculative. In its great fundamental lines it is
based on Scripture, of course; but once we leave these funda-
mentals, we discover in theology a certain set of theses, con-
clusions, and principles, and then, deduced from these innumer-
able corollaries, scholia and applications, which we are asked
to accept because of the source they are drawn from, and to
consider true because they are needed to fill out the symmetry
and complete the harmony of the whole. Hence our arguments
ex analogia fidei, e convenientia^ and e ratione theologica. This is
an eminently just and reasonable method, and runs through
every systematized scheme of human knowledge. But, con-
sistent in itself as it is, beautiful in classic proportion as all
acknowledge it to be, it is a method that is defective without
the help, and light, and truth of history. For suppose the
speculative method says with finality that such and such a
theological deduction is true, because it harmonizes with other
deductions which in turn rest upon a principle embedded in
the very essence of faith; and then suppose that a scientific
study of the Fathers reveals the fact that the deduction in
question was openly denied by some of the greatest writers of
the early ages ; why, we shall have to revise our ideas of
"analogy of faith," and "theological convenience," shall have
* HUtoire de la Thiologie Positive depiiis V origine jusqu^ au ConciU de Trenie. Par Joseph
Tunnel. Paris : Librairie Delhomme et Briquet.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 549
to disturb our artificial a priori symmetry, and devise a new
symmetry which will have the merit of historic truth.
Has this ever happened ? Has the symmetry of the specu-
lative theologian ever been knocked askew by the facts of the
positive or historic theologian ? In matters not strictly of faith,
why should not such a thing be possible ? Now, whether
besides being possible it has been also actual, is a question
which, in the face of controversies still raging, many a prudent
man prefers not to answer aloud. At any rate it is beyond all
doubt that a study of the vicissitudes through which Christian
doctrine has passed should go hand- in-hand with a study of the
systematic co-ordination which Christian doctrine has reached.
And at the present time this is all the more necessary, since,
as was said, the historical method is recognized in all sciences
as indispensable. Hence the Abb^ Turmel has given us a
timely book, one greatly needed, and one guaranteed as good
by his name upon the title-page.
The plan of the work is to take practically all the topics
in theology — Christology, the Sacraments, grace, the Church,
the Papacy, eschatology — and study first what the Fathers
said about these doctrines as such, and secondly, what they
said about the Scriptural passages usually alleged in support of
such doctrines. Naturally the treatment of so vast a field is
summary; but nevertheless this volume contains a very large
amount of Patristic erudition, and a more just and scientific
exposition of early Christian thought than any other work of
similar size. Those to whom historical theology is unfamiliar, and
whose chief guides in theological learning have been our ordinary
seminary manuals, will find here new and sometimes startling
light thrown upon many a question which once seemed laid to
permanent repose beneath the headstone of a syllogism. It is
a splendid supplement to a Hurter, a Pesch, or a Tanqueray,
and we wish it a wide circulation among readers of theology.
To write interestingly on prayer
CONFERENCES ON PRAYER, is not an ordinary achievement.
By Father McNabb. but Father McNabb has accom-
plished it.* His eight conferences,
spoken originally to the Catholic undergraduates at Oxford,
are characterized by an easy grace, a clear method, a whole-
• Oxford Conferences on Prayer. By Vincent McNabb, O.P. St. Louis: B. Herder.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
5 so The Latest Books. [July,
some spirit, and a moving fervor which make the reading of
them a spiritual and intellectual delight Any one familiar with
Father McNabb's previous writings will find here that modernity
and sympathetic acquaintance with the best thought of our
day which give him honorable distinction ^mong Catholic au-
thors. Always sure of his footing in theology, and constantly
referring us to St. Thomas, he stands ever before his reader as
a guide who seems to know the way and is impatient of making
curious by- excursions for the mere novelty of it. Prayer
with him is going to God, looking upon God, and learning of
God. It is first our own soul's elevation to its Maker; and
it is next the consecrated expression of the church's liturgy.
To encourage interior communion with the Everlasting, and
to stimulate love for those heavenly supplications and sublime
outpourings of praise with which the public offices of the
Catholic Church hallow life and clothe death with beauty, is the
lofty purpose of this book. There could be no higher purpose,
and none more timely for these days of ours, when we hear
and read so often the mischievous doctrine that no man can
pray interiorly unless he wear the harness of some or other
set of exercises, and when the grand old monastic doctors of
prayer are superseded by impertinent purveyors of new devo-
tionalism, which to intelligent people, within and without the
church, is, on the one hand, the sorest of trials, and on the
other, the gravest of obstacles.
Mr. Archibald Colquhoun is a po-
GREATER AMERICA. litical publicist of wide travel and
By Colquhoun. trained observation, and it is only
to be expected that a book of his
on Greater America^ should be interesting and clever. Clever,
we think, is a very good word to use in speaking of this vol-
ume, inasmuch as what we find here is journalism rather than
philosophy, the keen insight of the politician rather than the
deep judgment of the statesman. In a frankly critical but cor-
dially sympathetic spirit, Mr. Colquhoun tells us of our present
condition, our past blunders, and our future opportunities and
dangers, now that we have stepped up into the front rank of
world powers. It is plain to see that he wishes us success in
our new and momentous adventure. As an educated English-
* Greater America, By Archibald R. Colquhoun. New York : Harpers.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904. ] The La test Books. 5 5 1
man he perceives that our failure as a colonizing nation would
be a loss to civilization and a grave disadvantage for his own
country. And so his criticisms do not sting ; we feel that he
is admonishing rather than censuring us, is a friend and not
a foe.
Our Philippine experiment, this volume says, echoing the
sentiment of many thousands of Americans, has been very
creditable to our heart, but nothing to brag about as to brains.
Certainly the United States has reason to be proud of the
policy with which she entered upon the government of the
Philippines ; a policy which would place the ballot in the hands
of a people long subject to miserable despotism ; would throw
open schools everywhere in a land hitherto destitute of syste-
matic education, and would generally elevate the life of the
natives by generous provision for labor, by wise encouragement
of agriculture and industry, and by honest and efficient public
service. This was and still is our programme. If carried out
it will ultimately lead the Filipinos, we may hope, to complete
autonomy and independence. But this pr-ogramme we were too
impulsive in executing. In order to raise the condition of labor
we artificially inflated wages; in order to educate, we rather
frantically unloaded troops of teachers from America; in order
to teach self-government, we too hastily introduced the voting
system among a people not ready for it. We took the clothes
of our American nationality, clapped them without change or
ceremony upon our mongrel Spanish -Malay- Oriental dependency,
congratulated ourselves upon the rapidity with which the in-
vestiture was accomplished, and are only now beginning to ob-
serve the amusement of the onlookers at the grotesque appear-
ance of our overdressed infant. We should have gone less
rapidly, thinks Mr. Colquhoun. We should have opened nor-
mal schools for the training of teachers, instead of introducing
a pUn which will result in importing into the islands every two
or three years a new set of bewildered American pedagogues.
We should have been cautious about entrusting the ballot to a
people peculiarly susceptible just yet to bribery and bossism.
And we should .have gradually shown the laborer how to im-
prove his own condition, instead of artificially improving it our-
selves in a manner which cannot be permanently maintained.
In one word, we should rule the Filipinos as though recogniz-
ing in them utter inferiority and ineptitude, and discarding all
fictitious and impractical notions about democratic s^lf-govern-
552 THE Latest Books. [July,
ment and equality. Mr. Colquhoun is not a lover of democracy,
and he is apt to regard only its incidental disadvantages, with-
out considering its great and ultimate recompense. Still, allow-
ing for this serious limitation, we are of opinion that he comes
very near the truth when he puts as our prime error in the
Philippines, well-meaning but unwise and impulsive haste. His
warnings and criticisms upon this head are worth the serious
consideration of our statesmen.
Mr. Colquhoun pays high tribute to the officials who faced
the enormous task of introducing American rule into the Philip-
pines. They richly deserve his eulogy. When we consider the
problems that had to be studied and solved in those islands
during the past five years, when we reflect that the highway
of the new American civilization had to be cleared of the decay
and debris of centuries of an old civilization, and that a com-
plete readjustment of social, political, and religious interests
had to be brought about, we think it will be the verdict of
impartial history that no country and no colony ever had a
more conscientious, able, self-sacrificing, and patriotic public
servant than Governor William Taft. Whatever else our colonial
policy may result in, this at least it has demonstrated : that the
race of patriots and statesmen has not perished in our country.
Mr. Colquhoun hates the Irish. He says they are a source
of grave political corruption in the United States. This is a
specimen of the journalistic precipitancy and insular narrowness
which very effectively bar his way to greatness as a political
writer. The most notable recent instances of political corrup-
tion have been almost free from Celtic names. Philadelphia,
Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rhode Island, and Missouri have lately
been disagreeably notorious as dens of thieves, to say nothing of
Postal and Indian Land scandals, and among the criminals there
discovered very few indeed are of the race against which Mr.
Colquhoun directs his small and spiteful calumny. And even
if some members or descendants of the Irish race have been
officially dishonest, Mr. Colquhoun, if he possessed anything of
historical candor or philosophic breadth of mind, should not
have failed to give us also the other side of the case. He
should have mentioned some of the inestimable services which
the Irish immigrant and his children have done for their
country. They are foremost in their love for religion, and
the last to yield to the infidelity which is threatening us.
Their historic virtue is purity. Their immemorial glory is daunt-
1904.] The Latest Books. 553
less courage. Their chief trait of temperament is the sense
of the poetical as opposed to the grossly material which, Mr.
Colquhoun himself says, is deplorably predominant in American
civilization. And finally, it would have been only fair in him
to hint, at least, at those men of Irish blood whose public ser-
vice has been incorruptible and distinguished. Boston at this
moment is governed by an Irish mayor who was re-elected by
the greatest majority ever given in that city ; and who has
won the enthusiastic support of all honorable met) by his
watchful economy, his whole-hearted devotion to the public
good, and his unquestionable integrity in every detail of official
conduct.
Nothing of all this in Mr. Colquhoun's book; but simply
the direct implication that Irish immigration is the nursery of
public corruption. Perhaps it pleased Mr. Colquhoun to publish
that sort of thing, and very likely it gratified a prejudice with
which he was born into this world. But it displays so disagree-
ably his defective education, his stubborn partiality, and bis
lack of scientific caution in making important statements, that
with seriously- minded people his reputation will grievously suf-
fer, and he will find that prejudice means disastrous failure for
any historian who exploits it.
It happens no oftener than once in
ROBERT EMMET. a year's reading that one comes
By Miss Guiney* upon so charming a sketch as Miss
Guiney's monograph of Emmet.*
Familiar as the story is of the young patriot's life, love, and
death ; well known as is the tragedy of Sarah Curran, his be-
trothed ; fixed fast as are the words of Emmet's immortal speech
in all our memories; the story, the tragedy, and that last appeal
are renewed, and lit up, and touched with fresh life as Miss
Guiney speaks the elegy so dear to the wide world's heart.
With an instinctive story-teller's art, she allows her ordinary
narrative to portray the character of her subject. She does
not formally hold up Robert Emmet's character to investigation,
and by analysis, deduction, and exhaustive examination of his
forbears and environment set before us in abstract terms what
manner of man he was; but with a mere word lets us know
that, as an inheritor of Emmet and Temple blood, he was of
splendid stock, our author wisely leaves any wider revelation
* Robert Emmet, By Louise Imogen Guiney. London: ^^ayid Nut^^/^QJp
•igi ize y g
554 THE LATEST BOOKS, [July,
of his character to his own deeds and hopes, defeats and
sufferings. It is thus that every hero set in the shrine of a
people's love ought to be depicted. Psychological history may
be needed for very great and remote celebrities ; but for those
whose picture hangs upon every cabin wall, the simple telling
of their story, the primitive recounting of their joys and woes,
is most meet and fit. Hence Miss Guiney's book appeals to
one very forcibly, as with a cultured ease of style, and with a
quiet sort of chivalrous devotion to her theme, she narrates
how young Robert conceived his plan for Ireland's freedom ;
how he shared every secret of his project with John Philpot
Curran's daughter, whom he loved ; how in an incredible misery
of failure his hopes perished utterly; and how at last in fear-
less fortitude and unostentatious magnanimity he died — the boy
martyr of Erin, whose epitaph will not be written till his coun-
try is free. It is a sublime chapter in human history, and the
latest pen to write it is as able as any that has ever attempted
it before.
A book on the priesthood • by a
THE YOUNG PRIEST. prelate of so wide an experience
By Cardinal Vaughan. and so holy a life as the late Car-
dinal Vaughan must, of course,
possess notable merit. We have not in English an extensive
literature on the priesthood; and it is seldom that we enjoy
the privilege of listening to the grave counsels of a bishop who
speaks to his younger brothers in the ministry out of an ex-
perience of fifty years. Cardinal Vaughan's work is needed be-
cause the province it occupies has been but slenderly cultivated,
and it is welcome because of the rich life out of which it ad-
dresses us. Every priest who reads it will be consoled and
uplifted, and the young priest who forms his life upon it will
enter upon the highway of sacerdotal sanctity and success.
For all but a spiritual genius, it will probably be ever
a disadvantage to English writers on the priesthood that their
work will have to stand comparison with Cardinal Manning's
Eternal Priesthood, That mighty classic stands alone. It
is no disparagement to other works on the same theme to
say that they do not equal it; and it will not at all imply
that this volume of Cardinal Vaughan's is not excellent, to say
that it is inferior to it. The Eternal Priesthood is a book of first
principles; it goes to the ultimate realities of the spiritual life,
• The Young Priest, By Cardinal Vaughan. St. Louis: B. ^^^r\Q\r>
igi ize y g
1 904.] The La test Books. 555
exposes them with a sure grasp and a luminous method, and has a
biblical dignity and austere simplicity of style which incomparably
befit its sublime purpose and its holy author. Cardinal Vaughan
does not express so transparently the great principles of priest-
liness. He decidedly weakens his work and lessens its practical
value by too often uttering his message, not as a reasoned
code of sanctity but in the form of a vision vouchsafed to some
saint. This would be very good by way of example, but it is
not at all good when it usurps the place of evangelic axioms
and spiritual principles.
Perhaps, too, in a few matters of detail we would wish that
Cardinal Vaughan's treatment were more adequate and pro-
found ; but we would not be understood as passing adverse
judgement upon this book. We repeat that it is excellent, sane,
and inspiring, and we promise that every priest who reads it
will be a hundredfold repaid. Many of its recommendations
are in the highest degree timely ; for example, listen to these
words on new devotions : '' Much injury has been done to souls
both within and without the church by a neglect of what is
solid and fundamental. A frivolous, superstitious, and foolish
type of religious character has been generated, lacking depth and
strength, and alienating many from the church, which they con-
temptuously say is a nursery for women and children."
We must regret a foot-note of the editor's which we are
sure does injustice to Cardinal Vaughan. The cardinal says that
God showed to a certain priest the wickedness of sin by means
of a repulsive comparison with physical disease. Whereat the
footnote says solemnly : " The priest here referred to was the
cardinal himself." This, of course, would lead us to imagine
that a supernatural vision was vouchsafed to the author of this
book. Undoubtedly Cardinal Vaughan had no such thing in
mind, but simply meant that in some moment of reflection and
prayer he pictured to his fancy the simile he develops. The
editor's note is an absurdity. Finally, we cannot help remarking
on the number of mistakes in the Latin quotations which are
frequent throughout the volume. Thus, ordinem a vobis suscep-
tam^ instead of susceptum^ occurs twice; digniior is put iox dig-^
nitas ; probatn for probum ; ipso Christo for ipsi Christo ; enter
sanctos for inter sanctos ; in vaceum for in vacuum ; successaribus
for successaribus ; and no possible license can justify : contemplans
in eo nan tarn vulnerum livorem quant mundi salus,
VOL. LXXIX.-36 Digitized by Google
556 The Latest BOOKS. [July,
Mr. Stewart Edward White's new-
THE SILENT PLACES. est book, The Silent Places,"^ is a
By Stewart White. fresh and invigorating bit of fic-
tion which breathes the spirit of
the Canadian woods. The tale is a slender one, but it suffices
to allure the reader through some three hundred pages of
glowing description. Because a dishonest Indian failed to pay
his debt of one hundred dollars to the Hudson Bay Company,
the company resolved to make an example of him, and sent
two trusted runners to « bring him to justice. This man-hunt
covers a period of more than a year, and many hundreds of
miles by canoe and sledge. An Indian maiden is met by the
way and a love theme ensues. The maiden becomes an unin*
vited third person in the quest. Her dogged devotion to the
white man who spurns her, and the amount of physical and
mental torture which the three take upon themselves, are
rather a heavy tax on the reader's credulity. It was a long
chase after one wretched Indian who owed the Hudson Bay
Company one hundred dollars. But Mr. White has a fine gift
of story-telling, and much poetic fire burns in his pages. The
book is beautifully illustrated.
A heroine named Nancy, and three
BY THE GOOD SAINTE possible suitors in the persons of
ANNE. an Englishman, a Canadian, and
By A. C. Ray. ^ Frenchman, are the characters
which hold the centre of the
stage in Anna Chapin Ray's latest novel. By the Good Sainte
Anne.f Nancy possesses all the charms which have charac-
terized all other Nancys in fiction. Her vivacity, impulsive-
ness, and capriciousness make her as delightful and lovable as
her name warrants. The story opens in the village of Beauprd.
There, at the shrine of good Sainte Anne, Mr. Cecil Barth
sprains his ankle and Nancy c'omes to his rescue. The romance
which inevitably follows is attributed by the two lovers to
nothing less than Sainte Anne's miraculous powers.
The story has little plot and no problems. Although it is
laid in Quebec and most of its incidents take place in that
ancient city, no attempt has been made to add historical fea-
tures. In fact, the author has attempted nothing more than a
simple, old-fashioned love-story, and she has succeeded admirably.
• TAe Silent Places, By Stewart Edward White. New York : McClure, Phillips & Co.
\By the Good Sainte Anne, By Anna Chapin Ray. Boston : Little, Bnown & Cq.t
.■igitized by VjOOQ^IC
«^ «( «^ Xibtane XTable* » » »
4
TAe Tablet (May 14): At a recent session of the House of
Commons Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman declared, in the
discussion of the Crimes Act, that self-government was
the remedy which he would apply to Ireland. Conse-
quently, Mr. Balfour takes occasion of the annual demon-
stration of the Primrose League to say a few words by
way of offset to Mr. Bannerman's speech. Mr. Balfour
commends his opponent's political honesty and consistence,
states that the League exists to maintain Imperialism and
liberality throughout the widely- extended empire, and
contends that both are overtly threatened by the Oppo-
sition. A leader on France and the Vatican believes
that a Papal protest against M. Loubet's conduct in
Rome was a necessity of the situation. The position
which the Vatican has hitherto maintained towards the
Quirinal, and the significance to other countries of a
silent acquiescence in the French minister's slight, have
made a protest indispensable. Moreover, the feeling of
Catholic peoples more loyal and resolute, hence less
bullied and trampled upon, would be outraged were their
respective rulers to follow the precedent established by
the President of France. Abbot Gasquet comments on
the Abb^ Loisy letter which appeared in the Tablet last
week. He states that he has positive knowledge to the
effect that the communication to France was written by
Cardinal Merry Del Val on the distinct order of the
Holy Father, and that it was submitted to the Pope for
bis approval and sanction before being despatched. He
adds that it is misleading and foolish to represent such
a letter as merely the private opinion of the cardinal.
(May 21): We are informed, through the Roman Corre-
spondent, of a change in the temper of the Italian depu-
ties towards the Holy See. A deputy named Alessio
rose one day to warn the government of the necessity
of "keeping its thumb on the Church.'' Similar admoni-
tions have heretofore been met with general applause,
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558 Library Table. [July,
but this time the result was different. Deputy Santini
took up the challenge of Alessio and, before a very at-
tentive and, for the most part, sympathetic audience,
asserted his belief that " the disagreement between church
and state is a source of . great weakness to the latter."
The speaker dwelt at length on the Pontiff's patriotism
and courtesy towards the Italian government, recalling
the many occasions on which this feeling has been mani-
fested. Pius X. was declared to be " an essentially Italian
Pope," and it was advised that all unpleasant relations
with the Vatican should be avoided.
The Month : In this number Rev. Herbert Thurston treats of
the Tractatus de Conceptione beatcB Maria Virginis. His
endeavor is to decide whether or not the authorship of
the treatise is rightly ascribed to St. Anselm, Archbishop of
Canterbury. This issue reviews London Education^ by
Sydney Webb, a book worthy of attention owing to its
bearing on the acts of 1902 and 1903. The reviewer
(Rev. S. F. Smith) gives summarily Mr. Webb's concep-
tion of a complete educational scheme, and also Mr.
Webb's plan for the rectification of the defects in the
present system.
Revue du Monde Catholique (15 May): Contains an article by
Mgr. Justin Fevre on the attitude of Pius X. towards the
religious crisis in France, as set forth in his well-known
discourse on that subject to the members of the Sacred
College. The writer dwells upon the outspoken, militant
policy of the Pontiff as contrasted with the more cautious
and diplomatic course pursued by his illustrious prede-
cessor, and reviews at length the conditions which ren-
der such a determined policy at present both opportune
and necessary. From this positive stand and fearless
initiative on the part of the Holy Father much is to be
expected for the good of the church in France, if only
it be seconded by the united efforts and earnest co-
operation of hierarchy and people " La Politique et
le Clerge," by J. Santoni, is an interesting article on the
position of the French clergy in reference to the govern-
ment, their duties and obligations in the civil and politi-
cal affairs of the Republic.
Annates de Philosophie Chritienne (April): In a first instalment
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1904.] Library Table. 559
af an article entitled " De Tinfluence du pi^tisme sur
la philosophic de Kant," the writer, F. Carchet, after
giving a brief description of the Pietism of the seven-
teenth century, considers the character of Kant — the man
— and finds that, through the influence of his Pietist
masters. Prof. Schultz at the Frederician College, and
later Prof. Knutzen at the Koenigsberg University,
Pietism had a deep and lasting effect upon Kant.
M. Charles C^b^e, writing on Catholicism and Monism,
an article evidently inspired by a chapter on Taine in a
recent publication of the Abbe Klein, discusses Taine's
Monistic philosophy and points out that the Christian
conception of the God-Man is not merely a subjective
consolation but is also a most important factor in a
very objective cosmology, and that Catholicism answers
far better than Monism to the demands of the most
advanced intellectualism. " La Bible et la Critique "
is an article by a professor of the Grand S^minaire. In
it the writer administers a severe rebuke to those who
are so ready to hurl invectives against the Biblical critic,
answering in detail their criticisms of the critic and
pointing out the feebleness of their arguments. The
writer then takes up the positive side of his thesis and
explains that the Biblical critic does not touch the
necessary element of the Bible, but is occupied exclu-
sively with the contingent — that is, the human element.
(May) : L. Lefranc writes on the Biblico-scientific prob-
lem. The naive conception of an inspired as a passive
instrument, a pen, a lyre, is no longer held. Inspiration
is limited to protection against error, according to some,
and to illumination of the intellect, according to others.
For a century the great problem for Catholics has been
to decide whether inspiration is limited to matters of
faith and morals or includes other things. In the past
some have regarded Scripture as the source of all truth,
and have found — after the event — the latest discoveries
of science in its pages, finding the earth's rotation taught
in Ecclesiastes (i. 5-7), the hydrogenic theory of matter
advanced in St. Peter's Second Epistle (iii. 5), and rail-
roads, bicycles, automobiles, and modern artillery referred
to in the Apocalypse. Nowadays, however, it is gener-
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56o Library Table. [July*
ally recognized that to unveil the secrets of nature is
not] the object of Scripture. But it cannot be denied
that there are points of contact between the Bible and
science; and that the results of modern investigation do
not harmonize with the old conceptions used by the
sacred writers.
It would not do to reproduce the unjust accusation
that the church has always opposed science, but apolo-
gists become too zealous when they affirm she has
always protected and has never combated it. In one
case, that of Galileo, the highest ecclesiastical authority
was compromised. Assemblies of cardinals, presided over
by popes, condemned it as absurd, erroneous, and heretical
inasmuch as it was formally opposed to Scripture ; the
system of Copernicus and Galileo about the rotation of
the earth; and pontifical decrees prohibited from 1616
to 1835 all books teaching the new Biblico-scientific
heresy. Papal infallibility was, of course, not involved
in the least, but it is plain that in this instance the
church opposed, in the name of Scripture, the true
astronomical principles, and for two centuries the official
prohibition of the Index tended to perpetuate among
Catholics the erroneous ideas of the ancients about the
geocentric world. The bitter lesson was of no profit to
some partisans of the universal competency of the sacred
writers. Many such opposed the nascent science of
geology and the work of deciphering hieroglyphics; and
the Catholic Egyptologist Lenormant was put on the In-
dex. Finally, apologists, perceiving it impossible to
make the literal sense of Scripture triumph over science,
adopted the less dangerous method of trying to har-
monize the two by means of equivocal and violent
interpretations. Then this was abandoned. Lenormant
admitted the legendary character of the first chapters of
Genesis ; Bishop Clifford proposed an ideal interpreta-
tion of the Hexahmeron ; Newman suggested that the
obiter dicta need not be conformed to historical truth.
Then came the progressive school, Duilhe de St. Projet,
De Broglie, d'Hulst, Constant, Didiot, Nisius, Loisy,
Margival, Lagrange. They contend that truths of a
material order are guaranteed only in so far as they assure
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1904.] Library Table. 561
a spiritual advantage. The Providentissimus Deus, how-
ever, laid down that no error could attach to any mat-
ter in Scripture (though at the same time it made this
large concession, that the sacred writers, since they had
no purpose of revealing the nature of the visible world,
used the language of their time and spoke according to
appearances). In the years that followed the encyclical
the Concordists have concorded with more zeal than
ever, but in vain. There is still a problem to face. On
the one hand, we must uphold the absolute veracity of
the Biblical statements; on the other hand, we see that
taken literally these do not conform to objective cer-
tainty. As yet no one has found the liberating formula
which will calm the alarm of believers. But at any rate
the doctrine of absolute ineirancy is not a dogma; the
encyclical is not an infallible document, and one may
presume that on this, as on other points, the Biblical
Commission will prepare a solemn and definitive instruc-
tion.
La Quinzaine (16 May): Opens with an article by "Testis,"
on the situation of the political parties in Belgium.
There are three parties striving for election: the liberal,
the socialistic, and the Catholic party. The liberal is
weak, demoralized, divided; claims the state has a right
to interdict the free exercise of the prerogatives of
religious liberty; and is incapable of governing. The
second anti-clerical party is strong and well organized.
It is recruited from the industrial centres of the coun-
try and from the large manufacturing towns. Founded
in Belgium in 1885, it has grown steadily and is the
. chief opponent of the Catholic party. Although the
Catholic party has had twenty years of uninterrupted
exercise of power and has become the type of govern-
ing party, still it has to be careful to retain the popu-
lar favor.
(i June): ''The Eternal Christ and our Successive Chris-
tologies," by Baron von Hiigel, goes deeply into the
question of the relation between dogma and history.
The writer disagrees amicably with M. Blondel and leans
rather towards Loisy's opinion. Christian faith, although
it transcends historical facts, demands these as a basis.
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562 Library Table. [July,
These facts put the soul in contact with the eternal
realities of the invisible world and show man where to
attain the satisfaction of his deepest wants. An indi-
vidual may refuse to respond, but humanity as a whole
will be in some measure faithful; and will by faith
elaborate, interpret, and transform phenomena which,
without undergoing this process, would lack spiritual
value and significance. Souls are led to Christ not by
an accumulation of miracles or a series of prophetic
realizations, but by the sense that he is demanded by
the noblest aspirations of the human soul. Once that
in the depth of our hearts we have felt the simple in-
fluence of our Lord, we shall for ever interpret, in the
light of this experience, all the incidents recorded in his
life. St. John has done this in his Gospel. In view
of the fact that the serial " Fils d'fisprit," par Yves le
Querdec, is drawing to a close, some indications are
given of the comments made on it. The novel has been
praised by Pierre Jay in the Salut Publie^ and by M.
Ladarnchet in the Rappel ripublicain de Lyon ; and
attacked in the Veriti Frangaise by some one who was
supposed at iirst to be M. TAbb^ Fontaine, because he
said that "Fonsegrive knows neither what he is, nor
what he says, nor what he owes to others," and de-
clared that the characters in the book were made to
dance upon the grave of the Congregations before it
had even been covered with sod. In rebuttal we have
a bishop declaring the book is masterly and should be
put in every one's hands; a seminary superior sending
congratulations to Fonsegrive for saying out loud what
every one has been whispering in secret; a Jesuit
hoping that the young people of France will read and
understand the book; a priest rejoicing that at last a
writer has dared denounce "the prejudices in which we
are living, or rather dying '* ; and a pfofeasor who gives
the assaulted writer this condolence : " Some insults
make eulogies needless."
Revue d'Histoire et de Littirature Religieuses (May-June) : Con-
tains two chief articles, both by men of illustrious name
among historians of dogma, Morin and Turmel. Dom
Morin summarizes the opinions of Kostlin, Harnack, Lahn,
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I904.] Library Table. 563
Swete, Kaltenbusch, and Kirsch, coficerning the meaning
and the history of the phrase Sanctorum Communionem.
In view of their various opinions, he then gives a critique
of the oldest commentaries on the article S. C. He de-
cides with Swete, against Harnack, that the insertion of
the S. C. into the Creed was made much earlier than
400 A. D. He maintains, against Lahn, that communio
sanctorum meant originally, not a community of goods
(the neuter plural), but of souls, while he admits that
the concept was broadened from the exclusive, rigorous
sense of the communiad oi the actual children of the
church to that of the communiad of all who try to live
holily in the name of Christ. ^Turmel, continuing his
articles on Original Sin, considers especially the doctrine
of St. Augustine, proving it to be in general novel and
unique, not supported or anticipated by the earlier Greek
doctors.
Studi Religiosi (March-April): P. Semeria presents part of a
forthcoming study on the historical development of the
Mass, considering the Scriptural and early Christian
references to it, and its relation to the agape. In a
long article F. Mari discusses the relation of the recently
discovered Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (2250 B. c.)
to the Mosaic Law, and seems to favor the theory that
both are based upon the same primitive legislation. The
undeniable affinity of the two codes (of Hammurabi and
; of Moses) will not scandalize any one, but will help to
deepen our knowledge of the Bible and make us better
acquainted with the human means used by God in the
fulfilling of his designs. G. Bonaccorsi pursues his
study of Harnack's theory of the development of Catholi-
cism, and shows how little reason there is for regarding
the church as injured by the facts alleged — e, £., the
derivation of details in worship and discipline from Juda-
ism or from Paganism. P. Minocchi gives a full ac-
count of the Loisy affair, and of the comments on it
made by Harnack, Sanday, Von Hiigel, and Mignot*
Harnack, it seems, tecognizes the force of Loisy 's answer
to him, but says that the Catholic attacks on Loisy's
book diminish its importance.
Civilti Cattolica (7 May) : An explanation is given to a corre-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
564 LIBRARY TABLE. [July,
spondent of the Rivista delle riviste for having ques-
tioned the accuracy of the Civilians statement that who-
soever should affirm the Fourth Gospel to have been
written after the death of all the Apostles, would be
guilty of heresy, or at least of an error against the
faith. Now, it is a dogmatic truth that the books of the
New Testament are inspired ; and again, that the inspi-
ration is a revealed truth. But all (official) revelation
terminated with the Apostles. Ergo, q. e. d. (for other-
wise there would be an extra- apostolic revelation when
the church* was told about the inspiration.)
(2 1 May) : Likens Loisy to the man who set the temple
of Diana on fire in order to become famous, because he
makes these assertions: ist. Judging according to com-
mon sense, we find it impossible to harmonize what the
Bible as a book gives us with what our theologians seem
to affirm. 2d. The church does not interpret the Gos-
pel according to the primitive sense. — —An article on
rationalism advances numerous statements as arguments
to prove that rationalism is the offspring of sensuality.
(4 June) : Goes over the history of the Loubet visit to
Rome, and sums up with : The foregoing makes clear the
rare prudence and sagacity of his Eminence the Secretary
of State, and the puerility of the pretext offered as a cause
for quarreling. Speaks of Prof. Mercier as among the
best representatives of Catholic scholarship, and cites
approvingly the sentiment of the Revue Scientifique : ** In
order that the principles of scholasticism may penetrate
the minds of modern students, the disciples of Aristotle
and St. Thomas must include in their philosophy the
contemporary researches of physiology and psychology,
without making any concession and without ever dis-
torting science."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Columbian Reading Union. 565
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS arc publishing a scries of Literary Lives,
in which a fitting place has been given to Cardinal Newman. Dr. Barry
was chosen to write the volume, which is "the first adequate study of the
work of the great Cardinal," according to the mind of an appreciative critic
in the Evening Sun, whose words are here given in part :
Dr. Barry's book is not a Lite. It is an essay on the greatest writer of
English prose of the nineteenth century. The task has been performed with
striking skill. There is not a single passage in it which would lead one to
imagine that it was the work of a churchman, Catholic or otherwise. On the
other hand, there are passages which might suggest, to those who didn't
know, that the author was a layman utterly without ecclesiastical leanings,
and living outside the ecclesiastical atmosphere.
Up to a certain point in his career Newman was disliked and distrusted
by English-speaking Protestants, because of his progress from Calvinism to
Laudism, from Laudism to Catholicism. He was associated with a move-
ment which they detested. He had dropped his friends one by one on the
road. He became a solitary. Then came the unjust attack of the blundering
Kingsley. Newman behaved with a dignity that well became one who held
his theories as to what a gentleman should be. Kingsley's lame apology was
an insult. Newman sat tight. The novelist involved himself more and
more. Then came the triumphant reply of the most skilful dialectician of
his time. When the ^/^^»^a appeared the general opinion changed. From
that moment, for Protestants even more than Catholics, John Henry New-
man was one of the immortals.
Why, then, is John Henry Newman important to us? If we leave out of
account the fact that he started a revival in religion which was effective on
both sides of the Atlantic, what does he stand for ? Whately said that he
was the clearest-headed man he ever knew. You have only to read the
Apologia and The Grammar of Assent to realize that this was no exaggera-
tion. Macaulay had one of his sermons by heart ; Macaulay knew an artist
in prose when he saw one. Walter Bagehot, the cleverest political writer of
his time, saturated himself with Newman's Parochial Sermons. A Liberal
like the delicate and dainty Augustine Birrell, to whom Darwin and Moses
are both right, and who finds no difference between the Gospel according to
Matthew and the Gospel according to Matthew Arnold, is never tired of
telling what he owes to this Prince of the Roman Church. The Dream of
Gerontius has been the inspiration of one of the masters of modern music.
Dr. Barry has not written a popular book — that is to say, a book for the
populace. He allows Newman to reveal himself as much as possible by
weaving in deft excerpts from his works. After all, the cardinal was less a
man than an intelligence walking about on two legs. Newman had the
comic spirit, but he was not a humorist. His mind burned like a flame. To
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
566 THE Columbian Reading Union. [July,
follow the manifestations of it as here set forth one must be prepared. Dr.
Barry assumes in the fit reader some knowledge of what Newman wrote;
some, too, of Greek philosophy, of ecclesiastical history, of the Fathers, ot
scholastic philosophy, of the modern science of Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer,
and of the writings of Pascal, Descartes, and Renan.
There were three writers in the last century who were living protests
against the materialism of their epoch — Carlyle, Ruskin, and Neniman. Of
the three time has taken less toll of Newman. And why ? For one reason,
because, though it never crossed his mind, his theory of development was not
inconsistent with the evolutionary theory which is now applied to all things.
Hume himself, or even Descartes, while disagreeing, would have
delighted in such a passage as the following, in which Newman set forth his
view that reasoning is not an art, but a living, spontaneous energy. "The
mind ranges to and fro, and spreads out, and advances forward with a quick-
ness which has become a proverb, and a subtlety and versatility which bafHe
investigation. It passes on from point to point, gaining one by some indica-
tion; another on a probability; then availing itself oi an association ; then
falling back on some received law ; next seizing on testimony ; then commit-
ting itself to some popular impression, or some inward instinct, or some obscure
memory; and thus it makes progress not unlike a clamberer on a steep clifiF,
who, by quick eye, prompt hand, and sure foot, ascends, how he knows not
himself, by personal endowments and by practice rather than rule, leaving no
track behind him and unable to teach another. . . . And such, mainly,
is the way in which all men, gifted or not gifted, commonly reason — not by
rule, but by inward faculty."
Arnold's notions of the cultured man, R. L. Stevenson's rather priggish
notions of the gentleman, are flat and unprofitable beside Newman's. He
said that he did not wish to give up the tradition of a gentleman, which was a
sort of survival of the feudal ages. But, with Platonic sanity, he added,
there must be perfection of intellect: "That perfection of intellect is the
clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things, each in its
place, and with its own characteristics upon it. It is almost prophetic, from
its knowledge of history ; almost heart-searching, from its knowledge of
human nature; it has almost supernatural charity, from its freedom from
bitterness and prejudice ; it has almost the repose of faith, because nothing
can startle it; it has almost the beauty and harmony of heavenly contempla-
tion, so intimate is it with the eternal order of things and the music of the
spheres."
If ever a man wrote a description of himself, this is a description of
Newman.
• • •
Miss Mary Catherine Crowley is now regarded as one of the foremost of
Catholic writers. On the lecture platform also she has won recognition. She
is a native of Boston, and had the good fortune to be born of scholarly stock.
Her father, John C. Crowley, is an alumnus of Harvard University, and her
mother {nie Mary J. Cameron) is a graduate of the Sacred Heart, Manhat-
tanville, later the daughter's Alma Mater.
With favorable home and school influences, a large circle of travelled and
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Columbian Reading Union. 567
book-loving relatives, a host of family friends among the clergy, and, in due
time, a broad and varied social life, Miss Crowley's literary gift made rapid
and symmetrical development.
Soon after the beginning of her literary career she went abroad, visiting
Rome, Paris, Dresden, Vienna, and other old-world cities. For the past ten
years she has lived in Detroit. She has travelled in Canada, and is familiar
with Quebec and Montreal. Thus, among her acquaintance belonging to the
old French-Canadian families, she gathered the material for the groundwork
of her three novels — A Daughter of New France j The Heroine of the Strait j
and Love Thrives in War, published by Little, Brown & Co., of Boston, in
1 90 1, 1902, and 1903, respectively.
In the first of these novels she has narrated the adventures of the gallant
Sieur Cadillac and the sons of Canadian seigneurs, in the founding of
Detroit.
The second relates to the ceding of Detroit to the English and the siege
of the town by the Indian chief Pontiac, and incliides a fascinating love
story.
The third is a stirring romance of the days of 1812.
A Daughter of New France was published just before the Bi-Centenary
of the Founding of Detroit, and at the city's celebration of that historic
event the book was much quoted, its descriptions were carefully followed,
and it achieved an immense success. Miss Crowley was chosen to deliver
the address on the Social Life of Early Detroit at the literary exercises of
the Bi-Centenary, and she represented the women of the city on the his*
torical committee. She was also one of a committee of five under whose
supervision the fine Memorial History of Detroit was published.
At the dedication of the Madame Cadillac Memorial tablet at Detroit,
in 1903, Miss Crowley delivered the address.
During the winter of I903-I904she lectured in Boston for the John Boyle
0*Reilly Reading Circle, The Children of Mary of the Sacred Heart Convent,
The Fitton Alumnae, and the Guild of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and in
Lawrence tor the Aventine Club. In Detroit she has lectured for the Twen-
tieth Century Club, the Catholic Study Club, the Alumnae of the Sacred
Heart Academy, and the Cathedral Reading Circle.
The novels A Daughter of New France and The Heroine of the Strait
are in their ninth and tenth editions. Love Thrives in War, published
only last year, is already in its fourth edition. Besides the standard editions,
a popular edition of A Daughter of New France has been published this
year.
Before the publication of the novels mentioned Miss Crowley had
achieved an enviable reputation as a writer of stories for young people.
An Every-Day Girl, a charming story of school-life, was published by
Benziger Brothers several years ago. Apples Ripe and Rosy was issued by
the Ave Maria Press. Her short stories were reprinted by Wildermann, and
her first books. Merry Hearts and True and Happy- Go-Lucky were brought
out in 1889 and 1890 by James Sadlier & Co.
Miss Crowley has had experience in journalism and editorial work. Her
short stories in the Ave Maria and the Catholic World Magazine have
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
568 The Columbian Reading Union. [July, 1904.]
been widely copied, and she is also a contributor to the secular magazines,
sometimes under a nom-de-plume. She was formerly connected with the
New York and the New England Women's Press Associations, and is an
honorary member of the Catholic Study Club and the Sacred Heart Alumnae
of Detroit.
• • ' •
In Australia, some time ago, when the Orange societies began to organ-
ize to prosecute that anti-Catholic campaign which has disgraced the whole
state of New South Wales, the organ of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Sidney,
the Catholic Press, earnestly exhorted the Catholic women to use their elec-
toral privileges to the'full and stand beside the friends of communal concord
at the ballot-boxes, to defeat the " bandits who in the press and on the plat-
form shamelessly confessed that they were engaged in a religious persecution,
and that they would never rest content until Catholics disappeared from pub-
lic life and public offices." The women in sympathy with the sectarian
organizations would not fail to vote solidly with their men, but Catholics had
nothing to fear, provided Catholic women did their duty at the polls.
Now the Catholic Press sorrowfully confesses (issue of December 31,
1903) that, despite its most earnest warnings, the Catholic women of New
South Wales "failed lamentably when their day of power came." "Their
absence from the polls was, in fact, a feature of an election which was other-
wise remarkable for the heavy female vote recorded. They stood aside,
whilst the women of their enemies went forth in thousands to foment religious
discord and tread upon Catholic rights and Catholic liberty. They allowed
their men folk to go out alone to combat a power which boasted that it would
reduce the Catholics of this country to a condition approaching serfdom, and
would set up a reign of bloody anti-Catholic anarchy. . . . What silly
sentiment kept them at home we do not care to examine. ... It would
be thought that our women would have gladly delivered a blow in defence of
their principles and their homes, instead of sitting with their hands in their
laps, whilst the other women of their street decked themselves with party
ribbons and went of! enthusiastically to plump for a bigot. If they persevere
in this attitude, the country has a black future before it. Our enemy's power
is doubled, and to hold them in check ours must be doubled too. But our
Catholic women have apparently so little interest in communal peace or the
material welfare of their bread-winners that they will not walk across the
street to exercise a political right which they should regard as a priceless
boon." M. C. M.
NEW SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE PAULISTS.
The Very Reverend George M. Searle was chosen
on June 15th to fill the office of Superior-General of
the Paulist Community, left vacant by the death of
Very Reverend George Deshon.
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THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
Vol. LXXIX. AUGUST, 1904. No. 473-
MGR. NOZALEDA AND THE ANTI-CLERICALS OF SPAIN.
BY WALTER M. DRUM. S.J.
tHE revolutionists of Spain have lately made two
daring yet unsuccessful attempts to assassinate
Seiior Maura, the President of the Council of
Ministers — t.e,^ the Prime Minister of the king-
dom. The first attempt took place at Barce-
lona. . Alfonso XIII.' was visiting various cities in his realm.
His court officials urged him to stay away from Barcelona —
the hotbed of anarchy, socialism, jacobinism, anti- clericalism,
and Spanish republicanism. The fearless young monarch would
not be kept from knowing his people, and, regardless of the
outcome, even went among the turbulent working classes of
Barcelona. He came off untouched. Not so hts suite. Senor
Maura accompanied the king, and narrowly escaped a villanous
assault. On April 6, the day of the king's arrival in Barce-
lona, some miscreant exploded a bomb among those who
awaited the royal party. Several people were killed by the
explosion. On April 12, Senor Maura was slightly wounded
with a poniard by an anarchist. The Associated Press de-
spatches for April 27 tell us of a second attempt to assassinate
the Prime Minister. A fully organized mob of thirty or forty,
armed with revolvers, attacked his car and wounded him
before they were dispersed by a fusillade of the gendarmes.
What was the cause of this lawless violence ? What occa-
sion gave rise to it all ? The cause is evident to any one
who has followed the trend of Spanish politics since our late
war; it was anti-clericalism, with its spirit of disorder and
Thb Mission akt Socibtt of St. Paul thb Apostlb iir thb Statb
OF Nbw Yokk, Z904.
VOL. LXXIX.— 37 C^r\r\n\o
•" Digitized by VjOOQIC
570 Mgr. Nozaleda and [Aug.,
misrule. The occasion was the Nozaleda affair — el Asunto del
Padre Nozaleda, as the Spaniards call it — which fired Senor
Maura to a pitch of eloquence that has stirred every heart of
Spain with emotions either of enthusiastic loyalty or of dogged
hatred. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the occa-
sion of these acts of violence, inasmuch as they throw light
upon the true cause of the present political crisis in Spain.
While France was in a state of trouble and unrest over
V affaire Loisy last January and February, her neighbor Spain
was tempest- tossed by a storm that the Nozaleda affair had
occasioned. In the United States much attention was given to
the case of Loisy; very little to that of Nozaleda. Somehow
or other we Americans like to keep our fingers on the pulse
of France ; we let the pulse of Spain throb on unfelt. Yet we
entered as no unimportant factor into the Nozaleda affair; we
should take as much interest in it as in the Loisy affair.
What was the Nozaleda affair ? The nomination of Mgr.
Nozaleda for the archiepiscopal see of Valencia, and the uproar
that followed.
Mgr. Nozaleda is a Dominican friar, who was ten years
ago appointed Archbishop of Manila. He remained Metro-
politan of the Philippines until two years after Spain had lost
her supremacy in the islands ; and then resigned the jurisdic-
tion, that is now exercised by an American, Mgr. Harty.
Since his resignation the ex-Archbishop of Manila has been
without a see. Towards the end of last year occurred the
death of Mgr. Herrero, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Valencia.
This is the worthy prelate whose memory was brought into
shameful and unwarranted notoriety by the false press- report
that he had left a legacy of ten thousand dollars to be paid
the Spanish general who would first land on our shores an
army of invasion. The successor to Mgr. Herrero had to be
nominated by the prime minister, for the government of Spain
has during several centuries exercised the right to nominate
candidates for bishoprics — a right such as the government of
France now exercises in virtue of the Concordat of 1801
between Pius VII. and Napoleon I. Of course the Pope is
free to reject any candidate; but he appoints the one nomi-
nated, unless grave reasons prevent him from so , doing. On
January i Senor Maura nominated Mgr. Nozaleda for the
vacant see of Valencia.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE ANTi' Clericals of Spain. 571
An uproar followed at once. The clouds of pent-up pas-
sion and hate burst open and a storm of anti- clericalism swept
over the land. Ultra- liberals, republicans, socialists, jacobins,
radicals, and anarchists gathered their forces for one combined
attack. There is some distinction between the ideas of these
different factions ; but it is a distinction without a very clear-
cut difference. They are at one in their attitude of hostility
to religion. The members of the parties that go to form the
extreme left in the Cortes of Spain must not for a moment be
grouped with the parties of the same name in the United
States. The republicans of Catholic Spain, for instance, would
never allow the friar such freedom as he has in the United
States under a republican form of government. At the nomi-
nation of a friar for the see of Valencia the republicans and
their supporters strained to the utmost to cry down that friar.
The din and confusion were such as to strike fear into the
hearts and amazement into the minds of all that hoped for
justice and abided by law and order. The liberal press
sounded the tocsin of lawless discontent, the low theatres
took up the alarm, the note of discord passed into the streets,
and even violated the sacred sanctuary of that body whom
the people have chosen to be the makers and protectors of
their laws, the safeguard of their honor and their rights.
The liberal press took the lead, and set aside all regard
for decency and truth in the abuse it heaped on, and the
charges it fabricated against, its unfortunate victim, Mgr.
Nozaleda. El Diario Universal of the Count dc Romanones,
the scurrilous Canalejas in his Heraldoy Moya in El Liberal^
El Imparcial and its editor Gasset, the republican organ El
Paisy Soriano's vile sheet El Radical — all the dailies that sup-
port the anti-clericals took up the hue and cry and vied with
each other in smirching the fair name of a noble prelate of
the church. "For two months the Nozaleda affair was the
most noisy question of the day in Spain." • " Even the self-
respecting papers treated of nothing else; in their leaders as
well as their news- columns, everything had to do with
Nozaleda." f
The low theatres took up the note of alarm that the press
^ Raidn y Fe, March, 1904, p. 405.
t Lectura Dominical for January 17, 1904. This weekly paper is the official organ of the
Apostleship of the Press, which is under the care of a father of the Society of Jesus in Madrid.
digitized by VjOOQ IC
572 Mgr. Nozaleda and [Aug.,
had sounded. They saw a chance to make capital. The usual
features were taken off, something more timely was put on the
boards. Mgr. Nozaleda was caricatured, vilified, and vituper-
ated in song and story. Revolutionary songs, ribald and
irreverent jests glutted the low appetites of noisy and unman-
ageable mobs. The theatres drew full houses. The governor
of Madrid, Count de San Luis, took vigorous action, closed
the Zarzuela, shut out the frantic crowd from applauding the
revolutionary piece de resistance^ " El Mozo Cruo " — The Steve-
dore — and threatened to close the other disreputable theatres.
The liberal papers were lashed to fury by this act of order
and decency. They shouted their shibboleth, " the rights of
man." They prophesied the heavens would fall if justice were
not done the Zarzuela. Justice was done the Zarzuela; the
Augean stables were cleaned. Nothing happened, save that
the revolutionary and obscene songs came to an end. The
Count de San Luis is a man of such character as is to-day
much needed in posts of authority in Spain. For, a writer in
Lectura Dominical says: "To brave it against a low theatre is
a far greater feat than to brave it against the Yankees." *
The streets of the large cities were filled with anti- clerical
and republican shouts of " Death to Nozaleda ! " " Away with
the friars ! " " Down with the monarchy I " Riotous and
socialistic gatherings, which the Spaniards have done us the
honor to dub mitins or meetings^ were held all over Spain. In
Madrid alone there were, on January lo, thirty such meetings.
Mgr. Nozaleda was made the butt of the most uncalled-for
attacks. His venerable character was impugned with the basest
insult and most impudent calumny. Martin Lazaro, a wretched
priest of the archdiocese of Seville who was suspended for the
scandal he had given, parodied the rites of the' church, denied
the possibility of miracles and the existence of purgatory, and
became so revolutionary in his speeches that he was arrested.
At once he was hailed as a hero by the liberal press, and was
set up on a pedestal to receive the sympathy due to injured
innocence; his portrait was put on the market, and his hang-
ers-on swore his virtues were no less than apostolic. In fine,
for well-nigh a month every means was taken to stir up dis-
content, and to intimidate the government before the opening
of the Cortes.
^Lectura Dominical. The Spaniards call all Pixntnczxis yanquu.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE ANTi' Clericals of Spain. 573
The . government would not be intimidated. On January
25 the Cortes held their first session. On January 26, in the
second session of the lower house — called the Congress or the
Chamber of Deputies — the Count de Romanones, one of the
leaders of the liberals, introduced a measure to oppose the
nomination of Mgr. Nozaleda. For ten days the battle vaged-
Senor Maura forgot his pet scheme of building up the army
and bringing the navy back to life. Congress gave its exclu-
sive attention to the discussion of the fitness of a candidate
for nomination to an archbishopric — a discussion that it would
ordinarily have relegated to one of its fixed committees. The
issue was more far-reaching than it seemed. Catholic Spain
was at once pitted against anti-clerical Spain. " Since there
was question of the nomination of a friar, it gives surprise to
nobody that the anti-clerical party struck out blindly and
fiercely in its onset against the religious orders."* Senor
Maura took up the defence. Almost single-handed he went
into the conflict with the anti- clericals, and defeated them all
one by one. Morayta, Canalejas, Salmeron, Lerroux, Soriano,
all slunk away from Senor Maura's witty and weighty retorts.
Nothing could have been more brilliant than the four longer
speeches he delivered in the course of the debate. " They are
models of parliamentary oratory, and will remain a lasting and
a living witness to the straightforwardness and fearlessness
with which he defended his cause and the cause of the
innocent." t
Hitherto we have dealt with the manner rather than the
matter of the charges made against Mgr. Nozaleda. Were
there no facts behind all this hubbub and noise ? Had not
the anti-clericals, to say the least, some shadow of a fact that
would serve in a slight degree to palliate their opposition ?
Was the part they played in the Nozaleda affair only froth
with nothing of substance underneath ? There was substance
underneath. There were facts — stupendous facts ; not the facts
the anti-clericals thought to flaunt in the light of day, but the
facts they wished to keep skulking in the darkness of night.
Just here let us examine first the facts, or, rather, fictions
trumped up by the republicans. What are the specific reasons
why they opposed the nomination of Mgr. Nozaleda?
^ Randny /V, March, 1904. p. 405.
\ Cf. ** The Anti-clencal Press and the National Assembly for the Good of the Press," by
R. M. Velasco, S.J., in Razony Fe, April, 1904. ^ I
Digitized by LjOOQ IC
574 Mgr, Nozaleda and [Aug.,
The first charge made is a negative one. They say there is
no rcaspn for nominating Mgr. Nozaleda to the see of Valen-
cia. In his reply to the Count de Romanones, on January 26,
Sen or Maura neatly retorted that the question before the house
was a question not of reasons for, but rather of reasons
against the nomination. Such reasons would be inability to
govern and lack of tact. Those reasons did not hold in the
case of Mgr. Nozaleda. He had for ten years given evidence
of tact and ability to rule ; he had, during a most critical
period, been eminent in the virtues of a bishop. " He is now
without a diocese, and should therefore be given one."*
What, then, are the positive charges ? There is one that
reads like a nightmare. It was started by the editor of the
republican organ El Pais: "The Dominicans have given
$8,000,000 that Mgr. Nozaleda may be made bishop of Valen-
cia or of any other place; just think of it, $8,000,000 to be
divided between Maura, the two Fidal brothers, etc. ! " This
charge of bribery is most wanton and contemptible. To com-
plete the picture. El Pais should have had the Dominicans all
the world over forging checks and counterfeiting bank-notes to
make up the enormous bribe. The prime minister makes little
of the charge: "Padre Nozaleda, the ex- Archbishop of Manila,
was proposed by me for the see of Valencia without a recom-
mendation from anybody, without even a hint from any man
living; of my own accord, from a sense of duty, after a con-
versation I had had on the subject with the minister of jus-
tice." t We hope that the efforts being made to curtail the
license of the press will be successful. It is a shame that an
editor may make such reckless accusation against any man
without the least fear of a lawsuit for libel.
The charge of bribery is utter nonsense. The next lampoon
is not a bit more happy in its results to the anti- clericals.
Still, they cling most pertinaciously to one plank in the plat-
form of their campaign of destruction : " Throw mud enough,
and some is sure to stick." Senor Salmeron insists Nozaleda
is a traitor. Why ? Because he received into his residence
the Catholic chaplain of the Olympia, and schemed with that
Yankee to hand over the city to Dewey. What a wild story
•We quote parts of the speeches of Maura, Llorens, Nocedal, and their opponents,
according to the reprint gotten out by La Gaceta del Norte, of Bilbao, under the title " El
Asunto del P. Nozaleda."
t Cf. Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Anti-Clericals of Spain. 575
this is ! Senoc Nocedal * tears it to very shreds and riddles
the unlucky Salmeron's speech by a sarcasm that no anti-
clerical dares to stand up against. Why, there was no Catho-
lic chaplain at all on board the Olympia / So the charge
conceived in the flighty imagination of Senor Salmeron vanishes,
into thin air. The priest who visited the Archbishop of
Manila was the late Rev. William D. McKinnon, chaplain of the
first California volunteers from June 3, 1898, till September 21,
1899, and chaplain of regulars from October 27, 1899, till his
death. His visit to Mgr. Nozaleda was of an ecclesiastical not
a military character. The incident is referred to by the arch-
bishop, in the clever defence he wrote against the formidable
sham-attack of the republicans : " A priest of the California
volunteers asked me for faculties to exercise his ministry within
my jurisdiction; . . . was pleased to grant his request." f
Father McKinnon did remark in an offhand way that the city
would soon be captured — a fact that was patent to all — but
Mgr. Nozaleda refused to speak on the subject. No one can
blame the prelate. Only a distortion of the truth can fix the
name of traitor to Mgr. Nozaleda. Senor Maura stands for
the facts, in the face of the minority. They wince under the
lash of his angry protest. They tell a lie to save a lie. ''All
Spain says Nozaleda is a traitor." All Spain does not say so !
But of public opinion in all Spain about Mgr. Nozaleda we
shall say a word later on.
The next charge sounds odd to an American, especially if he
read the severe strictures of our press several years ago, when
it was said Mgr. Nozaleda was too hostile to our government,
too much identified with the government of Spain to remain
archbishop of an American city. The anti-clerical cry now is
that Mgr. Nozaleda was too much attached to Americans to be
nominated archbishop of a city of Spain. J
Senor Nocedal ridiculed the charge by a clever retort ad
homineniy a slashing blow at certain anti-clericals : " A day or
so ago one of the deputies now present branded the heroes of
our nation as barbarians, because, forsooth, they set Napoleon's
• Cf. Speech before Congress, February 4, 1904.
f "Dcfensa Obligada contra Acusaciones Gratuitas," par P. Nozaleda, Arzobispo Dimi-
sionario de Manila y Electo de Valencia. Madrid : Hijos dc J. A. Garcia ; Campomanes 6,
p. 12.
XCf, Speeches of Morayta, Canalejas, and Salmeron, on January 29 and February i
and 3.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
576 MGR. NOZALEDA and [Aug.,
culture at naught and uprooted the revolutionary principles
which he had borne along on the points of his bayonets and
had planted among us by sheer force. Would it be any worse
if Padre Nozaleda had become convinced that the Yankees
ought to ingraft into Filipino life the principles of Protestant-
ism, and to introduce that culture which we, under a liberal
government,* had not been able to afford them ?
" A rector of a Spanish university — a man whose duty it is
to bring up the coming generation of loyal Spaniards, whose
words have gone through all Spain — said not so long ago, in
El Imparcialy that the English had of late done us several good
turns, of which the most important was the moral support they
gave the Yankees in kindly relieving us from the dead weight
of Cuba and the Philippines. In the face of this statement
should it be considered the least bit out of the ordinary if Padre
Nozaleda were won over by the reasoning of this teacher, this
teacher of teachers, to the belief that the Yankees had done
us the greatest favor in the world by shouldering for us the
burden of the Philippines ? " t
The arguments of Maura and the witty retorts of Nocedal
bring some of the republicans to throw over the charge of
treason. "Padre Nozaleda a traitor? Not at all! He was
not a traitor, but a coward ! He ran away from the Philip-
pines. He turned over his post to the enemy." This charge
of cowardice needs no answer. It is sufficiently refuted by the
contradictions of the republicans themselves. As of old before
the Sanhedrin, so of late in the Congress of Spain, "many bore
false witness, . . . and their evidence did not agree," J
"In point of fact," says Seiior Salmeron,^ " Padre Nozaleda
had no business staying in the islands two years under Ameri-
can rule. He gave up his allegiance to Spain ; he ceased to
recognize the sovereignty of Spain, to have the rights of a
citizen of Spain ; he was a Spaniard only in name." Most of
the anfi- clericals follow the lead of Seiior Salmeron, and wield
this same argument. They boast that it gives a sledge-ham-
mer blow to the cause of Mgr. Nozaleda — a blow from which
there is no escape. The Count de Romanoncs thinks he needs
no other argument against the nomination of the ex- Archbishop
• Before the late war Spain was under control of the liberals, whose leader. Sagasta, was
elected prime minister in 1897. Since the death of Sagasta the conseivatives have been in
power. f Cf. Speech before Congress, February 4, 1904.
X Mark xiv. 56. $ Cf. Speech before Congress, January 29, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Anti-Clericals of Spain. 577
of Manila; he waives aside the grievous charges which the
press tried to formulate out oi fiction, the low theatres to sub-
stantiate by bold and indecent coloring, the mobs to drive
home by shouts and threats. The count is a liberal ; of course
he is — as liberal as you chose; but he is not a non- Catholic;
he protests against such an insinuation as preposterous. So he
opens up the opposition to Mgr. Nozaleda with a very non-
committal sort of introduction ; • " I do not come here to repeat
the accusations that have been made against Padre Nozaleda.
It maybe some are true; without doubt others are false." He
then blames the prelate for staying in the islands two years
after the colors of Spain had been struck. That is all he will
insist on. He is willing to have his measure stand or fall by
the proof or disproof of this charge. Then with delicious in-
consistency he at once forgets the thesis he set himself to
prove : " Padre Nozaleda is a friar ; the incarnation and per-
sonification of all the friars beyond the seas. It is not one
friar we are putting down, but each and every one of the friars
that have gone to the Philippines and brought disgrace to us." f
One charge at a time, Senor Conde; you are straying from
the one point on which you staked your reputation as a logical
debater, the single argument by which you would enforce the
rejection of Mgr. Nozaleda. We shall keep you to that point,
if you please, just for a little while.
So, Mgr. Nozaleda gave up his allegiance to Spain because
of his stay in the Philippines ! What a pretty bit of reason-
ing! Then all foreign missionaries must give up allegiance to
the mother country ! Senor Salmeron could not pay a visit to
Cuba without ceasing to be a Spaniard ! Senor Salmerdn is a
professor of the University of Madrid. He should be ashamed
to make show of such ignorance. "According to international
law of to-day, a man loses his nationality mainly by an act of
his will. Against a man's will to remain a citizen of Spain,
there is no power that can prevail. Now, Senor Salmerdn can
never prove Padre Nozaleda had the wish to give up his
nationality. Against the unproved statement of Senor Sal-
meron we have the testimony of Padre Nozaleda himself, and
of many who knew the prelate in Manila ; more than this, we
* Cf. Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
t Cf. Ibid.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
578 MGR. NOZALEDA and [Aug.,
have the stubborn fact that Padre Nozaleda was one of the
very first to inscribe his name on the roll of citizens of Spain
at the office of our consul in Manila."* Does this act of alle-
giance to Spain mean the wish to throw off the name and
rights of a Spaniard ?
So the mighty argument goes to the wall. Still, even
though the archbishop did not cease to be a Spaniard, '' he
was untrue to his duty to Spain in that he stayed in the
islands under the American flag. He did no good either to
church or to country.** Such is the new phase of the argument,
as presented by Senor Menendez Pallar^s. It is false on both
counts.
He did no good to the church by his stay ? How do you
know this, Seiior Menendez Pallar^s ? He stayed by special
order of the Pope. Mgr. Nozaleda tells us : " Far from grant-
ing me leave to depart, the Holy See ordered me to stay at
the head of the Metropolitan See of the Philippines. It was
my duty to obey this high command.** f Is not a prelate's
obedience to the Pope for the good of the church ? ** Tell me,
pray, Senor Menendez Pallar^s, who are you to set your wish
up against the wish of the Holy Father in the government of
the church ? *' f '* When ten years ago the government of
Spain presented Padre Nozaleda for the Archbishopric of
Manila and obtained his appointment by Rome, it should have
known full well that no power on earth could relieve the pre-
late from the duty he had to his flock except the power of
Rome." §
Rome did not relieve him ; he stayed in Manila to do his
duty to his affrighted flock; and well did he do it — too well,
in very truth, to please such enemies of the church as the
anti-clericals of Spain ! Inhere were in Manila a great many
pious foundations, institutions of charity amply endowed,
religious orders and congregations — all speaking louder than
words of the efforts of the church for the well-being of the
Filipinos in soul and body. " One patron, one sentinel, one
defender stood firm for every one of the rights of each and
all of these works ; and he was the Archbishop of Manila. He
• Cf. Speech of Senor Maura before Congress, January 30, 1904.
t " Defensa Obligada, etc.," p. 35.
% Cf. Seflor Maura's speech before Congress, January 28, 1904
$ Cf, Seftor Maura's speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Anti-Clericals of Spain. 579
held his ground and fought his way, till he saved to the
church the works she had set on foot*'* There was no self-
interest in the stay of Mgr. Nozaleda in Manila. Why, he set
his interests so far in the background that he lost sight of
them entirely, and had to ask for alms to pay the expenses of
his trip homeward.
The good he did the cause of the church were reason
enough for the protracted stay of the archbishop in his see; but
his presence in Manila meant much good also for his country.
He took care of the interests of Spain, became an intermediary
between her and the United States, and brought about the
release of 4,000 captives whom the Tagalos held in durance.
Yes, by him were at last saved 4,000 Spaniards, for whose
release wives, children, and parents, day in and day out, kept
petitioning and imploring those whose sworn duty it was to
do that task which Mgr. Nozaleda superadded to the arduous
tasks that stern duty had already laid upon him. And now
Senor Morayta has the bad grace to blame the archbishop
because, forsooth, there was a delay in the relief of those
prisoners.! Yes, there was a delay — a hitch caused not by
Mgr. Nozaleda, but by a government official in Manila, who
denied that the Queen Regent of Spain had empowered the
commission of General Rios to free the Spanish prisoners from
Tarlact Such are the facts of. the case. Senor Menendez
Pallar^s is wrong in both his statements. The enforced stay
of Mgr. Nozaleda in Manila was most timely and providential
to the interests as well of the people and government of Spain
as of the Catholic Church in the archipelago.
The Count de Romanones can rely on his one weighty
argument no more. It will drive down nothing before it. He
can only try another tool of fancy, and say : " It is enough
that public opinion condemns Nozaleda." <^ " Not so ! " answers
Senor Maura, '' there is against him no public opinion, only
the low-down, rowdy ish campaign of that small fry which poses
as the press of Spain." His words are received with tremen-
dous applause. ''The public opinion that I give ear to is the
opinion of those that stay at home or at their place of busi-
* Cf. Senor Maura's speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
t Cf. Speech before Congress, January 29, 1904.
\Cf. Senor Maura's speech before Congress, January 30, 1904.
$ Cf. Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
58o MGR. NOZALEDA and [Aug.,
ness, that chat at the crossways, at the clubs, at their
offices."* The opinion the anti- clericals have raised is mere
noise. ''There is a vast difference between public opinion and
noise. For a whole month I have heard reproach, blame,
dreadful charges against Padre Nozaleda; and on examination
of his case I find naught but the most complete justification
and glorification of the man at whom all these slanders were
levelled. I had thought new facts would come to light. I
expected they that raised this hue and cry, or they that took
it up, would step forward and prove their charges to me face
to face, man to man. To-day I find there is, in the opposi-
tion to Padre Nozaleda, nothing but the very same, oft-repeated
dumb show and noise.'' f
No government should in justice court the favor of those
that shout, threaten, and deny the right of self- defence, and
prove nothing. They show by their methods what kind of
government they would foist upon Spain. Salmeron, Soriano,
and other republican leaders do their very best to add fuel to
the flames of discontent, to parade fiction under the guise of
well grounded facts, and to offset public opinion by turmoil and
tumult. Senor Soriano has nothing to serve out even to Con-
gress:^ but the indecent abuse that has been hashed and
rehashed in the depraved pages of his paper, El Radical of
Valencia. He changes his ground of attack as readily as
Proteus changes his form. A player on an autoharp can, by a
mechanical device, shift the strings from key to key. Senor
Soriano is just as shifty with his conscience. He will play it
in sharps, or in flats, or in any way at all, so long as he
may make the desired impression. No ruse is too low for
this editor. He publishes in El Radical a letter signed by a
respected colonel in Madrid, who is made to hurl abuse at
Mgr. Nozaleda and the prime minister. The general in com-
mand at Valencia makes inquiries. And with what result?
The whole letter turns out to be a base fabrication of Soriano.
The signature is a forgery.'^ The forger and defamer should
serve time in a penitentiary for such a crime. But the laws of
Spain are elastic in regard to freedom of the press. The mis*
• Cf. Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
t Cf. Speech before Congress, January 28. 1904.
X Cf. Speech before Congress, January 27, 1904.
$ Cf Senor Maura's speech before Congress, January 28, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE AntI' Clericals of Spain. 581
creant gets off scot free no matter what he falsely lays to the
charge of another. Soriano has no fear. He knows his power,
and how to arouse what he calls public opinion.
Let us suppose public opinion were against Mgr. Nozaleda.
What would that prove? It would prove that public opinion
should be pulled down and built up again. That is all.
Public opinion may serve to prop up a tottering cause; it will
never justify a bad one. Justice is unchangeable. Senor Maura
knows this truth, and bids fair to act up to it. '' The authority
of the government," he says, "is bound to lean to the side of
reason and of justice; it must defend reason and justice, cost
what the cost may be — yea, cost it even the very life-blood of
that government. We cannot say : ' I know not if this man
be justly or unjustly accused ; he is accused, that is enough. I
will not defend him.' Pilate argued thus; we cannot. . . .
I have taken oath to wield my power not according to the
changeful whims of public opinion, but according to the dictates
of my conscience. If there be a conflict between my conscience
and public opinion, I shall never put an end to that conflict
by following public opinion; no, not till the day when that
opinion will force me to quit the post I now hold." • Those
are noble words — the key to a noble soul !
The radicals care naught for the conscience of the prime
minister. They raise a new cry. Mgr. Nozaleda will never
enter Valencia. The followers of Blasco Ibanez and Rodrigo
Soriano will oppose such an entrance by that means which
modern governments most fear — i. ^., a riot. They have looked
well to it that there be some opposition in Valencia. The
daily output of lies by El Radical has had a telling effect.
Soriano has not hidden his purpose.
Before the opening of the Cortes he wrote up the future
entrance of Mgr. Nozaleda into Valencia, and had it printed
above his name, in El Radical^ under the title: "Entrance of
a Traitor into Valencia : Assassination of Nozaleda." He made
use of his usual blatant, exaggerated style; and ended with a
frenzied flourish : " Like a sea that leaps over its breakwater
and swallows up all it meets, the surging mob leaped upon
the proud archbishop. . . . His mitre, that had glistened
on his brow, fell to the ground. A shower of stones pelted
• Cf, Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
582 MGR, NOZALEDA AND [Aug.,
the mystical pastor. Daggers and poniards gleamed in the
sunlight. Shots were, heard, etc., etc. The sea of people re-
turned to its breakwater and bore along a bit of the mitre
and one or two bloody limbs — all that were left of Nozaleda."
Such is a sample of the vile means taken by a deputy to
Congress for arousing the basest passions of the lowest rabble
against the cause of justice and of truth. A member of a
railroad repair gang is heated, by the writings of Soriano, to
such a degree of rashness and violence that in a meeting of
republicans in Valencia he shouts out : " Have no fear that
Nozaleda will enter Valencia. If he starts we shall pitch his
train off the track before it gets there ! " This patriotism calls
for round after round of hearty applause.* Such men wish
public authority to be exercised not by those whom the people
elect but by a lawless, hooting mob.
Senor Maura does not cringe to mob rule, and has no fear
that noise will overthrow his ministry. He assumes an atti-
tude of defiance : '' Padre Nozaleda will go to Valencia, even
though it be necessary that he go between a line of bayonets.'
"But," urges Scfior Salmeron, "the faithful of Valencia do not
want hirn." That is false! 12,000 of the faithful of Valencia
have sent to the prelate their loyal protest against the cal-
umnies of the Soriano set. ** Sefior Salmeron," retorts Maura,t
" do not take it ill that we refuse to accept your word as
final. It was only a month ago you told the hair-splitting
metaphysicians of Albacete not to bother their heads about
the immortality of the soul, to take no heed of the life to
come, for that all accounts were closed up and settled once
and for all in this life. The man who talks such trash to
day-laborers should assume no right to tell us who would or
would not be a good prelate for the Catholics of Valencia."
Such is the array of false charges that were marshaled
against Mgr. Nozaleda. They failed egregiously. The Count
de Romanones' motion to reject Sefior Maura's nomination was
defeated by a vote of 128 to 69. The archbishop was pre-
sented to the Holy Father for the see of Valencia. The anti-
clericals were foiled and thwarted out and out. Could the
result have been otherwise ? Yes, it could ! Were the Cham-
* Lectura Dominical, January 17, 1904.
t Cf. Speech before Congress, January 30, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Anti-Clericals of Spain. . 583
ber of Deputies of Spain so openly hostile to the church as is
the Chamber of Deputies of France, truth and justice would
have given way to falsehood and slander.
We have shown how contemptible and unreasonable the
anti-clericals were in the Nozaleda affair. We have run the
whole gamut of false notes that went to make up their inhar-
monious chorus. There is one note left, and that note is a
true one. Yes, there is one charge against Mgr. Nozaleda
that we admit, and admit with all our heart. The anti-
clericals are right. Mgr. Nozaleda is a friar. The charge is
true. What next? ** Why, then,'* say they all, "he must be
rejected ! '* Mark well their conclusion ! No friar must be a
bishop in Spain ! The friars must go ! Herein we have the
keynote of anti- clericalism in Spain, the rallying point of all
parties that are hostile to the best interests of the Catholic
Church in that country.
Digitized by VjOOQIC '
584 Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
THOMAS MOORE.*
BY ROBERT M. SILLARD.
fT has often been remarked that the national music
of Ireland is the truest of all comments upon
the history of Ireland. The tone of defiance,
succeeded by the languor of despondency — a
burst of turbulence dying away into softness,
the sorrows of one moment lost in the levity of the next — and
all that romantic mixture of mirth and sadness which is natu-
rally produced by the efforts of a lively temperament to shake
off or forget the wrongs that lie upon it. Such are the feat-
ures of Irish history and character which are to be found
faithfully reflected in the music and songs of the 'Mand of
song " ; and there are many Irish airs which it is difficult to
listen to without recalling some period or event to which their
expression seems peculiarly applicable.
Happily, before that music had been entirely lost, an
assembly of Irish harpers was convened in 1792, at Belfast,
and many of the old tunes they had preserved were collected
by Edward Bunting, and published shortly afterwards, and so
rescued from the oblivion which had seemed inevitable. This
achievement was beyond price or praise. But much more was
wanting for the safety and the honor of the dear old music.
It needed some one who could clothe it in fitting words and
commend it to popular acceptance. It needed a gifted man to
interpret the spirit and character of Ireland — her fancy and
her feeling, her sorrows and her hopes. It needed that the
inarticulate poetry of sound should find verbal expression, and
that the strains which had floated down through the ages — so
sweet, so various, so marvellously expressive in their mirthfuU
ness, the changeful phases of the Irish nature — should, at last,
be ** married to immortal verse."
The hour came and the man. The man was Thomas
Moore. The concurrence was singular as it was fortunate. The
•A renewed interest is being taken in the life and works of Thomas Moore owing to the
fact that his countrymen are about to erect a fitting memorial to him in his native city. — Edi-
tor's Note.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.J
Thomas Moore.
585
Thomas Mooke.
harpers had met, and Bunting was preparing his collection,
whilst Moore, then a stripling of thirteen summers, was prac-
tising on the old harpsichord, which his father had received
from a neighbor in discharge of a trifling debt. Moore dis-
covered his faculty for music and his vocation as a poet; and
the melodies he learnt to love induced him to exercise the
one and to pursue the other, until he became, for Ireland, in
Shelley's famous words :
*' The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong."
VOL. LXXIX —38 C^ r\r\n\o
^ Digitized by V^OOQ IC
5 86 Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
It is a recognized fact that the finest of the old Irish airs
obtained their just appreciation less from a sense of their in-
trinsic merit than from their union with lyrics which seized
on the popular attention ; and thus it was that Moore saved
them from degradation. Exquisitely organized in soul and
sense, he gathered up the fragments of the ancient melodies
of his dear land, and associated them with songs such as had
never been heard. Moore was inimitable as a lyric poet.
Though his writings are numerous and varied, yet his fame
must rest on having wedded his immortal verse to the glorious
music of his native land. He pronounced, perhaps uncon-
sciously, his highest eulogium when he wrote the words:
'' Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found thee.
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long;
When proudly, my own Island Harp! I unbound thee,
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom, and song 1 "
Thomas Moore was born at No. I2 Aungier Street, Dublin,
on the 28th of Maj% 1779, and two days later was baptized in
the Catholic Church of St. Andrew's, in Westland Row. His
father was a homely, intelligent, cheerful, easy-going man;
nothing more, and assuming to be nothing more, than a gfocer.
The mother, according to all accounts, was possessed of sonie
culture and kindly and conciliating manners. She had her
memory stored with Irish legends, and her recitals of these
no doubt cultivated the imaginative faculties of her only son,
and the tender love between them continued strong through
life. Young Moore was from his birth of a constitution tender
and delicate; but is said to have shown remarkable gentleness
and sweetness of disposition. His voice was so pleasing that
he was called in fondness the "little Nightingale."
At an early age he was sent to a small school, kept by a
man named Malone, in the same street where he lived. After-
wards he entered the " Academy " of a famous teacher named
Samuel White, in Grafton Street. Among Moore's school-
fellows here was the hapless patriot- martyr, Robert Emmet, with
whom he contracted a lasting friendship. "Were I to number
the men," wrote Moore, thirty years later, " among all I have
ever known, who appeared to me to combine in the greatest
degree pure moral worth with intellectual power, I should,
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1904.] Thomas Moore. 587
among the highest of the few, place Robert Emmet." As is well
known, the first song in the " Irish Melodies " — '* Oh ! Breathe
not his Name" — was in memory of Emmet; and the second
song — " She is far from the Land " — of Sarah Curran, the
betrothed of the patriot. Moore's schoolmaster was passion-
ately fond of the stage, and encouraged the declamatory and
histrionic powers of his pupils, especially those of young Moore,
whose name appeared in th6 programmes of his master's private
theatricals before he was twelve. About this age he began to
compose verses, and sent some of them to a Dublin magazine
entitled the Anthologia Hibernica,
His mother was anxious that he should study for the bar,
and as Trinity College had just been opened to Catholics by
the legislation of 1793, the young poet was admitted to the
famous university the following year. Though by the bill of
1793 Catholics were admitted to Dublin University, they were
yet excluded from " scholarships," " fellowships," and all the
" honors " which brought emolument. This, of course, shut
Moore out from all distinctions, although he passed the
difficult examinations with credit. At college Moore showed
more disposition to cultivate the modern than the ancient
languages. Before he entered he had received occasional lessons
in Italian from an old Franciscan father named Ennis, and in
French from an intelligent emigri^ named La Fosse. To these
two teachers he was indebted for that display of French and
Italian reading which he put forth afterwards in the notes to
his translation of Anacreon, his first step on the ladder of last-
ing fame.
In the Second year of his college course Moore wrote a
Masque, with songs, which was performed at one of the public
halls in the city. But the political ferment that was abroad
through Ireland soon found its way within the walls of Trinity
College. Robert Emmet was a fellow- student here with Moore
(they entered the college the same year) ; both became intimate
with many members of the United Irishmen, took a prominent
part in the Cpllege Historical Society, and, of course, espoused
the national side in the political debates. In the spring of
1798 Lord Chancellor Fitzgibbon held a formal visitation for
the purpose of inquiring into the extent of the sympathy with
the United Irishmen existing in the college. As is well known,
Emmet left the college, and nothing but his mother's influence
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
5 88 THOMAS MOORE, [Aug.,
prevented Moore himself from becoming fatally involved in
the insurrectionary movements of 1798 and 1803.
There can be no doubt that had Moore in those days felt
at liberty to give effect to his own desire, he would have gone
as far as Emmet in practical devotion to his country, and
probably have shared the fate that befell most of the United
Irishmen. But, as has been shown, his attachment to his
mother, who was always jealous of his personal safety, held
him back. And we cannot blame him for this, for few men
ever had a mother worthy of deeper love. And through all
vicissitudes of his life — in the zenith of success as well as in
th^ gloom of misfortune — his affection for her never diminished.
Throughout her life, when absent from her, he wrote to her
twice every we^, so that at her death she possessed over four
thousand of his letters — a constant record of his cares and
triumphs, anxieties and hopes.
In 1799 Moore took his degree of B. A. The following
year arrangements were made for his departure to London
to enter as a student in the Middle Temple to complete
his studies for the bar. An introduction to Sir Martin Shee,
the president of the Royal Academy, brought him into the
society of some of the leading literary and social lights of
London. He delighted all by his pleasant manners, literary
tastes, and effective musical abilities. While keeping his
terms at the Middle Temple he completed his '' Anacreon,"
and published a small volume of poems under the pseudonym
of "Thomas Little." Lord Moira obtained for him the coveted
permission to dedicate his Anacrcon Odes to the Prince of
Wales. The translation attracted much attention, and Moore
was accused of lending additional warmth to the at least suffi-
ciently glowing ideas of the bard of Teos.^ But his fame does
not rest on that youthful production.
In 1803 Lord Moira's influence procured the little poet an
appointment under the government, as registrar to the Court
of Admiralty at Bermuda. The seclusion of the Bermuda
islands was, however, little to his taste, and after a four
months* residence he confided his duties to a deputy, and
made an extended tour through the United States and Canada,
during which he wrote some beautiful poems relating to
America. Among these we find some real gems of simplicity
and melodious rhythm ; such as the " Canadian Boat Song,"
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1904.] Thomas Moore. 589
" The Lake of the Dismal Swamp," " The Indian Chant/' and
" A Scene in Bermuda," in which the description of the isles
is said to be wondrously accurate.
Moore returned to England in October, 1804. Lord Moira
now procured a situation for his father in the Dublin custom-
house; but the poet himself preferred trustirg to his talents
for a livelihood. In 1806 he published a volume of "Odes,
Epistles, and other Poems," which he dedicated to the Earl of
Moira. The Edinburgh Review took the occasion in noticing
this volume to lash Moore for the objectionable songs which
appeared in the collection of poems he published under the
assumed name in 1801. All the Irishman in Moore revealed
himself in consequence of the savage onslaught of Lord Jef-
frey, and he challenged the famous editor. A duel between
them was interrupted by the police, and both were subjected
to much ridicule when it was stated that the bullet had fallen
out of Jeffrey's pistol, and it was suggested that, by consent,
both pistols were leadless. But the sting was removed by the
subsequent cordiality of the great critic towaids the young
writer whom he had not undeservedly rebuked. It is a curious
coincidence, that both Byron and Moore were severely handled
by the Edinburgh Review at the outset of their career. They
both, however, triumphed over what (as in the case of Keats,
whom criticism killed) would have disheartened men of less
energy. They lived (not to prove their censor wrong, but) to
extort admiration from one of the sternest critics of modern
times. In the Edinburgh Review of November, 1817, we find
the following passage respecting the early criticism. The pas-
sage is equally honorable to the critic and to the poet :
*' In an early number of this Review we reproved Mr.
Moore, perhaps with unnecessary severity. We think it a duty
to say, that he has long ago redeemed that error; and that in
all his later works that have come under our observation he
appears as the eloquent champion of purity, fidelity, and deli-
cacy, not less than of justice, liberty, and honor."
Lord Byron, as is well known, mentioned the "duel" with
ridicule in " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," and in his
turn was challenged by Moore, The letter to Byron was
delayed in reaching its destination, and so the affair terminated
in a good-humored explanation from Byron, and a life-long
friendship between them. A few years later Byron said of
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590 Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
him : " Moore has a peculiarity of talent, or rather talents —
poetry, music, voice — all his own ; and an expression in each
which never was, nor will be, possessed by another. In society
he is gentlemanly, gentle, and altogether more pleasing than
any individual with whom I am acquainted. He has but one
fault, and that one I daily regret — he is not with me. His
songs — 'Oh Breathe not His Name,' 'When He who adores
Thee,* and ' As a Beam o'er the Face of the Waters * — are worth
all the epics that ever were composed." And in the diary of
that " great and good man," Sir Walter Scott, we find these
words : " I saw Moore for the first time this season (Novem-
ber, 1825). There is a manly frankness, with perfect ease and
good-breeding, about him which is delightful. Not the least
touch of the poet or the pedant. ... It would be a
delightful addition to life if Moore had a cottage within two
miles of one. We went to the Edinburgh theatre together,
and the audience received T. M. with rapture. I could have
hugged them, for it paid back the debt of the kind reception
I met with in Ireland." As to Byron's friendship for the little
Irish poet, it was as sincere a feeling of the sort as he was
capable of entertaining for any length of time. Byron himself
asserts that he never felt the emotion of friendship towards
any one, except "little Moore." It will not be forgotten by
any reader of Byron that he very frequently gave expression
to this friendship in diary, letters, and,. best of all, verse:
" My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But, before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee.
" Were't the last drop in the well.
And I gasp'd upon the brink.
Ere my fainting spirit fell,
'Tis to thee that I would drink.
"With that water, as this i/frine,
The libation I would pour
Should be — peace with thine and mine.
And a health to thee, Tom Moore."
In 1807 Moore entered into an arrangement with Mr. Power,
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1904.] Thomas Moore. 591
a publisher of music in London, to write suitable words to a
collection of old Irish tunes, most of which were supplied by
himself. It was part of the bargain that Sir John Stevenson,
the famous Irish composer, was to set' them to harmony. It
has been objected that Stevenson's settings are too elaborate
for Irish music« that the original style of the melodies is in-
jured by the too modem accompaniment. But the famous
Doctor of Music and AToore held that the symphonies and
accompaniments should be held subordinate to the melodies for
which they were written. The "Melodies" were issued by the
music publishers, Powers, in ten detached numbers issued be-
tween 1807 and 1834. This engagement was one of the most
fortunate events of Moore's early life. In a letter to his mother
in 18 12 he writes: "I dpn't know whether I told you that the
Powers give me five hundred pounds ($2,500) a year for my
music; the agreement is for seven years, and as much longer
as I choose to say." During this time his " Sacred Songs "
(1815) and the "National Airs" (1816) came out under the
same happy auspices. The beautiful songs Moore united to
the many fugitive national airs of every European country
which had none that were intelligible to the ordinary reader
are veritable gems. His "Sacred Songs" are of exquisite
beauty and deep devotional feeling.
As to the imputations against Moore on religious grounds,
it must be borne in mind that the society in which his early
manhood was passed was largely imbued with the infidel spirit
of the French Revolution, and that its influence upon him was
not met by any corrective force, like that to which he was '
afterwards attracted in England. We know that he was bap-
tized a Catholic, and we know that while residing in London
he frequently attended the Catholic church in Wardour Street,
and his biographer. Lord John Russell, a very unimpeachable
witness on such a matter, tells us that he always adhered to
the Catholic Church. When asked to abandon it, his answer
was : " I was born and bred in the faith of my fathers, and
in that faith I intend to die." And recent authoritative testi-
mony proves beyond doubt that he died in the one true
faith.
No one but a Catholic — and. we may add, an Irish Catho-
lic — could have written such beautiful lyrics as: "The Turf
shall be my fragrant Shrine," "Oh*! Thou Who dry'st the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
S92 Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
Mourner's Tear," "Thou art, oh God!" "The Angdl of Char-
ity," " Go, let me Weep," " Oh ! Teach me to love Thee," and
"As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So, deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion,
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee, —
My God ! silent to Thee —
Pure, warm, silent to Thee;
So, deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion.
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee ! "
On the 22d of March, 1811, Moore married a Protestant
lady named Miss Elizabeth Dyke, .at St. Martin's Church,
London. The marriage proved a happy one. Lord John
Russell says: "From the year of the marriage to 1852, that
of his death, this excellent and beautiful person received from
him the homage of a lover, enhanced by all the gratitude, all
the confidence, which the daily and hourly happiness he enjoyed
was sure to inspire. Thus, whatever amusement he might find
in society, whatever sights he might behold, whatever literary
resources he might seek elsewhere, he always returned to his
home with a fresh feeling of delight. The time he had been
absent had always been a time of exertion and exile ; his
return restored him to tranquillity and peace."* Those who
love as he did, wife, children, and friends, will appreciate,
although the worldling cannot, such commonplace sentences as
these in his diary : " Pulled some heath on Ronan's Island
(Killarney) to send to my dear Bessy " ; when in Italy, *' Got
letters from my sweet Bessy, more precious to me than all
the wonders I see here " ; while in Paris, " Sending for Bessy
and my little ones; wherever they are will be home, and a
happy home, to me."
During the year in which he was married Moore produced
a comic opera, "M. P., or the Blue Stocking." There are
some very pretty songs and sentiments in it, but notwithstand-
ing these, the opera, which was first brought out in Dublin,
was not a success. The following year he was offered ;^3,ooo
by Longmans, the publishers, for an Oriental romance he had
in contemplation. The work, " Lalla Rookh," was not written
until after the most careful and extensive reading on Eastern
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Thomas Moore. 593
subjects — until he had thoroughly imbued his mind with Ori-
ental tradition and romance. It was published in 181 7, and
was received most favorably. How true it is in external
scenery — that is, as a panorama of the East — has been variously
estimated. The poem, however, exactly suited the prevail-
ing taste of the period. It has abundant fertility of fancy,
luxuriant profusion of imagery, and a facile command of grace-
ful diction. It is true that, as Hazlitt has observed, its bril-
liancy is almost too continuously glittering. Yet, if he dazzles
rather than enchants, it is undeniable that in his '' LalU
Rookh" Moore has given us many passages of great descrip-
tive power, of singular narrative charm, and of delicate imagi-
native art.
" Lalla Rookh " was written in Mayfield Cottage, near
Ashbourne, in Derbyshire, whither Moore and his wife went
to reside in 181 3, after the first year of married life. When
he had finished his Oriental, romance, which, by the way, he
" dedicated " to his " affectionate friend " Samuel Rogers, the
" tranquil " poet, Moore removed to Sloperton Cottage, near
Devizes, in Wiltshire. It was a small thatched cottage, and
the spire of the village church of Bromham, beside the portals
of which he was buried, could be seen through the distant
trees. Here he lived for the remaining thirty- five years of his
life.
The year 1818 was an eventful one to Moore. With bis
wife he paid a long-promised visit to his parents in Dublin.
Moore 'was lionized in his native city to a degree which might
have satisfied any heart, however greedy for public acknowl-
edgment.
He was entertained at a public dinner, on which occasion
his father had the proud gratification of seeing the most gifted
Irishmen of the day assembled to do honor to his son. ' Daniel
0*Connell was one of the speakers on the occasion, and that
eloquent tribune roused the enthusiasm of all present by de-
claring that ''there could not live a single Irishman so lost to
every feeling of affection for his country as not to feel pride
and pleasure at hearing the name of Tom Moore. It was a
name that raised the fame of Irish talent, and placed the
poetic character of Ireland on the highest pinnacle of literary
glory. Any tribute his countrymen could pay him would but
feebly discharge the debt of gratitude which Ireland owed himr
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
594 Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
He should be hailed by his countrymen as a light that flung
a warm and cheering ray on the coldness and darkness which
had so long surrounded their beloved country."
Moore sang several of his Irish Melodies. His voice had
not great volume, yet he could sing with a depth of sweetness
that charmed all hearers. It was true melody, and told upon
the heart as well as on the ear. His contemporaries tell us
that tt would be difEcult to describe the effect of his singing.
He made little attempt at music. It was a kind of admirable
recitative, in which every shade of his thought was syllabled
and dwelt upon, and the sentiment of the song went through
the blood, warming the hearers even to the flowing of tears.
During his stay in Dublin this year Moore witnessed an
opera founded on his '' Lalla Rookh," which was performed at
the principal theatre before an enthusiastic audience who would
recognize Iran as Erin, and Hafed as Emmet.
This same year he went to Paris with his friend Rogers,
the poet, and laid up materials for his humorous piece, "The
Fudge Family in Paris." About this time Moore was informed
that his deputy at Bermuda had absconded with certain moneys,
leaving Moore liable for ;^6,ooo. Pending a settlement with
the English government Moore was obliged to remain on the
Continent. With Lord John Russell he travelled through France
and Switzerland to Milan, and spent some time at Venice with
Lord Byron. Of this journey we have two accounts, one in
prose, the other in rhyme; the former is the narrative in his
"Diary," edited by Russell. The account in verse is well
known as " Rhymes on the Road." Did ever mortal man turn
every experience of life into verse as did Tom Moore ? His
visit to Bermuda, his tour through America, his voyage home,
his first visit to Paris, and his journey through Italy — all re-
duced to verses 1
During the three years he remained abroad he wrote "The
Epicurean," a beautiful Oriental tale in prose; "The Loves of
the Angels," and the satirical verses called the "Fables of the
Holy Alliance." Out of the profits of these he paid the de-
mands against him.
While residing in Paris Moore was visited by many notables
in the art and literary world. Among those who flocked to
see the " poet of all circles " were Wordsworth and genial
Washington Irving, both of whom marvelled how one who gave
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
.1904.] Thomas Moore. 595
so much of his time to social events could find time for literary
pursuits.
About this time Moore commenced the " Life " of his illus-
trious friend, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which he published in
1825, the same year in which he visited Sir Walter Scott at
Abbotsford. His '^Sheridan" ran through three editions in as
many months, and, as the Edinburgh Review said at the time,
**\t is the best historical work of the period, and exhibits the
most intelligent account of the great questions which were
agitated during the momentous period to which it refers."
Five years later he gave to an expectant world his "Life
of Lord Byron," which, in the words of Lord Macaulay, "de-
serves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose
any age has produced." The following year he visited Ireland
in order to collect materials for his " Life " of Lord Edward
Fitzgerald, which for pathetic beauty and simple truthfulness
must always move the heart of the reader. Though Moore had
never been a member of the Society of United Irishmen, yet
his sympathies were always with them. It is singular that,
althoiigh Moore spent nearly the whole of his Hie in England
and in English society, the spirit of the Irish rebel never left
him. His national sympathies and his patriotism were lasting
and permanent. In fact, the last of his " Irish Melodies " —
which were among the latest of his writings — breathe a sterner
and more uncompromising spirit than those written in earlier
years. It is still more singular that by his songs he made the
sentiments of the Irish rebel popular in England, where, pre-
sented in any other guise, they would have been scouted and
condemned. His " treason " was trilled for many years at every
fashionable assembly. Is it extravagant to think that by his
beautiful lyrics many a heart was inspired with kindness towards
Ireland, even in the stronghold of her enemies ? In that ex-
quisite song, " Oh 1 Blame not the Bard," I think Moore best
describes his mission.
Shortly after publishing his memoir of Lord Edward Fitz-
gerald, Moore set about writing a history of Ireland in four
volumes for a series called Lardnet^s Cyclopadia, to which Sir
Walter Scott had contributed a history of Scotland. Moore
brought the history of his country down to the death of Owen
Roe O'Neill in 1646, and in it he made a laborious and con-
^ scientious effort to accomplish a very necessary work at the
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556 • Thomas Moore. [Aug.,
time, with such knowledge and materials as were within his
reach. They were often used most effectively; and the history
contains frequent passages of great felicity and power, such as
the description of St. Patrick preaching at Tara ; the conver-
sion of the Irish princesses; the death of St. Columbkill; and
the music of ancient Ireland. But very often his materials
were inadequate, as, of course, he had not access to the original
sources of information of which later historians, like O'Curry,
O'Donovan, and Joyce, have had the advantage.
This " History " was Moore's last important work — the fourth
volume appeared in 1846. A few years previously he collected
and published his poetical works in ten volumes, with illustra
tions. The prefaces contain many interesting particulars regard-
ing his life. Like Swift, Scott, and Southey, the end of
Moore's life was passed in an increasingly depressed condition,
owing to softening of the brain. Two years and a half he may
be said to have laid on his death-bed — dying all that weary
time; his mind almost obliterated; restoration being only
occasional, and very partial. When his intelligence was at all
active he would ask his wife to read the Bible, and his * great
delight was to hear her sing.
• The end came on the 26th of February, 1852. He was
buried in Bromham churchyard within sight of his cottage
home. His wife was laid beside him thirteen years afterwards;
while his father and mother rest together in St. Kevin's church-
yard in Dublin.
Lord Russell's memoir of the poet presents, on the whole,
the picture of a man resolute to maintain his independence under
all circumstances and at all hazards ; true to his principles and
faithful to his country; unspoiled by the blandishments of
social life ; inaccessible to corruption and incapable of base-
ness ; in his dealings with his family and friends full of gentle-
ness and loving kindness, and acting, always, without a taint
of selfishness, and often in the spirit of heroic self-sacrifice.
There may be some who have no sympathy with his politi-
cal opinions. But they will not the less on that account allow
his claim to the name of patriot. He clung to Ireland with an
intense and unchanging affection, which is testified on every
page of his writings. During the long struggle for Catholic
emancipation he never failed or faltered in urging the claims
of the Catholics of Ireland. By playful wit, by pungent'
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I904.] THOMAS MOORE. 597
sarcasm, by vehement invective, he pressed them on a reluc-
tant legislature and a hostile people. And the influence he
exerted was incalculable. Circles into which political agitation
could never break opened freely to the pleadings of the poet.
The same melodious voice which roused the Irish millions to
remember they had a country, and rely on themselves for their
own political salvation, resounded in the halls and salons of
the British aristocracy, dispelling prejudice and denouncing
wrong, with a power and sweetness which touched many a
heart and awakened many a conscience, heretofore hardened
against the cold appeals of justice.
And if his patriotism be undeniable, can any one doubt of
the independence and consistency which made his character
complete? Few Irishmen, of whom we have authentic record,
were more distinguished by those high qualities. Tom Moore
was placed in circumstances most adverse to the cultivation of
them. He was poor. He had to procure, by continuous effort,
the comforts of existence. He moved amongst the wealthy
and the great, many of whom had strong attachment to him
and would have been happy to supply his wants. He had
faculties of brain and pen, invaluable to any political party
which could have procured the use of them. He loved his
relatives with a devoted affection, which might have prompted
any sacrifice, to elevate them and advance their interests.
Briefly, he had the amplest opportunities of . commanding a
profitable dependence, and the strongest temptations to employ
them. But he refused. He endured his poverty and pre-
served his honor. He lived and died a self-relying, self-
respecting Irishman, and left to posterity an example of inde-
pendence which has not had many parallels.
What is Moore^s position in the scale of English poets ?
Judged by the circulation of his works, he must be reckoned
among the half-dozen writers of verse who enjoy the chief
hold on popular favor. Taste in literature, and more espe-
cially in poetry, is something of which in every generation a
select and eclectic few have the monopoly. To say that this
or that poet is lesser or greater because he excels or falls
short of another, is to mistake altogether the function of the
literary critic. A poet who has any claims on immortality
must not be judged comparatively. It is only the unique that
lives. Posterity will perceive only the master-type ; his imitators
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598 WHEN THE NIGHT IS YOUNG. [Aug.,
are literary ephemera. Moore moves in an orbit of his own.
He is ** a bright particular star " without a rival. In what
poetry of the nineteenth century do we find a fancy so felici-
tous, so original, so spontaneous, so luxuriant, so coruscant, as
in Moore's lyrics? If any of the poetry of the past century
survives, they will not be forgotten. They have gone home to
the heart of Ireland, and they will live in it whilst it is capa-
ble of generous or grateful emotion. The '' Melodies " form
part of the national inheritance — something which Ireland may
truly call her own» and which shall always be looked upon as
one of the most interesting and happy efforts of genius ever
bequeathed to any country.
WHEN THE NIGHT IS YOUNG.
BY B. E. WADE.
HE moon hangs low in the dim, blue sky ;
A star peeps forth from the heav'ns on high ;
A dusky cloud sails so softly by.
When the night is young.
An evening breeze stirs the willows green.
And whispers gently to bird unseen.
Then, slyly kisses the grasses,— e'en
When the night is young.
The tree-toad sings in his restless glee ;
The cricket chirps in' a plaintive key;
The dear brook dreams of the far-off sea,
When the night is young.
And when fair Nature o'er all holds sway.
Mysterious fancies must have their way.
But peace steals in at the close of day.
When the night is young.
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1904.] A MISSION IN AFRICA. 599
A MISSION IN AFRICA.
(HAT the Catholic Church has always endeavored
to obey Christ's command to teach all nations,
everybody, no matter of what religious persua-
sion, must feel fully convinced. The divine
enthusiasm, simplicity and heroism animating
her missionaries in that noblest and holiest of all callings — tlie
spreading of faith and civilization — are an old, old story.
History has her glorious record of this sublime work, the very
mission that brought our Saviour from heaven, and on which
he sent his Apostles to shed the light of faith over those who
sit in the regions of the shadow of death. Nevertheless,
though the conviction that immense good has been done in
the past and will continually and for ever be achieved in the
future, amounts to a certainty, there prevails among home-
keeping Christians an indifference about the support and exten-
sion of missionary enterprise which is not only astounding
but incomprehensible and deplorable. Yet, seen from any
stand-point — whether that of the souls still to be redeemed
from their degradation, still living in the darkness of error,
and perhaps practising all the frightful barbarities of fetichism
from which Christianity alone can redeem them, or that of the
missionaries who, having abandoned all to scatter the seed
that multiplies a hundred-fold, live in conditions where the
necessities of civilized existence become luxuries, where hard-
ships and deprivation mark every step, where an always pre-
carious existence is continually harassed by poverty, epidemics,
and persecutions, and where the difficulties hourly encountered
are tremendous, — from any stand-point the picture should
awaken all that a* man, or a woman, has of enthusiasm, of
love, of pride, and of generous self-devotion.
' Now, it is altogether likely that the spirit of cold aloofness
commonly displayed toward the foreign missions arises far less
from deep-rooted selfishness than from want of information
about the inspiring history of this glorious crusade. It is in
this belief that the following pages have been written, so that
the readers of The Catholic World may be told something
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6oo A MISSION IN Africa. [Aug.,
Africa and the Uganda Territory.
of what was learned by one who travelled to the heart of
equatorial Africa, and there became acquainted with a place
which exemplified all the best that has ever been said of mis-
sionary zeal, of missionary sacrifice, and of missionary priva-
tion; a place where apostolic labor in its simplicity and lack
of worldliness is like that recorded in Holy Scripture, and
where, indeed, to-day many of the practices of the early
Christians are in effect, though but little known outside and
but little appreciated !
The mission we speak of, situated in East Uganda, is in
charge of Bishop Hanlon and priests from ' St. Joseph's Mis-
sionary College, Mill Hill, London, assisted by the Franciscan
Sisters. Though his lordship is the latest in the field here, he
has done more than is generally known toward both Chris-
tianizing the people and allaying the strained relations hitherto
existing between the Catholic missionaries on the one side
and the government on the other. Formerly to be a Catholic
was to be a Frenchman, to be a Protestant was to be English ;
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A Mission in Africa.
601
and the English, possessing power of arms, soon became the
superior attraction. Bishop Hanlon is whole-souled and just;
it has been said that "he 'is like St. Paul— a little man with a
great soul and a big beard." In an accompanying photograph
he sits before his tent, which has just been erected to test its
fitness preparatory to an extensive trip into a northern branch
Bishop Hanlon and his Pariy.
of his vicariate. The father appointed to be his companion
stands to the right, before another tent.
You ask how one gets out to this far-away place. That
needs a good many words to tell. First you sail to Africa*
Then you go by rail on the road from Mombasa on the coast
to the Lake Victoria Nyanza, a distance of eight hundred
miles, the road having been completed with permanent rails to
within forty miles of the lake. Where the train travels on
temporary rails, it is safe enough if one goes very slowly;
and though sometimes the cars go off the track, this causes
no other trouble than the labor of pulling them on again. At
the lake a small steamer, having one cabin that will bold three
persons, has to be previously engaged for the transport of a
party ; those who cannot be accommodated on the first trip
being forced to wait a week until it returns for hen^. Whin
VOL. Lxxix, — 39 r^^^^T^
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6o2 A Mission in Africa. L^ug.,
the party is landed on the far side of the lake they must then
travel on foot, all boxes and cases being taken on the heads
and backs of the natives, to the Mission Hill, which is called
Nsambya. Uganda has seven hills; the government holds one,
the native king another, Protestant missionaries a third, and
the Catholics, like a great primitive Christian commturity,
inhabit a fourth.
The climate is simply delightful. On Pisilm Sunday the
thermometer registered '' summer heat,'' but usually it is about
seventy degrees in the sisters' community room. Outside,
during midday, the direct rays of the sun are almost un-
bearable, and no one goes out. One of the accompanying
photographs shows some leafless trees. The foliage falls at
certain seasons, and after one or two months the trees again
put forth tiny leaves, looking much like our own trees in
early spring. When in full leaf they are decorated with bird^'
nests, so numerous that they might easily be taken for the
fruit of the trees. Owing to the climate, white veils and
habits are worn by the sisters. The native women dress in
" bark-cloth," which they fasten about their bodies just under
the arm-pits, letting it fall to the feet, and securing it with a
girdle made of the outer fibre of the banana- tree. The bare
neck and arms being almost the color of the garment, give no
shock to any one. Indeed, these women are exceedingly
modest and careful, and the day their simplicity is taken from
them will be a day of evil knowledge. Those who have babies
carry the little ones tied to their backs with this '' bark- cloth/'
so called because it is the bark of a tree, growing here quite
as abundantly as the other common tree, the banana, which
serves as food and for many other uses. The people of cer-
tain districts prepare the bark in much the same way that rags
are treated for paper- making. The pulp is beaten on flat
stones into sheets, which, if they have to be joined, are sewed
together with a needle made of wood and a grass which is
very strong and may be split as needed.
And oh 1 that native language. The attempt to master it
is surely one of the greatest crosses of the missionary. Nouns
are divided into nine classes which have prefixes of their own ;
and adjectives, pronouns, and verbs take the same prefixes as
the noun. To the first class belong reasonable beings, states,
dignitaries, illnesses commencing with "ka," a few fruits and
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I904.]
A MISSION IN AFRICA.
603.
K*
^
f
PP^^.n *f^.
^^^
BK^i^'^A^^^
j^^^fl
V^^
■ .
w
^KS^^^^IL^
Ipii
i
Missionaries Ready for the Journey.
vegetables. The singular prefix is " mu " and the plural **ba."
Then there are all the changes to think of in the construction
of a sentence. To the " mu " (sing.) and the " mi " (plural)
belong tree, grass, time, body, snake, head, arm, lip, work,
fire, door, etc., etc. Most animals belong to the '' n " class,
" nte " being ox ; and for that class " e " is the article.
" Tono " is little, and you might suppose that •' e nte tono "
or "e tono nte" means a little ox or a young ox; but that is
where you are wrong, for, on account of a reason I have yet
to discover, *' nte nto " is the correct form. ** Kambi katono "
is a little knife ; ** kinto kitono," a little thing ; *' kintu
kiwingi," a good thing ; '' mukazi muringi," a good woman ;
"bakazi barungi," good women. The people cannot end a
word with a consonant. One of the sisters says : " I have
tried them ever so many times, but young and old add a
vowel to end any word we have taught them." Sister Agnes
is "Sisitara Agnesi)" and they imitate some of our words,
saying to us, " Be quickee, comie heri, yessee."
The natives are wonderfully reverent in church. " Indeed,
I often feel," says one of the sisters, *' that it is we who
should learn from them how to pray devoutly." The minute
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6o4
A MISSION IN AFRICA,
[Aug.,
the priest commences Mass, a "headman" begins in Uganda
the Mass prayers, which all know " by heart," so that they
keep with the celebrant during the whole Sacrifice. When, at
6 A. M., the Angelus is beaten on native drums, this headman
begins morning prayers with the Angelus. Mass follows, and
if many receive Holy Communion, the usual prayers of thanks-
giving are said aloud, and all remain from fifteen to twenty
minutes for their thanksgiving. After this, at about seven
o'clock, an instruction is given daily, on the principal truths
and the catechism, in the church. Only the baptized are per-
mitted in the church. At 8:30 A. M. daily the catechumenate
is filled with those who are commencing to prepare for bap-
The Morning Cla^s.
tism. At 2:30 P. M. those who have passed through the
morning classes are prepared and instructed. Each class lasts
one hour and a half. At 5:40 the baptized assemble to make
their visit to the Blessed Sacrament and recite the Angelus
and night prayers. When the drum c-alls them to church for
the visit, men and women may be sometimes seen kneeling
immediately in the road or field, or wherever they may be at
the moment, reciting together the prayers appointed. Often
one hears singing, and the tune is sure to be a hymn, for no
others are known.
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A Mission in Africa.
605
The Cathedral op Sts. Peter and Paul.
The church is dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul. The
heavy roof of thatch is supported by many tall palm posts,
which, with the ceiling and the walls, are all covered with
reeds, dried stalks of elephant grass, bound one after the other
around the posts with the outer covering of the banana- tree,
which is really like thin leather. What an amount of patient
labor it represents I The ceiling is a lovely piece of palm
plaiting; the floor is earth, covered with grass, and there are
no pews or seats of any kind. The natives kneel, stand, or
squat during the services, the men on one side, the women on
the other. On the great festivals of the church throngs come
to spend the week here who cannot always come to Sunday
Mass, as they live several days' journey on foot from Mengo,
Palm Sunday witnessed a most inspiring scene. Each native
brought an offering of palms, a portion to be blessed for him-
self and the rest to be placed in the palm posts of the church.
Only those who know the splendor of these African palms can
imagine the impressive beauty of the scene, when the immense
crowds — for whom the church, though spacious, is by no
means large enough — were kneeling among the straw-colored
posts decorated with waving palms!
At six o'clock Mass, on one day while I was present^
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6o6
A Mission in Africa.
[Aug.,
about one thousand of the natives received Holy Communion,
their bare feet making no sound on the grass- covered floor of
earth, as they walked softly to the altar, and the rustle of
their bark garments reminding one of Minnehaha and the forest
primeval. The zeal of the people may be illustrate^ by the
following incident: One morning, after the usual large number
had received Holy Communion, and had all departed to their
places, I was much surprised to observe the reverend father
come a few steps out of the sanctuary. Turning my head, I
saw a young man carried by his friends close to the altar
rail. There they raised him up, and while kneeling reverently,
with joined hands, he received Holy Communion. Two men
knelt behind, with hands ready to support him. After kneel-
ing thus two minutes, the gentle yielding warned his friends
that he needed their help. Down on the floor they laid him.
The Convent of Franciscan Nuns.
covering the fragile form with the native bark cloth, and as
he lay prostrate there the all but dying lips whispered loving
thanks to God. "Ah," exclaimed one of the sisters, after she
had offered him her little cup of medicine, '' these dear, gentle
savages, what lessons they teach us of faith, simplicity, and love ! "
An accompanying photograph shows the convent where the
Franciscan sisters live. Four watchmen are stationed on the
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I904.]
A Mission in Africa.
607
Th£ Quekn Mother.
porch as sentinels each night, so, though frequently awakened,
by the cries of some hyena or barking fox prowling around in
the vicinity, the nuns feel really very safe. Sometimes, it
seems, they are awakened in the middle of the night by the*
loud beating, of drums, due to the fact that the Queen Mother
has taken it into her royal head that she would like to hear a
noise.
Nalinya — the Queen Sister — is an interesting subject at
present, for, having recently become of age, she immediately
announced her intention of becoming a Roman Catholic.
Naturally, her Protestant protectors strongly opposed this, step,
and the prime minister, Appolo Kagwa, brought her to his
own home, and practically kept her a prisoner there. Previous
to this move he had forbidden her to attend the^Catholic
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6o8 A MISSION IN Africa. [Aug.,
Church. Not heeding this command, she left her home one
day to assist at Mass, and was running along the high road,
when men appointed to watch her overtook her and knocked
her down. The royal princess rose, and with all the force of
her strong young arm paid back the offender, allowing gene-
rous interest I During her imprisonment, meat — an awful temp-
tation to these people! — was repeatedly offered to her on Fri-
day; but this she refused, saying: ''No, I am a Catholic,
therefore I do not eat meat on Friday." When threatened
with poverty and with the refusal of further gifts of cloth
. from her Protestant friends, she said: ''Very well; I can wear
bark cloth, or, at need, I can sell some of my cows and buy
it I" To try her, the bishop said he did not want to receive
her into the Church, when instantly she dropped upon her
knees and, clasping her hands, said, " Sebo ! (Father) I want
the religion of my mother ! I want Jesus Christ, and he is
not in the Protestant Church." Her mother has been another
St. Monica in her prayers that this child of hers might be
brought into the true fold. After a time the commissioner
learned of her earnest desire and of the opposition that had
been made. Word was sent to Appolo Kagwa to let her
alone, and she is now being prepared to enter the Catholic
Church. Of her own accord, she has chosen " Mary " and
will answer to no other name.
The school house is neither large nor substantial enough for
present needs; but Bishop Hanlon hopes very soon to build
with native bricks one that will be much more suitable. At
present there are no desks, no benches, and in fact nothing
except a small picture of Our Lady of Good Counsel, a read-
ing chart, a writing chart, and a blackboard. The floor is earth
covered with hay, and upon it the diligent pupils squat in
" suns," as they call the circles. Every round thing is a sun ;
they call the yolk of an egg the sun of the egg. In the
afternoon class, seated on their mats in the front row, are wo-
men of Mwanga's court, all those in the back being simple
peasants who are most deferential to the "ladies" and would
not presume to approach the mats on which the latter sit apart.
These women have exactly the same lessons as the morning
class of small children, and are equally diligent in making
strokes and pot-hooks. There is scarcely ever a word of cor-
rection needed, all are so anxious to— as they express it —
'* catch wisdom " of the Europeans. So anxious arc they in
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I904]
A Mission in Africa
609
Members of the Aptern.oon Class.
their sweet simplicity of soul that they may be seen running
to school, and actually trembling from head to foot for very
fear of not being allowed into class if late.
The government forms no small obstacle in the path of the
African missionary. The present king — the youngest, by the
way, in the world — is a little boy, Doudie (David) Chua, about
six or seven years of age, the son of Mwanga, a man distin-
guished for his senseless cruelties and disgusting practices.
There is a man now working on the sisters' farm who had
both his eyes put out and an ear cut off by order of King
Mwanga in punishment of some alleged contempt shown to
his Royal Highness. Very many in the neighborhood bear
similar marks of cruelty. The C. S. M. has charge of the
present little king. The British exercise a protectorate over
him and his kingdom, and have established a sort of parliament,
which he opens regularly with much pomp. Little Doudie
speaks English and gives state dinners occasionally, at which
there is a curious mixture of African and European customs.
The Queen Mother is a Protestant, but visits the bishop and
has paid several visits to the mission sisters. The prime minis-
ter (one of three in chjirge of ,the young king) is Appolo Kagwa,
no friend to Catholics. The next in rank is Stanislaus Mug-
wanya, a model Catholic. o,,.ed b, Googk
6io
A MISSION IN AFRICA.
[Aug.,
Prince Joseph. Appolo Kagwa. Prince Augustine.
Among the interesting photographs here presented are those
of the princes Joseph and Augustine, who are two very good
boys beloved by all the people. Both understand English,
Joseph speaking the language very fluently indeed. Bishop
Hanlon is their official guardian. Formerly it was the custom
to choose a new king immediately on the death of the old
monarch, and also to elect one prince to succeed in case of
death and to kill all the oth^r princes. As these princes were
born they were guarded very carefully and kept quite apart
from all others until choice was made and the others killed.
As the king had numerous wives, it can be easily understood
that much blood had to be shed in order that any one prince
might be advanced to the throne, and once there his position
was most precarious. The traditional law was that princesses
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1904.] A MISSION IN AFRICA. 611
should never marry ; and, as a consequence, they roved about
the country fancy free, leading lives that were anything but
edifying.
After King Mtsea died, Prince Augustine's father, Kiwewa,
ruled for forty days. He was killed by Joseph's father, Karema,
who ruled for a short time, and was in turn driven out by
Mwanga, who had been king before until expelled by the
Mohammedans. Karema went to Unyoro, where he died later
on of small-pox. Many princes and' princesses were burned
at the time, and the Christian missionaries driven from the
country. Joseph's father had a number of wives, one of whom
was Nabiboge (Josefina), who had but one son. When her
husband was deposed, she fled with her child to the southern
end of Lake Victoria (Bukumbi), fearing for her child's life, as
there had been an intimation that peace was impossible with
so many princes about. Augustine was also his mother's only
child, and when her husband was burned she fled with the
boy to an island, but was later taken to Bukumbi, where both
received baptism.
Through the influence of the White Fathers (French mis-
sionaries) both princes and their mothers subsequently returned
eleven years ago and were guarded by soldiers. When Bishop
Hanlon arrived in 1894 they were placed under his guardian-
ship by Sir Harry Johnston, who was special commissioner at
that time. On the first of April, 1894, it was decided that
the children of Karema and Kiwewa could not succeed to the
throne for the following reasons: i. They had been taken far
from their own country; 2. They had been out of their coun-
try a long time; 3. They had been educated by foreigners.
This was passed in the native parliament (Lukiko) and was
consented to by Colonel Colville, then in charge. It may or
may not have been on account of their religion — the action
has never been revoked by parliament, but through the in-
strumentality of Sir Harry Johnston this piece of bigotry
seems to have been annulled.
With such traditions and customs, and despite the encour-
agement offered by the devotion and willingness of the poor
savage, life in this African tropic must be difficult enough;
yet one of the sisters declared : " I was never so happy in all
my years in the convent as now. Bishop Hanlon is a whole-
souled, just father to us, and we are glad to work at any-
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6l2
A Mission in Africa.
[Aug.,
Princes Joseph and Augusiine.
thing, because we realize the privilege bestowed upon us. It
IS a life of real peace, hard work, and prayer. I love the
work with its simplicity and without a tarnish of worldliness."
Those who work there truly toil for no earthly fame, com-
plying in perfect simplicity with the Master's injunction. They
have given up all the attractions of their native country and
undertaken, even at the risk of life, to provide barbarians,
whom they have never seen, with what the world may regard
as useless, but we know to be the very food of the noblest
spirits — God, immortality, the example of Jesus Christ, and
the church's means of grace.
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1904.] The Ghosts of the abbey. 613
THE GHOSTS OF THE ABBEY.
BY AGNES O'FARRELL ROWE,
Author of " Strangely Met" " Come," ** A Shadowed Life " etc,
|T was a very old, rather tumbled-down and
dilapidated- looking house. For years it had
borne the reputation of being haunted and was
supposed to have been a monastery in days
gone by.
The country people declared that the monks were to be seen
nightly about the grounds, telling their beads, while one old
friar in particular was reported to traverse certain corridors^
and visit p^rts of the house in a manner which most decidedly
seemed to point to the fact that some secret weighed heavily
upon his mind.
This good spirit was described by those who alleged they
had seen him as wearing a coarse brown habit fastened at the
waist by a cord, the hood, or cowl, being always well drawn
forward so as to conceal the head. A low murmuring sound,
generally heard some distance off as though to warn people of
the approach of the supernatural visitor, was supposed to
accompany ^ach apparition.
** No, I cannot say that I have been honored by a visit from
his reverence myself." said our host, in answer to some of the
questions asked; "but my daughter has seen this visitor twice,
according to her story, but has never mustered sufficient
courage to challenge him. I must acknowledge that we have
all heard rather strange, uncanny sounds at times, but have
seen nothing, so we put the peculiar noise down to no more
romantic source than the scuttling of water rats." In spite
of Mr. White's assertion that he saw some dark object hiding
among the ruins of the old abbey church a few nights pre-
viously, the major still remained an unbeliever and could not
be raised to sufficient enthusiasm to head the search party
which we intended to institute.
Both my friend and I had fully made up our minds that if
such a person as the monk existed we would unearth him
during these few holidays. Now, I was only a young^medical
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6i4 The Ghosts of the Abbey. [Aug.,
student whose head for some time had been far more full of love
for pretty Ella Leigh, Jack's sister, than it was of either study
or medicine. According to Jack's own arrangement that
night we slipped from the house long after all the more sober-
headed inmates were asleep, and having hidden ourselves
among the ruins, waited for the first appearance of the ghost.
Meantime Ella Leigh lay awake thinking of all the stories
that she had ever heard in connection with their new home.
It was only of late years that the old Abbey had been pur-
chased by her father, and now that she had finished school and
was at liberty to indulge in a little romance of this sort she
found it very interesting to hear the different stories told by
• the neighboring peasants.
To her it seemed not an improbable thing that the monks
should still haunt their earthly home. What more likely than
that their relics and valued church treasure were concealed
somewhere about, hidden from the time of the Reformation?
Perhaps they were but waiting for the arrival of one of their
own faith who would have courage to listen to them, and to
whom they could divulge their secret and thus earn a much-
needed rest.
At length, tired out, the weary lids closed, and she fell into
a heavy slumber. Suddenly she awoke with the feeling that
she was not alone. She raised herself on her elbow and looked
around. The bright moonlight streamed in through the window
and cast a hallowed radiance about the room. It seemed to the
girl that the curtains of her little bed parted and a monk in a
brown habit, his head bent forward and his hands joined in an
attitude of prayer, stood before her.
With a terrible feeling of horror upon her Ella lay watch-
ing him, spell-bound with amazement, scarcely daring to breathe
lest his attention might be attracted towards herself.
The mysterious figure stood for some time as though
expecting the girl to address him, but all her boasted courage
seemed to have deserted her. She only stared with wildly
terrified eyes upon him, while her tongue, with which she would
fain have summoned help, seemed to cleave to the roof of her
mouth and was unable to perform its ofHce.
For fully • five minutes, which seemed hours to her, the
^ figure stood ; then, seeing no advance likely to be made on
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I904-] TJRE Ghosts of the abbey, 615
her part, the monk raised his head and looked straight into
the eyes of the girl. A pleading expression passed over his
pale, haggard countenance as he fixed a pair of piercing eyes
upon her, and then slowly and solemnly made a movement
with his long, bony fingers motioning her to rise and follow
him.
During this interval some of her old courage and daring
had returned. It was not likely if this was a visitor from another
world that he would want to harm her; besides, was not
this the opportunity for which she had often longed ? Now
that it had arrived surely she must do something. Terribly
frightened and shivering in every limb, though trying her best
to be brave and if possible to learn what it all meant, the girl
instinctively followed.
Her guide did not seem to walk, but rather glided along
as though floating on air. Still keeping her courage well to
the fore, the girl pressed on, closely following him as he
traversed the landing outside her room. Pausing at last before
an alcove which was quite big enough to hold the full- sized
stature of a man, her strange guide paused.
Here, to her astonishment, she saw that he moved a bidden
spring which caused the statue to revolve slowly, and a large
open panel revealed itself to view. This the monk also opened
by means of a spring, and disclosed beyond a dark passage and
flight of steps. Once more that mysterious figure turned and
looked full upon his companion, as if to make sure that she
was followiog; then, entering the aperture with the astonished
girl still closely following at his heels, the monk sped on, his
brown habit floating around him and his feet, though encased
in sandals, seeming never to touch the floor.
Suddenly he stopped. Ella glanced around, but was unable
to recognize the spot as any which she had visited before.
The place in which she found herself was a long, narrow pas-
sage, and opening from either side of it were a number of
entrances. Pushing open a door to his left the monk entered.
Ella followed and, to her astonishment, found herself in a small
underground chapel or crypt.
Once more a strange, half-fearful feeling of awe took pos-
session of the girl. She turned to look for her guide, but he
was now nowhere to be seen ; he had disappeared as myste-
riously as he had come !
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6i6 THE Ghosts of the Abbey. [Aug.,
As we two waited alone among the ruins in the dead of
night a strange feeling of awe crept over us. I have often
heard that moonlight has a strange, rather weird effect upon
some natures; but whether this is true or not as regards my
own case I would not like to say.
It was a beautiful night ; not a breath of wind stirred among
the wild bushes or dense undergrowth that covered the ruins
of the Abbey; the air was not exactly cold, but somehow the
immovable posture had caused our limbs to ache and grow
stiff. We were both about tired of thp position, and began to
wish that we were once more cozily tucked in between the
sheets, when suddenly a strange object attracted our attention.
From behind a huge pillar of stone a weird figure arose
and made its way towards us. When our astonishment had
been overcome by a little common sense, and we could collect
our scattered senses, we saw that this mysterious creature was
enveloped in a long, brown habit caught in at the waist by a
cord.
Somehow it did not surprise us that the object on which
our eyes rested resembled in every particular the ghost of which
we had heard so much. It was without doubt the very spirit
who was supposed to haunt the Abbey. Now was our time, I
told myself; but, in spite of this feeling of joy that the mys-
tery was about to be cleared up, a strorger and a stranger
one of awe crept over me. What if after .all there was more
in this than we imagined? Could it really be possible that
this monk was no earthly visitor, but a spirit from the other
world ?
Almost at that instant, as the thought entered my mind, I
was startled by a low, piercing shriek. For a moment noth-
ing but the horror and unearthliness of that weird cry filled
my mind; then, before either Jack or myself had recovered
sufficiently to act or speak, the solitary figure suddenly dis-
appeared, and as it did so a number of objects, all clad in
similar attire, showed themselves.
So sudden had been their appearance that it seemed to us,
the astonished onlookers, as though these figures had arisen
from the earth just as they stood.
With a barrow full of something before them, every man,
by a given signal, took up his load and began to move on.
Down towards the river the small procession slowly wended its
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1904.] The Ghosts of the abbey. 617
way, and certainly had we been but a little more superstitious
we must assuredly have fancied that the procession of silent
workers, with their heavy loads, only represented the already
much- talked- of monks, who were supposed to be engaged in
carting the utensils for the rebuilding of their former mon-
astery.
As the long line of religious began to disappear in the
distance Jack Leigh turned excitedly towards his friend, say-
ing: "I have it all now; part of the mystery at least is ex-
plained to me. ..."
But before another word had escaped his lips a piercing
scream, long, heartrending and full of terror, reached our
ears from some unknown, unseen, though evidently nearby
quarter.
With the cry of " Follow me ; some one is in need of our
help,'' Jack dashed out from our hiding-place, and a moment
later had reached the ruined wall where we had first seen
those mysterious brown figures. Imagine our horror as we
reached the spot to see a girl's head and shoulders suddenly
appear above a hole or trap door in the ground, while her
agonized screams still continued to rend the midnight air with
cries for help.
In a moment we had seen how things were, and I rushed
forward just in time to trip forward the huge monster in
monastic attire who was almost upon the heels of that terri-
fied fugitive. Another few seconds found me grappling for
very life with a being who I soon found to my cost was
anything but a spirit, being instead a rather substantial mon-
ster of flesh and blood. It is not at all unlikely that my part
of the story might have terminated rather abruptly during this
encounter, for my antagonist, being a burly and desperate
fellow, was determined, if possible, to do for me, had not my
friend suddenly laid down his own fair burden and come to
my assistance.
At last, having overcome the supposed monk, I turned upon
my friend with the words, " What docs it all mean ? " For
answer Jack led me to the spot where the still insensible girl
lay. A terrible cry broke from my .lips as I recognized in
that unconscious form, clad only in night attire with a morn-
ing gown cast over her, the unconscious figure of the girl I
loved — Jack's sister, Ella.
VOL. LXXIX._40 DigitizedbyGoOgle
6i8 THE Ghosts of the Abbey. [Aug.,
To carry the only half- conscious girl home, rouse the house
and return with more help, was our next move. Upon hear-
ing Ella's strange story, it was proved without a doubt that
the girl had in her dream risen from her bed and followed,
as she thought, her supernatural visitor through the secret
panel by the statue. The shock she received on finding that
her saintly guide had disappeared and she was alone had been
the cause of her sudden awakening.
Ella's first impulse was to get back to her room as quickly
as she could; but seeing that she was in a strange place, she
was frightened and glanced curiously around. The apartment
was lighted by small, lantern- like lamps, which hung from the
wdtls and ceiling. Sufficient illumination was given by this
means to show all that the room contained. From its appear-
ance it might have been a sacristy, so well was the place filled
with the vessels of silver and gold usually used in the services
of the church. There were also a pile of rich satin and silk
vestments, a quantity of old lace, valuable plush and silk cur-
tains, as well as a number of heavily worked gold and silver
candelabra and other costly ornaments.
The sight of all these beautiful and costly things so took
away Ella's breath that for a few moments she stood gazing
around her in delight. Suddenly she was recalled to a sense
of her strange position by the sound of a heavy rumbling
noise, accompanied by the patter of feet. Fear for the moment
held her spell-bound; but the steps instead of drawing nearer
faded away in the distance, and thoughts for her personal
safety rushed before her mind.
Where she really was she had not the slightest idea, but
to make her escape from this strange place was now her only
desire. Leaving the chapel or store-room in which she had
found herself on awakening, she made . her way along a low,
narrow passage^ and as she did so her heart stood still once
more, for in the distance at the end of the passage she saw a
man's figure making his way towards her.
What prompted her to act as she did she never knew, but
the sight of this rough, burly-looking customer in the monks'
habit seemed to strike terror into her heart. Taking to her
feet she ran with all her might down the passage, which sud-
denly seemed to terminate in a long ladder which led to an
open space or trap door. Seeing the. bright moonlight stream-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Ghosts of the abbey. 619
ing down, Ella made at once for it, and raised at the same
moment that cry for help which brought her brother and de-
voted admirer so quickly to her side.
That same night the supposed monks were all arrested.
They proved to be a most dangerous gang of church robbers
who, having found the secret and subterranean passages con-
nected with the old Abbey, had so worked upon the supersti-
tion of the country folk that by adopting the garb of the
monks they were enabled to ply their nefarious work unsus-
pected and by the aid of a small boat landed their sacrilegious
booty with ease.
The manner in which so many great church robberies had
so far managed to pass undetected was solved at last, and
things were recognized and claimed by their owners which had
been brought some hundreds of miles by the wily thieves.
Evidently the secret entrance from the major's house was
not known to the gang; for had it been so, there is but little
doubt that they would have made use of it to help themselves
to that gentleman's property. Sure enough they found the
secret panel at the old statue just as Ella described it from
her dream, while buried among the ruins was found the little
crypt or secret chapel in which the false monks now had stored
their ill-gotten goods. ^
Whether the girl really was favored by a visitor from the
other world, or whether it was but the outcome of a highly
sensitive and imaginative mind whose thoughts were dwelling
constantly on the old legend, I do not presume to give an
opinion. I simply state the facts as they are and inform the
reader that Ella Leigh was never troubled with somnambulism
again, nor was the ghost ever afterwards seen within the pre-
cincts of the Abbey.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
620 COLUMBA AND THE DOVE. [Aug.,
©OLUMBA AND JPHB DOYB.
BY p. J. COLEMAN.
fN exile far from Derry's hill
It ached the sweet Columba sore
He nevermore might gaze his fill
On Erin's loved and lovely shore.
He nevermore might hear the finch
In Fanad's wood, beside his home,
Nor watch round craggy cape and inch
The surges of Lpugh Swilly foam.
No more might see Ben Bulban fling
About his form his cloak of cloud,
Nor royal Kdar, like a king,
Blaze out in heathery purple proud. *
Nor see the shining salmon leap
The cascade white of Assaroe,
Nor net the trout, nor hear the sheep
Bleat in the meadows of Raphoe.
For so decreed the penance sore
That drave him forth an exiled man :
To see his native land no more,
While grass was green and water ran.
But daily, far from Derry's hill.
He walketh where the breakers roar.
And far through mist and sea-fog still
He watches from lona's shore.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
.1904.] COLUMBA AND THE DOVE. 62 1
And gazeth o'er the ocean dim
Through smoking ^pume and drifting spray,
Where on the sunset's golden rim
His Erin lieth far away.
With arrowy sleet his eyes are blind,
The needles of the tempest sting;
When lo ! against the northern wind
What Cometh up on weary wing?
What cometh fiaom the distant south/
The holy south where Erin lies?
A prayer leaps to Columba's mouth,
The tears well up within his eyes.
** My little bird from Derry's oaks,
Christ Jesu send him safe ashore,
That breasts the breeze with valiant strokes
Of wounded wing and pinion sore!'*
So prays he, and through storm and sleet
It wins to land — oh, blessed thing !
An Irish dove, and at his feet
It droppeth with bedraggled wing.
The tears are on Columba's cheek.
** O little wanderer from home,
What dost thou in lona bleak?,
Why wingest thou across the foam?
" Why dost thou leave thine Irish nest
'Neath Derry's hill by reedy Foyle?
Oh foolish little bird, to breast
The wind that blusters over Moyle!"
" But thou, assuaged of grief and pain,
Shalt win again to Erin's shore.
O happy dove, to see again
The fields my feet may tread no more!"
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
622 COLUMBA AND THE DOVE. [Aug.,
So spake the Saint with tearful word,
The while with gentle hand he strook
Its plumage soft and raisied the bird
And to his convent's shelter took.
And fed it there and brought it forth,
And set it free with happy smile,
And bade it hasten from the north
And win its way to Erin's isle.
** O little wanderer from home !
Go, hasten hence and take my love
O'er golden leagues of sunset foam
To Burrow's hill and Berry's grove.
** 'Neath Berry's oaks, God's angels, go,
A shining host in garb of gold.
To Berry's oaks and sweet Raphoe
O take my blessing manifold!"
Up rose the dove in joyous flight
And winged its way unto the south,
As sure as by a beacon-light
The fisher gains the harbor's mouth.
And long with wistful eyes the Saint
Watched by the ocean's margin gray
The bird become more faint and faint
Until it vanished far away. ,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I9P4.] ABBOT GASQUET, O.S,B. 623-
ABBOT GASQUET, p.S.B.
BY REV. ETHELRED L. TAUNTON.
[he name of Abbot Gasquct, the learned abbot-
president of the venerable English Congregation,
is known wherever the English tongue is spoken
as that of an historian of deep and wide knowl-
edge. He is more. A large-minded man with
infinite tact and sympathy, he has made his influence felt in
the councils of the church, and counts among his sincere
admirers all from high to low who come into contact with
him. His is the leading personality not only in his own Con-
gregation of Benedictines, but in the English Church; and he
was pointed out at home as a man whose talents made him
fitted to succeed to the metropolitan church of Westminster.
He, a monk, received the votes of the Westminster Chapter,
which has the privilege of recommending names to the Holy
See for the episcopal vacancy ; and the bishops of the province
gladly seconded his name, for they have the fullest confidence
in him as a leader. The . one man least disappointed at the
final outcome was the abbot himself ; fo^ an archbishopric
would have severed him from the work he does so well, and
no one at present is to be found capable of tilling the unique
position he so worthily sustains. Such a man might be lost in
the routine work of the episcopate. As Abbot Gasquet is on
his way to the States to fulfill a long cherished plan of visiting
the youthful arid vigorous Church of North America, some
account of his life and works will be of special interest. The
writer has known Dom Aidan, as the old familiar name is, for
something like thirty-four years, when he was a boy at
Downside school, and the future abbot flrst returned from the
novitiate.
Francis Aidan Gasquet is a Londoner by birth. Born
October 5, 1^46, at 26 Euston Place, where his father, a
medical man, was in practice, the abbot comes, as his name
would suggest, from an old French family long resident at
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
624 Abbot Gasquet, O.S.B. [Aug.,
Toulon. His grandfather was one of the imigris^ and settled
in London, where his son, Raymond, qualified in 1811 for the
medical profession and married an English lady. The third
son of this union is the abbot. In the late fifties Mr. Gasquet
removed to Bayswater, where Dr. Manning had lately founded
the Oblates of St. Charles. Here the son used to serve the
Mass of the father-superior, and began a friendship with the
great churchman which lasted until the end of the cardinal's
life. In due course the boy went to Downside College, and in
January, 1865, found his vocation as a monk. He entered the
novitiate at Belmont, near Hereford, where he remained for
five years, and in 1870 returned to St. Gregory's Monastery,
where he took his solemn vows and was, in due course,
ordained priest in 1874.
At Downside Dom Aidan began what was a singularly
brilliant career, and in a few years passed through almost every
administrative post, until 1878 found him elected prior of the
community. Downside in those days had no abbot, so Dom
Gasquet was the head of his Community. For eight years he
held this important post, and has left his mark on the place,
not only by the intellectual life he infused into the monastery
but also by the material additions which are the evidence of
the life within. The great minster he began ia 1880; and it
is hoped that next year, the three- hundredth anniversary of the
foundation of St Gregory's community, will find him presiding
at the consecration of the abbey church, which has taken
twenty five years to complete.
His health suffered from the long strain of the priorship,
and in 1885 he resigned and came to London, where he devoted
himself to historical research and began a close intimacy with
Mr. Edmund Bishop, one of the most learned men of Europe.
Pope Leo XIII. told him to work at history, so the British
Museum and the Record Office were soon acquainted with the
Benedictine, who became a familiar figure and a most assiduous
and careful student. In 1888 appeared the first volume of an
epoch making work, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries.
Dom Gasquet attacked and routed ignominously the Protestant
tradition and restored the good name of the monks of old,
setting in its true historical light the aims and methods pursued
by the Tudor tyrant and his creatures. At once the book was
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 ABBOT GASQUET, O.S.B. 625
hailed by all the competent critics as a roost serious and im-
portant contribution to the new science of history. Fearless
and outspoken, he has never tried to make out a case, but lets
facts speak for themselves. Cardinal Manning obtained from
Rome the doctorate for him and brought him under the special
notice of Leo XIII., who was quick to discern his worth and
statesman-like qualities.
In 1890 Dom Gasquet published a work in collaboration
with Mr. Bishop, Edward VL and the Book of Common Prayer^
a book which is used in some Anglican theological colleges as
a text-book. Other books have followed from his pen. There
has been no hurry, and each volume is a weighty and well-
balanced account. Among some of his better known works
are, The Eve of the Reformation (1900) and A Short History
of the Catholic Church in England (igo^). A new volume has
come out this year, English Monastic Life, which fully keeps
up to the high standard set by his first work.
But he was not to be left to a student's life. Three times
did the Pope summon him to Rome to consult him. He was
made a member of one of the Roman Congregations to give
him a position in Curia; and in 1896 he was appointed a
member of the Commission on Anglican Orders. How at a
critical moment he was able to serve the Holy See is well
known. It is a fact that some of his discoveries practically
settled the question. For some years he had been engaged
upon the work of reorganizing the English Benedictine Congre-
gation. I have called this congregation '^ venerable," for it is
in unbroken descent from the thirteenth century as a congre-
gation,' and is the oldest in the church. As monks the English
Benedictines can point to an unbroken succession from the
days when St. Augustine, in 597, brought the Faith of Christ
and the Rule of Benedict to English shores. When the work
of recasting constitutions, which dated from early in the seven-
teenth century, was finished, Dom Gasquet became, by the elec-
tion of his brethren. Abbot-president of the whole Congrega-
tion and revived the title of Abbot of Reading, whose last
abbot had been martyred under Henry VIII. Many smiled at
the title as peculiarly appropriate, as far as spelling goes,
for one who was so well known in the Reading Room of the
British Museum.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
626 ABBOT GASQUET, O.S.B. [Aug.,
A man of many sides, charming in manner, bright and in-
tellectual in conver4Nition, with that life and verve which comes
from his French blood, Abbot Gasquet makes friends every-
where. A high honor was recently paid him. He was unani-
mously elected a member of the Athenaeum, the most select
club in London ; and his seconder was an Anglican dignitary
of the very highest position, who only knew him by his works.
At the Athenxum Abbot Gasquet comes into contact with all
the greatest men in church and state; and he is as popular
there as elsewhere. He is well known to many of the prelates
of the American church whom he has met in Rome, and he
has found himself akin in many respects to the bishops of the
great Republic by his clear-sightedness and a wonderful facility
of touching the exact, point of any matter. He has been in-
vited to lecture at several centres of education ; and the methods
of work of a renowned scholar cannot be uninteresting to those
learned and scholarly men whom he will meet in his travels in
the States.
London, England.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Victory of Napoleon Brodeur. 627
THE VICTORY OF NAPOLEON BRODEUR.
BY J. G. MENARD.
fZILDA BROUSSEAU stood leaning dreamily on
the low rail fence which separated her father's
buckwheat field from his ample acres of pasture
land. The sun had disappeared from the west,
and the dusk of a mid- September evening, was
beginning to settle on the autumn world. The buckwheat field,
but recently shorn of its crop, showed a film of silvery mist
above its gray-brown stubble. The pasture, dotted here and
there with sheep and cattle, as motionless as statues in their
attitudes of slumber, stretched vague and mysterious into the
shadows of the vaster prairie. One sign of noonday activity
only broke its brooding quietude. A score or so of distant
dark- colored specks, turkeys in reality, betrayed a state of
ceaseless activity. All day they had flown headstrong and
perverse against the wind, and now with darkness upon them
they found themselves stranded at the farthest boundary of
the field, where they waited in angry helplessness to be driven
to their nightly shelter.
To perform this task, the last of her evening chores, Azilda
had come forth far- afield, but instead of making any move
to fulfill her mission, she remained idle at the fence, her head
upon her hand, her eyes fixed unseeing on the narrowing dis-
tance. A bat diving suddenly through the air touched her
cheek with its clawed wHig ; a mole, bent on a twilight excur-
sion, emerged from its retreat near by and tumbled terrified
over her foot ; the turkeys, their discontent of hunger and
isolation iacreasing, set up a shrill and discordant appeal for
attention ; but none of these things roused her. Lost in medi-
tation the little world of familiar incidents revolved unheeded.
After a space, however, another sound, faint and sweet, began
to mingle with the woful utterances of her flock. At first the
vague notes, rising and falling with a peculiar sighing cadence,
seemed only the voicing of the evening wind, but little by
little their volume and intensity increased, until finally in a
burst of triumphant fervor that was materially aided by a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
628 THE Victory of Napolj&on Brodeur. [Aug.,
friendly gust of wind, the cheering music of an accordion
broke the loneliness of night and distance.
The effect was magical. The turkeys, apprised of the fact
that home and habitation still existed, ceased their clamor and
drew together in an expectant row. Azilda, disturbed in her
reverie, stood erect and turned sharply in the direction whence
issued the interruption. As if aware of the attention it had
aroused, the accordion suddenly dropped its jubilant lilt and
began a tremulous air — a strain of greeting combined with
subtle entreaty, intended to touch the heart of any listener
who might be a temporary exile and awaken a desire for a
nearer participation in its humble harmonies. But in the
bosom of the lonely auditor in the fields the amorous tribute,
if such it were, met with no response. Instead a deep frown
clouded Azilda's brow, and a wave of angry color dyed her
cheeks. With a gesture of disgust she made a movement as if
to proceed still farther into the wilderness; then paused, and
slipping her hand into her pocket drew forth a letter which
she opened and spread carefully upon the rail before her.
Planting an elbow squarely on each side of the sheet, and
thrusting a finger into each ear, she fastened her eyes upon
the paper.
'' Dear Azilda," the letter ran, '' I think I am a pretty good
friend to write to you so often when, between work and fun, I
can hardly snatch a few hours' sleep. But you see I do not
forget the old days back in St. Michel, when we used to work
on the farms together. Poor Azilda I I suppose you are a
slave yet — milking, churning, spinning from morning until
night, and making an old woman of yourself before your time.
Do you still go after the turkeys every evening? It is just
about that time that I am starting in the open cars for the
park. There is dancing at the park, you know, with vaudeville
afterward, and I get home — well, never. mind the hour; I don't
want to frighten you. But you '11 be seeing these things your-
self, if you only have the courage to take my advice.
''You know what a girl can do for herself in the States.
I have been in Lowell only a year, and I 've bought two suits,
three hats, and a gold watch and chain. I pay for the watch
and chain on the installment plan — a dollar a week. They
don't seem to cost anything that way.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Victory of Napoleon Brodeur. 629
"I have steady work all the time, and I often earn five
or six dollars a week, though when I began I thought three
dollars and a half was good pay. But of course I am an
experienced hand now, and I work hard, I can tell you,
from seven o'clock in the morning until six at night. I am
boarding in the ' Corporation ' at present, in order to be near
the mill. I pay only one dollar and seventy-five cents a week,
but there are four of us in one room. If you make up your
mind to come, I will have one of the girls give you her place,
so that you can be with me. '
** And now tell me, Azilda, does that red-faced Napoleon
Brodeur still go to see you with his everlasting accordion under
his arm ? They call an accordion the * French piano ' in
Lowell. We have the real thing here. I don't se.e how you
can waste your time on that fellow when you might be earn-
ing money here with me, and seeing something of the world.
Try to come to Lowell before the winter sets in. Your father
can afford to pay your fare ; but as long as he will not, I '11
send you the money and you can return it later on. Don't
spend your life in a hole like St. Michel. Run away I I will
take care of you; and when your parents hear how well you
are getting along, they will thank me for bringing you here.
And above all, whatever you do, never throw yourself away
on that musical friend of yours. When you see the fine young
gentlemen in Lowell you will understand my feelings.
'* No more to-night. It is as hot as a furnace in my room^
and I would n't mind having a breeze from the old fields at
home blow through the * Corporation ' for an hour or so.
Imagine, Azilda I there are three hundred persons in this one
building — almost half the population of our parish. Oh ! I will
not deny that life here is a bit hard at times, but I would not
go back to Canada to live on a farm for all the world, and
neither will you when you have known the difference between
the country and the city.
" Good-by. Write soon. Ever your friend,
" Alphonsine Leduc."
As she came to the words of farewell Azilda drew her
fingers from her ears, and slowly folding the precious missal^
replaced it carefully in her pocket. The accordion still labored
diligently in the distance, but its productions no longer offended
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
630 The Victory of Napoleon Brodeur. [Aug..
her. In imagination she was already transported to that
strange, delightful region which her friend's letter pictured so
vividly. And what a letter it was I The familiar French in
which it was written seemed scarcely her own language so
interspersed was it with those odd. alluring words whose mean-
ing she could but vaguely guess. " Vaudeville/*' She had
never experienced a '' vaudeville." yet Alphonsine stood in no
awe of one.
*' Corporation ! " This was evidently the American name
for a grand hotel ; and how imposing it must be since it was
capable of accommodating such a vast number of guests. The
only establishment of the kind she had ever visited was that
of Mme. Hubert, which was her father's resting-place on his
Di^ay to market, and which bore the proud name of ''Hotel
du Canada." The Hotel du Canada was a small brick mansion,
with white galleries at each end. and a huge sign in gilt letters
suspended on rods before the door. When to^dame herself
appeared on the porch to welcome them, ushering her father
into the public room, and leading her. Azilda. into the little
parlor, where was sure to be spread some sweet cakes and a
glass of rich raspberry vinegar, the Hotel du Canada had
seemed a most entrancing resort and the centre of real city
life and excitement. But she blushed now as she compared its
modest appointments with the lavishness of the great '' Corpora-
tion." Most assuredly she had been easily pleased to find
entertainment in the fetes of a wayside inn ! As to the
*' installment plan." what undreamed-of elegancies might not
one indulge in. when the cost thereof was reduced by this
simple method of payment to a mere nothing.
Oh. the great world was certainly a fascinating place !
As for Napoleon Brodeur. she would never speak to him
again. He was. as Alphonsine had said, a horrid, red-faced
accordion-player. What if he did possess a big farm and a
fine house, and many bank-books ? What if her father and
mother did sing his praises from morning until night? He
might find some one else for a housekeeper. As for her. she
would run away. Her parents would forgive her; they would
be proud of her ambition, rather than angry at her disobedience.
Yes. she would hesitate no longer; she would plan to go at
once.
This important step decided upon. Azilda noticed with a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Victory of Napol£on Brodeur. 631
start the unmistakable darkness which now surrounded her.
Hastily she ran to her neglected charges and headed the awk-
ward creatures toward home. As she neared the house she
saw that the lamp was lighted in the front room, and gathered
around it appeared, through the uncurtained window, the
figures of her father, her mother, and Napoleon Brodeur.
They were waiting, she knew, for her to come in and add her
share to the conversation as she had obediently done two
nights of every week for ever so long. She laughed now in
the triumph of emancipation. They would not see her again
in the parlor, no matter how long they might wait.
As noiselessly as possible she let the turkeys into the barn-
yard and flung them their measure of corn. Then she crept
back to the house and made her way toward the rear door.
Before reaching it, however, she turned and stole softly back
to the window. She would have one more look at htm — the
last one-^just to make sure he was all that Alphonsine had
pictured him.
He sat in full view, in her father's big chair, with the
accordion resting on his knees. He was talking busily, but his
smile was quite doleful, and his eyes kept turning longingly in
the direction of the doon Poor Napoleon ! He certainly was
fond of her; no one could deny that. But his face-^was
it not round and red and shining ? Disgustingly so. • And his
eyes — were they not small and pale ? Undoubtedly. And,
moreover, was he not old — thirty-five or more ? Yes, alas I
Everything in fact that Alphonsine had said was only too true.
What a poor figure he would cut in that splendid city of
Lowell ! Azilda shuddered as she thought of presenting him
to the critical young ladies in the '* Corporation." Napoleon
was good, of course, and faithful, and generous; but what
mattered these qualities? He was stupid and countrified and
tiresome, and in short if he was beneath the notice of Alphon-
sine Leduc, he was also unsuited to the taste of Azilda Brous-
seau. It was quite clear that she must rid herself of him at
once and for ever.
Azilda moved from the window and walked quickly to the
back door. Entering the house on tiptoe, she succeeded in
mounting the stairs and gaining the upper story of the house
without detection. Once in her own room, she closed the door
and threw herself upon the bed to plan and think. For a long
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632 The Victory of Napol£on Brodeau. [Aug.,
time she heard the voices below droning listlessly; then steps
ascended the stairs and her mother opened the door and
looked in.
" You here, Azilda ? What is the matter with you that
you hide yourself like this ? Napoleon Brodeur is down stairs,
and has been waiting all the evening to see you. Come and
speak to him before he goes."
But Azilda said she was tired and could not see any one,
and after much grumbling her mother departed. The next
moment Napoleon was making his farewells.
When the house was finally quiet, Azilda rose, lighted her
lamp, and sat far into the night composing a letter to Alphon-
sine Leduc, in which she accepted her kind offer of a loan,
and made final arrangements for an immediate departure.
The world is such a small place after all !
Only a day's journey separates the tiny, primitive Canadian
village, lapped in its silence of long-enduring dreams, from the
huge New England city, grimy with smoke and crowded with
human toilers. Only a length of steel rail, like a sinuous, shin-
ing serpent, stretches between its placid, flock-strewn pastures
and the wilderness of dusty streets leading from hives of des-
perate, industry to other hives where the workers dwell. But
to Azilda Brousseau, it seemed as if the pointed-roofed farm-
houses and narrow highways of her native town must lie upon
the opposite side of the world.
After despatching the letter she had delayed only long
enough to receive the promised loan before taking the decisive
step. Upon arriving in the United States she had written at
once to her parents, assuring them of her safety, and begging
their forgiveness. Then she had waited in hopeful impatience
for the earliest mail which could bring her the expected assur-
ances of their continued affection and their satisfaction at the
praiseworthy ambition she had displayed. But the mail had
reached the city, and been succeeded by many others; yet no
message of comfort, no word of cheer had come to strengthen
her anxious heart. Now at the end of two short weeks she
found herself practically deserted, with the bitter knowledge
forcing itself upon her that she was a failure to the city and
the city a failure to her.
Alphonsine, it is true, had been duly on hand when the
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1904.] The Victory of Napoleon Brodeau, 633
long train steamed into the railway station. The ^subsequent
ride to her new home, the refreshing novelty of everything,
together with her friend's congratulations, served temporarily
to raise her spirits.
But no sooner had she reached the '' Corporation," and
cast one astonished glance at its vast expanse, as barren and
gloomy almost as the mill towering prison-like just across the
street, than a terrible homesickneBS had taken possession of
her and by the time she had followed Alphonsine through
many corridors and up endless flights to the hot sleeping-
room, she had felt ready to faint with terror and dismay. In
the chamber were its other occupants— two sallow, hard-featured
girls who ^yed her with curious gaze, and laughed loudly
when she burst into tears on Alphonsine's shoulder. Alphon-
sine herself, in fact, proved but a poor consoler, her sympathy
being expressed in the off- hand advice to '' eat and sleep, and
she would feel better in the morning."
Azilda had finally laid herself obediently in the hard bed.
Sleep brought her barely an hour or two of forgetfulness when
Alphonsine's voice sounded authoritatively, bidding her rise and
make ready for her visit to the mill, since to be late would
spoil her chance of getting the proihised situation. A morsel
of food was snatched hastily in the long dining-room, crowded
with a limitless number of girls all in an equally great hurry.
Almost before she realized what had happened, Azilda found
herself standing before a gruff overseer, and being 'questioned
and scrutinized as to her ability to become a mill operator.
The result was not entirely satisfactory, but upon the recom-
mendation of Miss Leduc the overseer consented to give Miss
Brousseau a trial.
Azilda was forthwith conducted to a distant part of the
building and installed at a strange-looking machine, while the
overseer poured forth a volley of instructions which she tried
desperately to grasp. But after his departure Azilda could
only sit dazed and helpless before the formidable instrument.
The room in which she sat was a long one filled with girls
busy at the same work as her own, and she could hear the
rapid click clack of the shuttles as they flew back and forth at
the touch of experienced fingers; she dared not, however, in-
terrupt any of her neighbors with a request for assistance.
She sat there helpless, longing to run away, yet afraid to
VOL. LXXIX.— 41 C c^c^cAo
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634 THE VICTORY OF NAP0L£0N BRODEAU. [Aug.,
move. At last one of the girls near by, taking pity on her
misery, came forward and with a few kind words set her awk-
ward hands in motion. After many blunders and difficulties
she managed finally to begin what was to be henceforth her
constant occupation.
The next day and those following had been a modified
repetition of the first. In the evenings, though tired and dis-
couraged, she had forced herself to accompany Alphonsine on
the pleasure jaunts of which she had heard so much. Yet
these same excursions, notwithstanding her long and eager
anticipation of them, failed to amuse her. Alphonsine's mode
of enjoyment both frightened and wearied her. The young
men and women crowding the cars, the parks, th^ dance-halls
were not like her friends at home. She shrank from their bold
glances and noisy songs and jokes, and they in turn laughed
at her countrified manners. As for the fine clothes, the gold
watches and chains, she learned now that, notwithstanding the
" installment plan," the price to be paid for the gorgeous
jewelry was long, long hours in a noisy mill, and dreary
existence between times in a crowded boarding-house.
And gradually she fell into the habit of remaining at home
while Alphonsine, and indeed the greater portion of the ** Cor-
poration, " sought nightly the customary diversions.
On one of these evenings, the same in fact which had
marked her arrival but a fortnight before, Azilda, finding her-
self, as usual, deserted by her friend, and longing for a breath
of fresh air after her day's work, crept down to the door and
seated herself upon the step. That it was an anniversary of
her unfortunate plunge into the world was not lost upon her,
and she was prepared to weep the hours away until bedtime,
a solace she often denied herself for fear of adding to her
other miseries the ridicule of Alphonsine. She felt now, how-
ever, that she could bear the strain of loneliness and fatigue
no longer, and with a sort of delight she set herself to bemoan
to the fullest extent her plight as the most unhappy creature
in all the great, glaring, noisy city.
The river, it is true, the wonderful Merrimac, lay close at
hand, but its breeze, instead of bearing the scent of distant
pine and balsam, was laden with the odors of oil and smoke,
and its yellow ripples lapped only the parched masonry of its
stone casing. The sunset was warm and red, giving no hint
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1904.] The Victory of Napoleon Brodeau. 635
of the lateness of the season ; yet the rich glow falling on the
bare brick of the high walls opposite, and glinting unbrokenly
across the dusty street, burned her tired eyes, and with a sob
she shut from them the hateful scene. At this hour at home
— ah, she knew well enough what it was like ! The sun had
left but the merest yellow streak in the west and the pastures
were slipping into the chill autumn shadows. The milking was
over and the cows were straggling back to the wide outer
regions. Their long file stretched reluctantly across the level,
and she could hear the melancholy puffings and breathings as
the wise creatures scented the oncoming discomfort of the cold
night. Nearer the house her big maple loomed proudly. It
had been as red as fire when she left, but now its leaves were
brown and dry, and here and there the bare branches were
showing themselves. The garden plot was quite desolate of
course, the marigolds withered, the mignonette gone to seed.
But the old strawberry plants near the fence, the faithful
friends that had given her so many boxes for the market in
the summer, they still were keeping a bit of bright color,
as if they were waiting for her to come back and tend them
once more before the winter frosts should quite destroy their
glory.
Oh, if she only might go back ! If she might run away
again and leave the hard work and the noisy city for ever!
But she dare not do this now. They were very, very angry
with her at home. She could picture her father's set, stern
face, and her mother's anxious eyes. Why, oh, why had she
listened to Alphonsine, who in truth was not at all the girl
she had thought her ? Why had she left her peaceful home
for this crowded refuge? why deserted her kind and generous
friends for these rude, coarse companions ? As for the young
men whom Alphonsine thought so handsome and entertaining,
she found them very unpleasant, not at all humble and sub-
missive and attentive, like — but even in her despair Azilda would
not allow herself to frame that name, which had been so long
a subject for ridicule and contempt. And yet in her heart she
knew that in the bearer thereof lay her only hope: one brief
line, one little message sent speeding to him would mean safety,
deliverance, and all that her homesick soul craved.
But no ! she would never send that message. Better to die.
Better to sink silently beneath her burdens, forgotten by all.
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636 The Victory of Napol£on Brodeau. [Aug.,
than to have recourse to such a rescuer. Yes, she would suffer
alone, and when the end came, when she was dead, they would
be sorry, and — ^but the tears were coming now in such a torrent
that she could no longer keep her eyes closed. But as she
lifted the strained lids —
" Napoleon I "
She gasped the word brokenly, and then sat staring at
what was, what must be, of course, an apparition, a ghost, a
phantom which her melancholy dreaming had conjured up at
the final moment of her despair. But suddenly a familiar laugh
rang out delightedly, a familiar voice spoke words of greeting,
a familiar form seated itself beside her, and she knew it was no
wraith but Napoleon himself who had appeared thus strangely
and unexpectedly. The surprise, the relief, the joy were too
great for any commonplace utterances. She could only cry:
" O Napoleon I is it really you, and have you come to
take me home ? "
An hour later found them still sitting upon the doorstep,
for indeed there was no other place in which to converse
quietly. The tears were gone from Azilda's eyes and a happy
flush brightened her cheek. A new feeling of contentment and
esteem filled her heart as she contemplated with clearer under-
standing the face beside her. Was it red of hue ? It might
be, yet its color seemed now only appropriate to health and
ease and happiness. Was it round and fat ? Yes, but its
smile was only the more expansive and benevolent. As for
the eyes, if they were not the most perfect in the world, they
were yet capable of expressing a very satisfactory sort of
affection and respect.
Napoleon had decided that they were to return to Canada
on the morning train, and there was to be no more mill, no
more Corporation boarding-house, but instead, within a month
at the w^ty latest, a grand wedding with festivities to last two
or even three days, as befitted Napoleon's standing in the
parish. He had also given her the news from home. He had
told her how angry and unforgiving her father had been, com-
manding them all to leave Azilda to her fate, since she could
show no better gratitude to her parents than to run away from
her good home in that heartless manner. He had told her how
her mother at first refused to give him, Napoleon, the letter
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1904.] The Victory of Napoleon Brodeau. 637
they had received, but finally consented to do so, and how,
upon reading it, he had set off at once for Lowell, feeling sure
that the life which pleased Alphonsine Leduc would be but
poorly suited to his little friend, in which conclusion Azilda
could but acknowledge he displayed a sagacity fully equal in
proportion to his other good qualities.
On the day of her marriage Mme. Napoleon Brodeur
received another communication from her erstwhile companion
in the United States. It did not cover many pages, and its
style could hardly be considered effusive:
"Dear Azilda:
"I suppose by the time you get this letter you will be.
showing yourself off before the parish as the rich Mrs. Brodeun ,
Oh, how I pity you! the wife of that monster, and tied to an.
accordion for the rest of your days! You did not appreciate,
city life, but then you always were a baby — if I may say it^i
" I cannot send you any wedding present, for I have justj
bought a fur collar and muff, which I must pay for at a dol-
lar a week, so you see I shall be short of money for a long
time. However, you will never miss my humble gift.
"Hoping you will not regret the step you have taken, I
remain, Ever your friend, A. L."
When she had finished reading this cordial missive, Azilda
remained silent for a long time. Something in the wording of
the brief lines aroused a sudden suspicion in her mind. Could
it be that — but no ! Alphonsine hated Napoleon. Did she
not seize every opportunity to ridicule his person and his
manners? And yet, if she was not so sure of her friend's
sentiments, she would say that Alphonsine vt^s— jealous.
She resolved to put the question to her husband.
" Napoleon," she said, when the opportunity offered, — "Napo-
leon, did Alphonsine Leduc ever want to marry you herself?"
Napoleon winked an expressive wink and smiled an ex-
pressive smile.
" I should not have dared to ask her," he replied am-
biguously.
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638 French Home-Life in the 14.TH Century. [Aug.,
FRENCH HOME-LIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
BY DARLEY DALE.
"Autres temps autres moeurs."
|N the fourteenth century there lived in France a
certain man, whose name has not come down to
us, who left behind him a book called Le Mena-
gier de Paris, which he wrote for the guidance
of his young wife, a child of fifteen, which was
edited and published in 1846 by Jerome Pichon, who added
an excellent preface and various explanatory notes. This book
gives such a good idea of the habits of the French middle
classes in the fourteenth century, and contains so much good
common sense, illustrated by various amusing stories, that a
brief account of it may be interesting, even if it only serves
to emphasize the difference between fourteenth- century and
twentieth century notions of the duties of wives to their
husbands and households.
Le Menagier^ was written about the year 1393, immedi-
ately after the author, then a man of at least sixty, had mar-
ried an orphan girl of fifteen from another province. At this
time Charles V., who was a great patron of literature and
encouraged every one to write on the subject he knew best
and liked best, was king of France, and this book is one of
the results of the literary tendency of the age. The author,
whom M. Pichon describes on the title-page as a Bourgeois
Parisien, evidently belonged to the bourgeoisie, though a man
of good education, for he tells his wife, who was in a better
position of life than himself, that she may dance and sing if
she is content to do so among their equals and will avoid the
society of the great seigneurs ; and in the second volume of
the book, devoted to cookery, he passes over a certain dish,
since the preparation of it is not work for the cook of a sim-
ple bourgeois.
Apparently this poor little orphan- girl felt the responsi-
bilities of her position weigh heavily on her, and conscious of
• Le MinagUr de Paris. Par Un Bourgeois Parisien, 1393. Paris. 1S46.
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1904.] French Home-Life in the 14.TH Century. 639
her ignorance, she humbly asked her " sovereign lord " not to
rebuke her publicly before their friends for her faults, but to
do so privately in their own chamber when they were alone,
and if he saw fit, to chastise her, which he seems to have
had every intention of doing, if she required such drastic
measures.
Accordingly, at his bride's invitation, he produced these two
volumes for the benefit of her friends and posterity as well as
for her own good. That he was in his element when moraliz-
ing and lecturing there can be no doubt, for he is exceedingly
prolix at times, and seems to have belonged to the class of
governess-lovers so dear to a certain school of lady novelists.
He is kindly considerate of her extreme youth, which excuses
her from being wiser; and though he holds up to her a picture
of an ideal wife, he will be quite content if she does as much
for him as the good wives of their acquaintance do for their
husbands. He is very anxious she should marry again when
he dies, and constantly speaks to her of her future husband,
and should he be cruel to her she is to retire to her own
room, to weep low and complain to God, on her knees, of
him.
The treatise is divided into five parts: the first containing
moral instruction; the second deals with the art of directing
a house ; the third treats of gardening and the care of horses ;
the fourth, the longest, of cookery; and the fifth of hawking,
then of course a very favorite sport.
Our "Bourgeois Parisien" was evidently a very pious man,
for in the first part, which might have been written by a
priest, he instructs his wife in her religious duties, telling her
how to acquire the love of God and the salvation of her soul,
and the love of her husband, and the peace which he says
marriage ought to bting to her. He appoints the prayers she
is to say while getting up and dressing, and here takes occa-
sion to teach her that her dress is to be suitable to her posi-
tion ; that she is to avoid new fashions, and to be careful
before leaving her room that her collar is straight, her clothes
properly put on, and her hair neatly dressed; she is not to
come down like certain giddy wives of his acquaintance, whose
hair is always straggling from under their caps. This leads to
a page of moralizing, from which we gather he was, with all
his good qualities, an old fidget.
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640 FRENCH home-Life in the i^th Century. [Aug.,
She is to go to Mass every day, and when out of doors
to walk with downcast eyes, not staring about her; she is not
to laugh in the streets, nor to stop to speak to any one; and
in church she is to choose a quiet place near an altar or a
statue and to remain there, not to move about from shrine to
shrine. She is to avoid wandering thoughts in prayer ; and
apropos to this, he tells her an anecdote of a man to whom a
horse was promised on condition that he should say one Pater
nosier without thinking of anything else, but in saying the
Pater noster he wondered whether he would get the saddle as
well as the horse, and consequently lost both.
She is to go to confession frequently, to choose a wise
confessor; and that she may have no doubts as to what to
confess, he gives her full instructions on the seven deadly
sins, on how to wake her conscience and how to make her
confession ; this takes up thirty pages, in the course of which
some excellent spiritual advice as well as high moral instruc-
tion is given.
In teaching her how to be, like Caesar's wife, above sus-
picion, he quotes a custom of French queens, which M. Pichon
says .he has never come across anywhere else, and which, if
our Bourgeois was rightly informed, was rather a curious one.
He says French queens never read closed letters^ alone, unless
they were written in their husband's own handwriting; all
other letters they had read aloud to them in the presence of
some of the court, and often said ''they did not know how to
read any letters or writing except their own husband's," and
they did this to avoid a breath of suspicion attaching to them.
Moreover, he adds — but he is not so sure that this last is true —
that French queens after they were married never kissed their
fathers, brothers, or any man except the king, their husband.
The moral of this is, the young wife is always to read her
husband's letters secretly and alone in great joy and rever-
ence, and to answer them alone in her own writing, or by the
hand of a very confidential friend or relation.
A chapter is devoted to the duty of loving her husband,
which is exemplified from the Bible, and may be briefly
summed up in the counsel that she is to love him above all
living creatures, and as the husband's duty is to love and
cherish his wife, so the wife's is to love and serve her hus-
band. He was a shrewd old man and had a certain sense of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] French Home-Life in the 14TH Century. 641
humor, for he wishes to know what wife nowadays would act
as Rachel did to her husband, and says it was not for noth-
ing that in the nuptial blessing the church bids the wife '' be
amiable and loving as Rachel to her husband, prudent as
Sarah, and wise as Rebecca."
Having held up the patriarchs' wives for her imitation, he
tells her to look at the animals and birds; how domesticated
animals, like dogs, follow their masters wherever they go, and
are fierce to other people and always have their eyes and
heads fixed on their masters; and how falcons and hawks
and other birds of prey love their masters above all others.
Moral : How much more should wives * love their husbands !
But obedience is even more insisted on than love; the wife is
humbly to obey her husband no matter what his commands
may be, whether given in earnest or in fun, or concerning
great things or little, for '' everything that the husband com-
mands ought to be great to the wife."
This is very severe doctrine, and, as some of the anecdotes
enforcing it will show, was no more acceptable to the wives of
the fourteenth century than it is likely to be to those of the
twentieth. As an inducement to practise this strict obedience
the Bourgeois Parisien assures his wife that by a good obedi-
ence a wife earns the love of her husband, and in the end gets
all she wants out of him. In this he rather shows his band to
his partner, who we may hope had the sense to profit by it.
The firsjt story he tells as an example of an obedient wife
is too long to quote; it is that of Griselda from Boccaccio,
afterwards put into Latin by Petrarch, frequently translated
into French, and is the subject of one of Chaucer's '' Canter-
bury Tales." That of Captain d'Andresel, a knight of Melun,
who, after dinner one evening, was suffering from an attack of
ennui, is shorter. One of his squires suggested that as he bad
no engagement, they should go and visit a certain lady in the
town, the wife of another squire, who would do anything her
husband commanded her. The knight agreed, and on the way
to the house they met the lady's husband. Captain d'Andresel
asked him if it was true, and the squire said : '' Yes, his wife
would do anything he told her, provided it was nothing wrong,"
whereon the knight bet the squire a dinner he would suggest
a very simple command in which there was no harm, which he
was quite sure the wife would refuse to obey. The squire
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642 French Home-Life in the 14TH Century. [Aug.,
accepted the wager, and invited Captain d'Andresel and his
friend to the house to put her to the test.
" Very well ; now, as soon as we arrive, without saying
anything else, hold your stick just above the floor, and tell
her to jump over it," said the knight. They entered the house
and the lady came to greet them, whereupon her husband held
his stick as the captain suggested, and said : *^ Madam, jump
over this " ; and the lady obeyed. He then told her to jump
back, and she did so, and then at his command jumped a
third time without saying a word. The captain was astonished
at such obedience, as well he might be, and paid his bet by
giving the squire a dinner at Andresel the next day. And
the a«uthor of Le Minagier tells this story quite seriously, and
does not forget to point the moral to liis young wife.
Another little anecdote of some wives who were less in
subjection to their husbands rings truer. A certain baili£f of
Tournay, who was in the habit of dining with some married
friends, made a bet with them that they should all go to the
houses of the married members of what seems to have been a
club, one after the other, and those meml>ers whose wives
should count " four " when told to do so by their Imsbands
without stopping, contradicting, mocking, or replying, should
not pay for their dinners, but should be scot free, while those
whose wives were rebellious and refused or replied or mocked
should pay their own and the others' subscriptions.
This being agreed, they all proceed to each other's houses.
Arrived at Robin's house, he calls his wife Marie, and bids
her say after him what he shall tell her, and she agrees to
do so.
" Marie, say one, two, three, four." " One, two, three, four,
five, six," and so on up to fourteen, said Marie. Marie's hus-
band lost.
Then they go to John's house ; he calls his wife, Agnes,
"who knew well how to play the lady," and told her to say
after him what he said.
"One," said John. "And two," said Agnes, disdainfully.
They go to Tassin's house. Tassin's wife is proud, and
when he says "One," answers sarcastically, "That's news."
A fifth wife said she was not a child to learn to count,
and a sixth had the spirit to ask her husband if he had
become a fiddler, that she should dance to his playing ?
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1904.] FRENCH Home-Life in the 14TH Century. 643
But mark the edifying conclusion of this tale ; all those,
says our bourgeois, who had niarried well brought up and
well taught young women won, and were joyful.
So important does our author consider the virtue of obedi-
ence that he devotes no less than seventy pages to its inculca-
tion, and interprets St. Paul's injunction, ** Servants, obey your
masters and be subject uxito them," to mean '' Wives, obey your
husbands, who are your sovereigns, and be in subjection to
them." He frequently speaks of the husband as the ^'sovereign"
of the wife, and certainly many of the husbands he quotes are
very despotic monarchs.
The next duty of a wife is to take care of her husband's
bodily comforts ; she is to remember that his duties' take him
out in all weathers, in rain, snow, wind, frost, heat, cold;
sometimes he is badly fed, badly lodged away from home; it
is her duty when he returns to see that he is well served, well
attended to ; that he has a comfortable bed and white sheets,
well covered with good furs — by which we learn that they
used furs for blankets in the fourteenth century. A white
night- cap was to be in readiness, and a good fire, fresh shoes,
and stockings, called " chausses," which were very long and
reached high up the thigh; and the next day clean linen and
new clothing were to be provided for him, ''for such services
make a man love his home above all other places."
He reminds her of a rural proverb which says there are
three things that drive a man from his home : a smoky chim-
ney — evidently -one of the trials of the middle ages, for our
author frequently inveighs against them ; a riotous wife, and a
hole in the roof. The expression, a riotous wife, ''femme
rioteuse," which now means a giggling or tittering woman,
evidently meant more than that, for he tells her later on not
to be ** riotous," but sweet, amiable, and peaceable ; our word
riotous seems therefore to give his exact meaning.
Mosquitoes seem to have been known in Paris, for he men-
tions certain flies which bit the faces of people so sharply
when asleep in bed that they were obliged to rise and light
some hay that the smoke might kill them, and he alludes to
the ** moustiquiere," a large muslin curtain enveloping the bed
as mosquito- curtains do. Flies also were evidently a perfect
pest, for a great many ways of getting rid of them are men-
tioned; one would not appeal to advocates of the fresh air
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644 French Home-Life IN the 14.TH Century. [Aug.,
treatment : the young wife is counselled to have her windows *
so firmly closed with oil-cloth or parchment that no fly could
possibly enter the room. She is also to avoid having tables or
forms or anything else in the room on which the flies can set-
tle, and nothing must lie on the floor, which is to be well
watered, as flies hate damp, and then if the room is well shut up
she wont be troubled with flies. The remedy, to our modem
eyes, is far worse than the disease.
Certain other little insect pests made life difficult for our
bourgeois, who gives his wife six remedies against these
athletic enemies of sleep. One was to strew the room with
alder-leaves, which attracts these insects. Another was to place
several slices of bread anointed with bird-lime about the room,
and stand a lighted candle in the middle of each slice; this
will attract the pests to the bird-lime and catch them. Slices
of bread, now called /'Tartines/' were in those days placed on
the plates and dishes, which were of metal, at meals, to prevent
the cutting of the meat from scratching them.
By observing all these and a great many more instructions
the wife will save her husband from all discomfort, and for her
reward he will think there is no place like home ; but it takes
our author several pages to deliver his soul of this sentiment.
To enforce it he tells her to remember how men treat their
horses when they come back from a long journey, and they
seem to have treated them very well ; among other things to
have unshod them, as the editor points out.
Their dogs, too, when they returned from shooting and hunt-t
ing were well cared for; their feet were rubbed with lard
before a fire ; a comfortable litter was made for them and soup
given to them, and the dogs were attended to before their
masters.
The next counsel of perfection is a very wise one : the wife
is to be temperate in speech, to keep strictly her husband's
secrets, and to remember how many dangers come from talking
too much, especially to people above her in position. The
good bourgeois had not much opinion of the capacity of the
gentler half of creation for keeping secrets, and tells a delight-
ful story apropos to this which we must quote.
An ancient Roman philosopher, named Macrobius, relates
how a certain little Roman boy, named Papirius, was on one
• Windows were rarely glazed at this time.
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1904. J French HOME^ Life in the 14.TH Century. 64s
occasion taken by his father, who was a senator, to the senate-
house. There all the senators took an oath that if any of
them revealed what they heard they should be beheaded.
When Papirius got home his mother asked him what the
senators had debated about; he replied he could not tell her
under pain of death. This excited the woman's curiosity more
than ever, and she so worried the boy that at last he made
her promise faithfully that if he told her she would reveal it
to no one. The mother promised, and the boy then said the
senators had discussed whether a husband should have two
wives, or a wife have two husbands. When the mother heard
this she made the boy promise not to tell any one else, and
went out and told all the wives of her acquaintance, all under
the seal of secrecy.
Not long after all the wives of Rome went to the senate*
house, when the senators were assembled, and cried out several
times, in a loud voice, that they preferred that a woman should
have two husbands rather than a man have two wive^. The
senators were quite taken aback, and did not know what the
women meant, and looked at each other inquiring what their
wives were thinking of, until Papirius got up and told them he
had invented the story to quiet his mother, who had tried to
make him break his oath. On hearing this the senators were
exceedingly angry with the women ; but they made Papirius,
so wise in his generation, a senator. One would like to know
what Papiria did to her little son, but history is silent on this
point.
Our bourgeois gravely counsels his wife to learn from this
example how the masculine child, who was of tender age,
knew how to hold his tongue, and the woman, who was old
enough to have sense and discretion, did not know how to be
silent or to keep her promise, or a secret which touched the
honor of her son and husband.
He does not forget to warn her that a wife is to have no
secrets from her husband, but to tell him everything ; and if
he sometimes goes astray, as he says young husbands often
will, she is to win him back from his follies wisely and gently ;
and if he gets into a rage with her, she is to be very patient
and by the sweetness of her speech stay his anger ; and if she
can't keep him from storming at her, she is not to tell her
friends or any one else, even if he is cruel to her.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
646 French HOME' Life in the i^th Century. [Aug.,
This summarizes the first part of the book^ the second
volume deals with domestic economy, gardening and cookery,
and gives general instructions on the management of a house-
hold, and incidentally throws a good deal of light on the customs
of the age in which the author lived.
The only flowers he mentions in the article on gardening
are roses, clove pinks, Lenten violets — that is, the common
violet — Armenian violets — probably by these he means Parma
violets — and sweet peas. Herbs were much used in the mid-
dle ages for cooking on the Continent as well as in England,
so we find instructions given for the growing of mint, sage,
wild thyme, fennel, parsley, rosemary, lavender, and marjoram.
With the exception of potatoes, not yet introduced, peas, beans,
cabbages, cauliflowers, onions, beetroot, parsnips, spinach, let-
tuces, sorrel for salad, leeks, and most other common vegetables
were grown, but no mention is made of celery, asparagus, or
seakale.
A long chapter is devoted to the choice and management
of servants. There were three kinds of servants, divided by our
author as follows : first, those who were hired for temporary use,
like porters, here called felt-porters, because they used to carry
a piece of felt or a cushion on their heads or shoulders to pre-
vent their burdens from hurting them; then those hired for a
day or two or a week or a season, like vintagers, threshers,
sowers, coopers, fullers, or reapers; and furriers, shoemakers,
tailors, and dressmakers, who worked by the piece, as appar-
ently did bakers and butchers, as they are mentioned in this
class ; and lastly domestic servants, who were hired by the year
and lived in the house. The author kept a steward, called a
dispenser^ whose duty it was to hire all these outside servants,
while a certain Dame Agnes, a beguine^ sister, who Was a sort
of duenna to this child-wife, was to choose the men-servants
and chambermaids. M. Pichon says the wages of chambermaids
in a bourgeoise household at this time were thirty sous a year
and their shoes, which, even allowing for the depreciation in
value of the sou, seems incredibly small. A sou was the twen-
tieth part of a pound, so that thirty sous was equal to about
thirty shillings oi our money.
The Bourgeois Parisien gives his child-wife authority over
all her servants, which she is to exercise through Dame Agnes,
• A biguine was a member of a religious association of lay-women, still in existence.
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1904.] FRENCH Home-Life in the 14.TH Century, 647
who may dismiss them ; but the wife is to consult her husband
privately before taking this step, on account of her extreme
youth ; but after her husband she is the mistress of the house,
the commander, visitor, governor, and sovereign administrator,
and to her it belongs to hold the servants in subjection, to
teach, lecture, correct, and chastise them. She is to forbid
them to quarrel among themselves or with neighboring ser-
vants, or to tell stories, or to be greedy, or to indulge in any
vices.
Dame Agnes is also to help her mistress to feed and take
care of her pet birds and dogs, for in those days large sums
were spent on birds and dogs ** de chambre," as they were
called, and since, says our bourgeois, ''they cannot speak, you
must speak and think for them if you keep them." Moreover,
when at their country house. Dame Agnes is to go into the
village and see that the shepherd looks after his sheep and
lambs, the herdsman after the cattle, the dairyman after the
cows and calves and pigs, and the farmer's wife after all the
poultry, all of which were the author's property. Wolves still
molested some parts of the country, and a recipe is given for
poisoning wolves and foxes I Presumably our bourgeois was not
a hunting man.
He also teaches her how to exterminate rats and moth, and
gives elaborate directions for examining, airing, and taking care
of her furs and linen ; furs were much used both as garments
and as rugs. The servants, both men and women, are never
to be idle. Dame Agnes and the " dispenser " are to send
some to the valley, some to the hills, some to the fields, some
to the town, some upstairs, some downstairs, some to the kitch-
en, but all to be kept employed. The wife herself is to see
that they are well fed and have their ' meals at the proper
hours, and they are to sit down to the table and eat ''plenti-
fully " of one kind of meat, not of several kinds, nor of dainty
dishes, and they are to have one good nourishing drink, whether
wine or anything else, but only one sort: and they are to eat
and drink well and largely, but without dawdling over their
food or putting their elbows on the table. As soon as they
begin to loll on their elbows they are to be made to leave the
table, for that is a sign that they have had enough; and if
they begin to argife or tell tales, that is a sign they have
eaten sufficiently, for a rural proverb says when " a varlet
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648 French Home- Life in the 14TH Century. [Aug.,
holds forth at table or a horse feeds in a ford it is time to
take them away, for they have had enough."
They were very careful about fire in those times. Accord-
ingly Dame Agnes and the dispenser are to make the round
of the house and see that all the fires are put out before retir-
ing to bed, and the servants are all to be taught to put their
candle in a flat candlestick far from their bed, and before getting
in to bed to '' extinguish it wisely " either with the mouth or
the fingers, ^' et non mie * ^ la chemise." The editor thinks
this last mysterious instruction means they were not to throw
the garment in question over the candle, as that was removed
before getting into bed, night-gowns being unknown in those
days.
The young maid servants from fifteen to twenty are to
sleep near their mistress in a closet or room where there is
no low window or windows giving on to the street, and
they are to go to bed and get up at the same time she does.
If any of her servants fall ill she is to visit them and look
after them lovingly and charitably, setting aside all their work
till they recover.
The piety of the age often peeps out unobtrusively in these
pages ; for instance, in some of the recipes the cook is directed
to boil certain sauces for the space of a "miserere" — that is,
for as long as it takes him to recite the fiftieth psalm {Miserere
met) — or to stir some dish for the space of a Pater noster ; just
as in Carmelite convents at the present day the novices are
instructed to mix the dressing with the salad till they have
recited the Litany of Loretto.
Again, our author fixes all his dates by the feasts of the
Catholic Church ; for instance, " parsley sown on the eve of
Our Lady — that is, an the eve of Lady Day, is out of the
ground in nine days; plant leeks from March to St. John's,
June 24; sow white beetroot up to the Magdalen's, July 22;
replant cauliflowers up to All Saints. November i."
It was a charitable age also; for at all great banquets and
large dinners vases or dishes were placed on the sideboard or the
table, in which were put a portion of the good fare to be given
to the poor. Query : is this the origin of our word '' alms-
dish " ? These ancient alms-dishes or vases were of large size
and often made of silver; they are called by various names
• " Mie=not."
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I904.] FRENCH HOME- Life in the 14TH Century, 649
in old inventories, such as alms-jars, alms-baskets, alms-
plates.
It appears that in the fourteenth century in France it was
the custom to have only one plate to two people; each person
had a slice of btead on which he placed his food, but the
gravies, sauces, and soups were served in hollow plates, like
our soup-plates— one to every two guests, who ate from it with
spoons. Up to the time of Louis XIV. a separate plate for
each person was quite a new idea, and not a general custom.
In the course of a description of some wedding banquets
we learn that when a bride and bridegroom were married for
the second time, the marriage was to take place very early in
the ihorning, and they were to wear mourning and change
their clothes directly after the ceremony ; but the editor thinks
they probably wore mourning for the rest of their lives.
Queens always wore widow's mourning for their husbands as
long as they lived, but they wore white instead of black; and
were on this account called " reines blanches " to distinguish
them from the new queen; for this reason a favorite sign for
an inn in France is ** La Reine Blanche."
Here we must take leave of our friend, the Bourgeois
Parisien, whose literary style is charming, so simple and yet so
clear and precise, and his thoughts are often most happily
expressed, and though many obsolete words are used, the old
French is easier to read than old English of the same period.
VOL. LXXIX.— 42
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650 Memories of St. Clare at Assisi. [Aug.,
MEMORIES OF ST. CLARE AT ASSISI.
BY G. V. CHRISTMAS.
" Clara nomine, vita Clarior, Clarissima moribus.'*
fHE quaintly beautiful brown-roofed town of Assisi
is so inextricably connected with the saintly
and eminently magnetic personality of the
humble Friar who has rendered it famous in
legend and history, that one is sometimes apt
to overlook the fact that its cobble-paved streets were also
hallowed by the footsteps of another of God's saints — the vir-
gin Clare.
The daughter of Phavorino Sciffo — a knight who had dis-
tinguished himself on many a battle-field — and his wife Hor-
tulana, she was born in 1193 "at Assisium, a city in Italy,
built on a stony mountain called Assi." She was a saint from
her childhood, and vowed herself to virginity at a very early
age, and found her true vocation when she was eighteen years
old. The event is best described in the simple and concise
words of one of her biographers : *
" Hearing the great reputation of St. Francis, who set an
example of perfection to the whole city, she found means to
be conducted to him by a pious matron, and begged his
instruction and advice. He spoke to her on the contempt of
the world, the shortness of life, and the love, of God and
heavenly things, in such a manner as warmed her tender breast ;
and upon the spot she formed a resolution of renouncing the
world. St. Francis appointed Palm Sunday for the day on
which she should come to him. On that day Clare, dressed in
her most sumptuous apparel, went with her mother and family
to the divine office ; but when all the rest went up to the
altar to receive a palm branch, bashfulness and modesty kept
her in her place ; which the bishop seeing, he went from the
altar down to her and gave her the palm. She attended the
procession; but the evening following it, being the i8th of
•Alban Butler.
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1904.] MEMORIES OF ST. CLARE AT ASSISI. 6St
March, 12 12, she made her escape, from home, accompanied
with another devout young woman, and went a mile out of
the town to the Portiuncula, where St. Francis lived with his
little community. He and his religious brethren met her at
the door of their Church of Our Lady with Hghted tapers in
their hands, singing the hymn ** Veni, Creator Spiritus." • Be-
fore the altar of the Blessed Virgin she put o£f her fine clothes,
and St. Francis cut off her hair, and gave her his penitential
habit, which was no other than a piece of sackcloth, tied
about her with a cord. The holy father, not having yet any
nunnery of his own, placed her for the present in the Bene-
dictine nunnery of St. Paul, where she was affectionately
received, being then eighteen years of age. The Poor Clares
date from this epoch the foundation of their order."
Not very long after St. Clare had rfeceived the habit by
night within the hallowed walls of that " Little Portion " — now
one of the most celebrated shrines in the world — the founder
of her order placed her and those who had joined her in the
convent of San Damiano and appointed her superior of the
small community This included amongst its members her sis-
ter Agnes, her mother Hortulana, and about sixteen other
pious ladies. ''Many noble princesses," says Dr. Butler, ''held
for truer greatness the sackcloth and poverty of St. Clare
than the estates, delights, and riches which they possessed,
seeing they left them all to become humble disciples of so holy
and admirable a mistress."
" San Damiano " is perhaps, from the hurried sightseer's
point of view« a little out of the way, but the slight trouble
involved in arriving at it will be afterwards found to be emi-
nently worth while. The place is thronged with memories,
haunted by associations of a saintly past, and it is here, per-
haps more than in any other spot connected with her, that one
realizes St. Clare.
This may possibly be accounted for by the fact of San
Damiano having suffered so little at the hands of the restorer.
The old, worm-eaten stalls where she and her sisters sang the
divine ofHce have been left absolutely untouched ; we se^
the bell which she used to ring to call the community to-
gether, and also the list of choir nuns as it existed in her day.
The name of Agnes occurs in it three times, with numbers
one, two, three after them to avoid confusion, for besides St«
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652 Memories of St. Clare at Ass/sl [Aug.,
Clare's sister, and another similarly named, St. Agnes of Mon-
tefalcho was an inmate of the house. The convent itself is a
quaint old building with winding passages, steps in utterly
vnexpected places, and low, narrow doorways, and the little
garden on a "loggia," from which St. Clare was wont to gaze
across to the " Angdli " and mentally salute her spiritual
father at the hour of the " Ave Maria," remains as it was.
From here the view is superb in its coloring and its far-
extended beauty. The tender green of Umbria's smiling valley
blends harmoniously with the soft tints, half blue, half ame-
thyst, of the distant Apennines, and the silvery gray shimmer
of the whispering olive- trees, and there, in the plain below,
gilded by the kisses of the dying sun, rises the cupola of St.
Mary of the Angels, containing that little hut once sanctified
by the presence of the " Poveretto d'Assisi."
And San Damiano itself is not lacking in its associations
of him, for it was he who gave it to St. Clare as a dwelling
place for herself and her nuns, and it was here that he visited
her on the eve of the last journey which he ever undertook in
this world, " comforting her," as we read in the " Fioretti di
San Francesco," " and bidding her a humble farewell."
It was at San Damiano that St. Clare with the ciborium in
her hand defied the Saracens, in the manner so well described
by one of her biographers. " The impious Emperor Frederic
II.," he tells us, "cruelly ravaged the valley of Spoleto be-
cause it was the patrimony of the Holy See. He had in his
army many Saracens and other barbarous infidels, and left in
that country a colony of twenty thousand of these enemies
of the church in a place still called Noura des Moros. These
banditti came once in a great body to plunder Assisium, and
as St. Damian's convent stood without the walls they first
assaulted it. Whilst they were busy in scaling the walls, St
Clare, though very sick, caused herself to be carried and
seated at the gate of the monastery, and the Blessed Sacra-
ment to be placed there in a pix in the very sight of the
enemies, and, prostrating herself before it, prayed with many
tears, saying to her beloved Spouse : * Is it possible, my God,
that thou shouldst have here assembled these thy servants,
and nurtured them up in thy holy love, that they should now
fall into the power of these infidel Moors? Preserve them, O
my God I and me in their holy company.' At the end of her
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1904.] Memories of St. Clare at Assist. 653
prayer she seemed to hear a sweet voice which said, ' I will
always protect you.' A sudden terror at the same time
seized the assailants, and they all fled with such precipitation
that several were hurt without being wounded by any enemy."
The ciborium, as well as several other interesting relics, are
preserved in the church of San Damiano, which also contains
a beautifully carved crucifix with a charming legend attached
to it.
The figure was the work of a Sicilian friar,* and so far
progressed rapidly under his skilful hands, but when he began
the head and face he failed altogether to realize his concep-
tion of what it ought to be. He had, presumably, the artistic
temperament, therefore his consequent depression and discour-
agement were extreme, and at last he resolved to fast and
pray for nine days and then make another attempt to com-
plete his task. When the ninth morning dawned be went to
look at his work, and to his utter astonishment found that it
was already finished by angelic hands. The face is of great
beauty, with a divinely tender expression on the exquisitely
carved features, and, looking at it, this ** pia umana tradi-
zione," as it was described recently by one of the friars, the
legend seems worthy of all belief.
From San Damiano, with its countless recollections of the
Virgin Saint of Assisi, we pass on to ** Santa Chiara," where
her body lies at rest. Erected in 1257, from a design of
" Brother Philip," by Campello, a pupil of Lapo, it is richly
decorated with gilding and marbles and frescoes of the Floren-
tine school, as well as some of Giotto's above the high altar.
The body of St. Agnes reposes in a chapel on the Gospel
side, also that oi Blessed Benedetta and Amata, two of the
first companions of St. Clare, and in another little chapel op-
posite the sacristy we are shown the crucifix which spoke to
the Seraphic Friar, St. Francis.
St. Clare died at San Damiano, but her remains were later
on transferred to Santa Chiara with much pomp and solemnity.
Centuries passed by, and in the year 1850, by means of Mon-
signor Landi, then Bishop of Assisi, her body was re-discovercd
in a stone sarcophagus, and brought provisionally to a side
chapel, from whence, in 1872, it was placed in the spot where
it now reposes ; Cardinal Pecci, afterwards Leo XIII. of holy
■ San Damiano is now inhabited by Franciscan friars.
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654 Memories of St. Clare at Assist. [Aug.,
memory, and five bishops assisting at the ceremony. Every
turning and corner of that brown-roofed Umbrian town is
haunted with saintly memories of a hallowed past, and not
only Assisi itself, but the surrounding neighborhood.
One day — I tell the story as it was told to me by the
French superior of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary at
Assisi, a sympathetic, cultured personality, combining in her
nature the simplicity and innocence of a child with the intelli-
gence of a woman who " knows her world," — one day St. Fran-
.cis and St. Clare were walking together on some errand of
charity and paused at a wayside inn for rest and refreshment.
The Italian mind, even where the saints of God are concerned,
was in those days very prone to imagine evil where none ex-
isted — a habit, by the way, which it has preserved up to the
present time — and so it happened thkt some of their comments
,on this occasion were overheard by St. Francis. His first
thought was to avoid the faintest appearance of evil and the
possibility of giving scandal to his weaker brethren, so he
told St Clare that she must go home alone by another route;
aod further, that they must not meet again for many months.
''But, father," exclaimed St Clare in dismay, ''when shall
I see you again ? "
, "When the roses bloom in December," he answered with a
smile; and it was then December.
So they parted and went their different ways ; but presently
he heard her calling and saw her coming towards him with
her scapular filled with perfumed roses.
"You see, father," she said triumphantly, "our Lord docs
not mean us to part." And St. Francis could say no more.
" Ah ! " remarked Mere V^ronique, when she had finished
the story, *' it is always like that ; men have so much more
human respect than women ! "
Hornet ftaly.
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1904.] Tjvo Little Lambs of the Campagna. 655
TWO LITTLE LAMBS OF THE CAMPAGNA.
BY E. F. MOSBY.
UNO/ NINETTO! The little Italian shepherd
with dark, liquid eyes showered on his two
lambs a hundred soft caressing diminutives of
the Italian tongue, with its musical intonations
that are so sweet to hear from a child's lips I
No wonder little Francesco loved his twin lambs. Many
scattered flocks grazed near his father's, but no merrier or fatter
lambs ever frisked around their mild ewe- mother than these;
no fleece so soft, thick, and white as theirs, none so free from
burr or brier. No wonder the small owner's heart beat with
pride as he watched their ecstatic playfulness, and the eager
wagging of their fat tails, as they nursed, or that he loved
them, when, in answer to his endearments, both^ turned their
comical, narrow little faces to him, with a soft, quavering.
Baa! Baa!
Francesco declared — though no one except his father Pietro,
an old shepherd, believed him — that they had different expres-
sions and different voices from the other lambs, and thus he
could know Nino and Ninetto anywhere !
"All sheep are alike," said good old Fra Paolo, and for
the flrst time in his life Francesco dared to be vexed with the
kind father, nor would be reconciled until the good father
told the boy that since their fleece was so flne they might be
chosen for the two lambs blessed by the Holy Father himself
on St. Agnes' day, from which the sisters of San Lorenzo
shear the wool that is woven into the pallium^ or precious
collar, with long ends, worn by the pop^ and the archbishops in
their holy ministry.
Francesco's beautiful eyes grew wide with delight and
wonder, as the old man went on to tell him of the beautiful
ceremony. He had seen pictures of the dear St. Agnes with
her little lamb cuddled close to her side. On her feast he
knew the lambs would be carried flrst to the old church oi St.
Agnes on the Nomentum road, there to be blessed by the
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6s6 TlVO LITTLE LAMBS OF THE CAMPAGNA. [Aug.,
abbot while all the wax tapers shone like stars, and the incense
made the air sweet as a forest of cedars, and voices would
sing all the time — like angels in heaven — the Agnus Dei — the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world !
It was as in a dream of innocent rapture that Francesco
went to sleep that night. He had not heeded then Mauma
'Gita's reproachful voice :
"Then no Carnival for the lad this spring! The lambs'
wool was to buy him clothes, father."
'^Then he can give unto the church not only the wool but
his heart's desire ! Do not stand in the lad's way/' replied
the old man gravely.
When Francesco remembered this afterwards by noon-day
light, he was sorry to miss the Carnival, the gay Carnival,
with flowers and jests, and the shepherds piping and singing,
and the confetti falling like rain, and all the roads full of
splendid carriages and prancing horses, — ah, it was sad to give
up the Carnival I But Nino and Ninetto should be the blessed
lambs of St. Agnes' feast — that he was resolved upon ! Nor
did he put his soft brown palm afterwards on the thick white
fleece without thinking with reverence that the pallium would
be woven of the fair threads spun from it.
Nino and Ninetto were like small foster-brothers to this (me
child, who, but for their merry frolics, would have had no
playmates on the Campagna farm. Francesco fancied that his
history was not unlike theirs. They were left orphans early,
and adopted by a gentle ewe who had lost her lamb, just as
kind Mauma 'Gita had taken care of him when his young mother
died at his birth. 'Gita, or Brigitta, even called him '' her little
lamb " when he fell into childish troubles.
But Fra Paolo did not teach the lambs lessons. ' Francesco
rather envied them the freedom from learning Latin, and
repeating dull verbs, though he looked like a little angel as
he stood with folded hands to recite his task, with silky lashes
curling on the crimson of his cheeks, and lips as red as a
lovely flower! 'Gita was half afraid to see him so beautiful
and so quiet. She did not like to have her little lad in this
malarial air, or sitting so dreamily watching the flock in the
strange, wide, lonely Campagna.
But Pietro was a laborer on the estates of the Buonamonte
family near the mountains — the wide plain stretching away
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I904-] Tivo Little Lambs of the Campagna. 657
from the Apennines in the East to the blue Mediterranean on
the south, from mountain-peaks to sea-levels, with the Tiber
and great Rome on the north — and he came down from the
healthy air of the villa, in the spring, with other peasants who
worked the lands near Rome. He was a vigorous old man,
and did not suffer as much from the sickly air of the plain as
many of the others who looked prematurely yellow and thin
and old. 'Gita was keen as a hawk in keeping her nursling
out of the night air or the mists of early morning.
The Buonamonte Villa, fortified with strong walls and
towers at a time when men held their own by dint of hard
blows, was a pleasant place now in times of peace. While the
laborers sweltered on the vast plain of the Campagna, at the
villa, near the mountains, the tall poplars beside the dove-cote
were rustling as if with an ever-stirring breeze; the ancient
fig-trees, though gnarled and twisted, still bore two crops of
fruit ;^ the vines hung heavy with purple clusters, and the big
scarlet anemones bloomed beside the furrows.
Yet the plain had a fascination that had already won
Francesco's heart. Almost every one else grumbled because
of its loneliness. Yes, there was a tall Englishman, an artist,
who came often, and once had even lingered till the red sun-
set set the sky aflame. He talked to the boy in a friendly
way:
"Do you know this place was once full of cities, with
thriving farms between, and that crowds gathered on the great
Roman street — the Appian Way — all the time, crossing these
Pontine marshes without fear?''
" Fra Paolo told me so," answered the boy, " and that these
cities of the Albans rebelled against Rome, and she swept
them away."
" Like a mist of fine gold dust," said the artist, looking at
the sunshine on the plains; "but sometimes it is wrapt in a
purple haze, quite 'as beautiful."
" Do you ever go to Rome ? " he presently asked, noticing
the lad's eyes fixed on the feathery cypress- trees and St.
Peter's.
" No ; but I shall go when my lambs are carried to be
blessed by the Holy Father ! Their wool is so fine, it must be
chosen for the pallium. Do yoU know, signer, Fra Paolo says
the pallium " —
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6s8 nvo Little Lambs of the Campagna. [Aug,,
'' What is that ? '' asked the Englishman.
'^The woollen collar the pope wears. It is marked with
crosses, and means he is a good shepherd of his flock."
Brigitta had told him a beautiful story of our Lord when
He was a little Babe, of how He was the Good Shepherd of
all the world, and of how the shepherds came to worship
Him. A little shepherd lad came also, bringing his one pet
lamb as a gift, the only gift he had it in his power to bring;
and the Divine Child, though but a few hours old, held up His
little hand and blessed them both. Francesco always thought
of himself as the little shepherd bringing his twin lambs, and
he fancied the dear Lady- Mother would say to him after the
blessing: ''My child, take thy lambs home and care for them
for His sake."
The kind Englishman soon became acquainted with Nino
and Ninetto as well as their little master, and begged to paint
their portraits, with Francesco's, of course, with the others,
only he was too wise to let the boy think of his own picture
at all.
Francesco, in turn, was charmed to show the signor the
special marks of his pets.
'' Now see you, dear signor, has not Nino a tiny black
spot on his nose ? Ninetto's is pure white ; and look you, how
he loves to be petted, while Nino frisks and capers con-
tinually."
Many a sketch was taken of the dark, sweet face and the
brown eyes, while the lad talked of the pallium, which the
Capuchin Sisters, or those of San Lorenzo, would weave from
the fleece.
"It will be laid for a night on St. Peter's tomb," said
Francesco, his eyes shining.
"I think I shall call them St. Peter's Lambs."
As the Englishman spoke a shadow fell across the ground,
and looking up, they saw the young lord of Buonamonte, whom
the Englishman already knew.
He and his sister had been riding with a party across the
Campagna, and his sister had stopped to see old 'Gita, once
her nurse and foster-mother. The brother had come in search
of the artist, meanwhile, for he hoped to induce him to restore
some old Buonamonte portraits at a small price, being much
pressed for money. The Englishman was young, and could
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Tivo Little Lambs of the Campagna, 659
not be very busy, the young lord fancied, if he spent his time
on peasant children.
He shrugged his shoulders as he saw the sketches of Nino
and Ninetto, and said with a laugh:
^' I trust, signor, you can. spare your models soon ? These
are such fine lambs that Fve a notion to sell them with a part
of my flock to be sent oflf to-morrow. These fat ones will
raise the price, I fancy."
It seemed on the instant to Francesco that his heart must
cease beating. The lambs were truly his own, as the mother
had been bought by old Pietro's hard earnings; but he dared
not contradict the young lord. If he angered him, the lambs
would surely be lost; yet, if he did not speak now, his claim
afterwards might not be allowed.
Francesco had never had any real trouble about them be-
fore. It is true Burro, the big shepherd-boy, had taunted him
once or twice, telling Francesco his big lambs would be chosen.
But Pietro said their wool was too coarse, and Francesco was
comforted.
He tried now to speak, for he saw his English friend was
looking at him inquiringly. Something swelled in his throat,
his eyes grew wet, and he burst into a passion of sobs, clasping
the lambs in his arms.
''Hola!" cried the young lord. ''What does this mean?"
And his voice was angry.
'' Brother, the child is distressed," said a sweet voice, and
a lovely face looked over Buonamonte's shoulder, like the face
of dear St. Agnes.
"They are mine," sobbed the boy.
'' Nonsense ! " began the young man ; but old 'Gita, gaining
courage from the presence of the young lady, explained about
the ownership with many humble apologies.
The young man still looked vexed.
'' Perhaps Francesco will sell them," began the sister, with
hesitation ; but here the artist told the story of the fleece
reserved for the pallium. The young woman listened with
reverent eyes, and said softly :
" Brother, it is so beautiful — this blessing of the lambs.
We must go and see it together ; and I shall know these pretty
ones, I am sure," she added to Francesco, whose heart beat
fast with joy.
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66o TlVO LITTLE LAMBS OF THE CAMPAGNA. [Aug.,
He knew Nino and Ninetto were safe now. Even the
young lord's brow cleared under his sister's influence, and he
invited the artist to visit him, and examine his small collection
of portraits. 'Gita and her little lad thanked their new friend
warmly for his kindness, and he promised to return soon to
finish the portraits.
Several days passed, however, and Francesco began to fear
he had forgotten them. The artist soon returned, however, and
finished his sketches. Moreover, he talked long with Pietro and
'Gita, leaving them with radiant faces. After bis departure,
'Gita told Francesco that he had leased the Buonamonte Villa
for many years.
'' We shall not have to come down to the plain again, and
thou shalt go to school, my lamb."
Francesco listened gravely, until she added : " Something
more for thy pleasure, little one : the kind signor gave me the
money for thy Carnival clothes."
Francesco danced about in high glee; then, suddenly paus-
ing on one foot like a small Mercury, he asked eagerly :
** I shall keep my own Nino and Ninetto at the Villa, shall
I not ? "
'' So the kind signor has said," answered old Pietro. Fran-
cesco learned afterwards that it had cost the new master, not
only money but serious trouble to secure a legal and binding
recognition of the peasant child's right to the twin lambs.
But he had at length succeeded, and Nino and Ninetto were
chosen for the pallium.
Francesco learned the full story from Mauma 'Gita ; how the
wool was sheared by the good sisters, washed, dried, carded
into white and fleecy rolls, spun into thread, and woven.
Finally, how it was made into a scarf-like collar with long ends
in front and behind, marrked with purple or black crosses, and
laid for a night on St. Peter's tomb, before it was put in church
on the shoulders of the Pope.
Francesco was not so deeply interested in the wool as in
the lambs and their two blessings. He was permitted to come
to the Church of St. Agnes on her feast-day, though it fell in
the winter season.
The wide Campagna looked strangely lonely under its white
veil of snow, for the month of January was more severe than
is usual in the Italian climate.
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1904.] Tjvo Little Lambs of the Campagna. 661
Inside the old church the altar was glittering as with stars,
the incense perfumed the air with the scent of cedars, and
silvery voices were chanting the " Lamb of God."
The abbot thought he had never seen anything lovelier than
the face of the little shepherd, upturned to his, as he blessed
the lambs. Nino and Nine^to raised their wondering faces too,
and uttered an odd little tremulous " Baa ! Baa ! " as in protest
when they did not receive the expected lumps of salt.
Francesco could hardly help laughing, though he was also
a little frightened by their speaking in church. However,
they were quiet when the Pope afterwards pronounced his
blessing.
Then — Francesco had a delightful surptise. The kind sig-
nor was one of the onlookers, and he spoke in a most friendly
way, telling Pietro and his boy that he was coming in the
spring for a long stay. Leaning on his arm was the lovely
young lady of Buonamonte that looked to Francesco like St.
Agnes, and she was now the dear signer's wife I
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662 PRESENT Conditions in [Aug.,
PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
^^ANY questions are being discussed in the Anglican
Church at the present time which may have the
effect of bringing home to all who are seeking
the truth the real character of that institution.
They all tend to show how little it deserves to
regarded as a trustworthy guardian of the faith once
delivered to the saints. The public recital of the Creed, com-
monly known as the Athanasian, is one of these questions.
Thirty years ago this same question became pronrihent ; at that
time, however, the influence of such men as Dr. Pusey ard
Canon Liddon among the clergy, and of the Marquis of Salis-
bury among the laity, put an end to the discussion. Dr. Pusey
declared that he would retire from the exercise of clerical
functions if the Creed were suppressed or its use abolished.
Times have, however, greatly changed, and for the worse. Dr.
Gore, the Bishop of Worcester, once looked upon as the
mainstay and faithful transmitter of the teachings of Dr. Pusey,
advocates a change and declares that the recitation of the
Creed does more harm than good. He professes sincere belief
in all its teachings, and an unfeigned acceptance of them. He,
however, proposes that a committee should be appointed to
consider in what way, while retaining the Creed as an authori-
tative theological document, the present manner of reciting it
may be altered. It would seem a somewhat difficult task, after
suppressing a document as something positively injurious to
the faith when publicly known and recited, to leave to this
same document any large measure of authority. Even the
Articles of the Church of England rank the Athanasian Creed
along with the Nicene and the Apostles' Creed, and declare
that they ought thoroughly to be received and believed.
The Bishop of Chester does not feel it necessary to wait for
the recommendations of a committee. He has rearranged the
Creed and submitted it to the consideration, not merely of the
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1904.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 663
clergy but also of the laity of his diocese. This rearrange-
ment leaves out as unfit for publication the minatory or, as
some would call them, the monitory clauses. He would not,
however, require the flock committed to his care to adopt this
Creed revised by himself; he would leave it free either to use
the Creed in its present form, or to use his own revised version ;
or — and here he does but anticipate the necessary outcome of
all such manipulations of the faith of which he considers him-
self a guardian — to leave it out altogether. Well may Mr.
James Gairdner, the well-known historian, give expression to
his perplexity at the utterance of the bishops. He may well
doubt whether in changing from dissent to episcopacy he has
found more trustworthy guardians of truth. He declares he
would not have made the change had the repugnance to this,
as to the other Creeds, which he had felt as a dissenter
remained. " If the ' living voice ' or voices of our church speak
in such a tone, I must own that it adds point to Mr. Mallock's
caustic inquiry : ' Does the Church of England teach anything ? ' "
One of the bishops. Dr. Paget, is alive to the effect which
would be produced by abandoning or modifying the recitation
of the Creed. He manifested a regard for the faithful who
have hitherto loyally and humbly accepted the guidance of the
Church of England, and did not wish to make it clear how
little she was deserving of this loyalty and confidence. The
bishops having failed as a body to speak out in defence of the
Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of our Lord's Body, doctrines
denied or questioned even by dignitaries of the Church of
England, anything like a further surrender would increase the
alarm and unsettlement. The Bishops of London and Norwich
spoke in the same sense. And what aid in defence of the
faith was afforded by the would-be successor of St. Augustine
and St. Thomas a Becket ? How did the present occupant of
the — as many would have it — patriarchal Throne of Canter-
bury defend the traditional teaching of the undivided church ?
He proved to be unworthy of the trust reposed in him. The
tradition which he received, and which he now hands down,
was not that of the primitive undivided church, but that which
he has received from no more ancient or venerable a source
than Archbishop Tait, his own father-in-law. He threw all his
strength into the relaxation of the rule which prescribes its
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
664 PRESENT CONDITIONS IN l^^g-f
public use. He is not, however, ready to go so far as the
American Protestant Episcopal Church, which has excluded the
Creed altogether; he would rather take as his guide the Irish
Church, which shows to the Creed the honor of retaining it in
printed form in its prayer-book, but declines to allow it to be
publicly recited. And so a committee has been appointed by
the Convocation of Canterbury to consider in what way the
present use may be modified.
In the Convocation of York the public confession of the
faith found fewer defenders than in that of Canterbury, one
bishop only defending the long existing practice. A resolu-
tion was made by which expression was given to a desire
that the Convocations of both provinces might do something
which seems to be a contradiction in terms — effect a change
in the present use, and safeguard at the same time the
reverential treatment of the doctrines of the faith.
The ineptitude of the whole proceedings, whether in the
one house or the other, is manifested by the fact that nothing
practical can be done in any shape or form by any or all of
the bishops. However much they may regret it, the fact re-
mains that they are all, both corporately and singly, under the
control of Parliament, and they cannot escape this control.
Nor is there any likelihood that Parliament will relax its
grasp. It is one of the ironies of current events that a Par-
liament made up of Jews, Nonconformists, believers and unbe-
lievers of tvtxy kind, should as a matter of fact prove a more
efficient and reliable defender of the faith than the bishops set
apart for that office. They, while professing full belief of the
orthodox faith, are willing to place the accepted profession of
that faith in the background; the Parliament, which cares
nothing for the faith, is the great obstacle in their path.
In fact the bishops of the Establishment, although they
have in their ranks several who are pre-eminently zealous and
devoted, have to give place to unofficial bodies, and even to
laymen, when there is question of defending that which is
looked upon as the Catholic Faith. The English Church Union
is an association which for many years has taken an active
part in promoting the revival of Catholic doctrines and ritual.
It is another of the anomalies of the Anglican position that,
while that position involves the assertion of the divine right
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH 665
of bishops as against the pope to teach and to govern, the
practice of the defenders of this divine right is to set at
naught both' the instruction and the commands of the bishop.
This is brought out very well by the utterances of the Viscount
Halifax, the president of the Union, with reference to the
bishops' treatment of the recitation of the Athanasian Creed.
The Union, like everything else in this world, has its enemies,
and these enemies include not merely the Protestants included
within the comprehensive limits of the Establishment, but also
some High Churchmen. This voluntary association of clergy
and laity has no divine mission and is trying to do what the
bishops are divinely appointed to do. Those critics say that
if the faithful clergy and laity would but follow their natural
leaders, the bishops, and range themselves in a united phalanx
behind the episcopate, all that is needed would be secured.
This contention Lord Halifax says, in view of the events of
the last two years, is a demonstrated folly. Not only have the
bishops not defended the doctrine and discipline of the church
from the organized attack which has been made upon them,
and this on vital points, but there have been, he says, deliber-
ately, although with the profoundest regret and distress, some
among the bishops who have approved, or even led, this
attack. He finds them unfaithful in the House of Lords in
not resisting the enactment of what is known as the Kenyon-
Slaney Clause of the Education Bill of 1902; this clause was
a flagrant insult to the Anglican clergy, and it was passed with
the connivance of the great majority of the English Episco-
pate. The self-sacrificing efforts of the clergy in support of
the schools for a long period of years were sacrificed to the
timidity and time-serving spirit of those who ought to have
been their staunchest defenders.
The position of the Church of England as a teacher of the
truth, that a definite faith is necessary to salvation, that what
our Lord revealed must not be given up because there are those
who are scandalized at that teaching is involved in the pro-
posed displacement of the Athanasian Creed iiom the place it
has hitherto occupied. In this more important matter, which
affects the very faith itself, and fidelity to the respect for
antiquity which is of the essence oi the Anglican position.
Lord Halifax asks, with the deepest feelings of shame and sor-
▼OL. LXXIX.— 43
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
666 PRESENT CONDITIONS IN [Aug.,
row, whether the Primate, in view of the recent utterances to
which we have referred, is a leader whom a churchman can
safely trust and afford to follow ? May we not ask if the
bishops, who are, according to the generally received Anglican
principles, the divinely appointed heads of the church, cannot
be safely trusted and followed, to • whom is he to look for
guidance? We have too great a regard for the character of
the President of the English Church Union to think that he
wishes, as some say, to be a pope for himself and for those
who are willing to accept him as such ; but if lie is unwilling
to accept the guidance of his own bishops, if he refuses that of
the Holy See and of the Catholic Church speaking by her
appointed organs, it is hard to see what other position he can
assume. It cannot be said that he has hope that in the future
the voice of his church may be heard. The Representative
Church Council, which has had its first meeting this month,
which some would fain look upon as a revival of the ancient
Sacred Synods of the English Church, holds out for Lord Hali-
fax no ground for security. On the contrary, this very Coun-
cil itself in its constituent elements forms one more reason for
his distrust of the bishops. The proposals put forth under
the sanction of episcopal authority seem to him — and in iact
are — subversive of the ancient order of the church as divinely
instituted. For, without any warrant derived from the past,
laymen are to be given the right of membership, and an active
voice in the proceedings. And those laymen, how are they to
be selected ? By the faithful members of the church ? By
communicants and those who strive to live according to her
teaching ? The point is not settled yet, even though the
Council has assembled. But proposals have been made, with
episcopal sanction, which give to every rate-payer, even thcugh
he may not in any sense be a member of the church, the right
to vote for those who shall constitute this sacred assembly.
Those who themselves have no right even to approach the
altar are to have a part in the government of the church.
This violation of the ancient constitution of the church is made
by those who are the first to reject the claims made on behalf
of the Roman See, on the ground that they have no sanction
in primitive antiquity. The highest episcopal authority has
thus deliberately ignored that appeal to Catholic consent and
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH 667
practice which was the justification alleged for the changes
made in* the sixteenth century.
In fact the bishops of the Anglican Church are making
manifest the true character of the body of which they are the
heads, a body which, being, a human institution, must, if it is
to live, derive its support from the time-spirit, or at least must
not actively thwart it. It is not for the Church of God thus
to strive to catch the spirit of the age. It must, indeed, learn
what that spirit is; not imbibe and absorb it, be changed and
modified by it ; its office is to correct and, if need be, to con-
quer it. This is the attitude consistently taken by the See of
Rome and by all in communion with that See, which will win
for her all who have realized the supernatural character of the
church, and who are unwilling to be dominated by the prince
of the power of this world. The real position of the Church
of England' — a position of complete subservience to the state —
has been made still clearer by the appointment, under the
authority of the crown, of a commission to inquire into eccle-
siastical disorders. The scope of this commission is confined
to breaches of ritual and does not embrace questions of doc-
trine. This omission, however, must not be taken to mean that
King and Parliament do not claim the right to investigate and
to decide upon even matters of faith. The limitation is due,
not to any want of power, but to the fact that the divergen-
cies of teaching in the Established Church are so great that
any attempt to investigate them, still less to settle them, would
be perfectly hopeless. This was openly stated by Mr. Balfour
in the House ; it would be, he said, a most deplorable error
for the House to start a commission to examine the niceties of
doctrines preached in all the pulpits of the Church of England ;
it would open overwhelming floodgates of controversy of every
kind ; it was something not to be seriously thought of that an
examination should be made into the errors of doctrine which
may have been committed. It would make it possible for an
endless series of actions to be brought against High Church-
men, Low Churchmen, Protestants, Broad Churchmen, men of
the so many various divisions found in the Episcopal Church.
He would be no party to such a proceeding, as it would only
increase differences already too prominent; this disclosure of
divisions would prove the greatest obstacle to the progress of
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668 Conditions in the Anglican Church. [Aug.,
religion. The divisions therefore within the Anglican Church
are to be taken as irremediable, to be hidden from view if
possible; but as to their removal, it is beyond the limit of any
existent power. All that the authorities hope for is to secure
a somewhat less glaring manifestation of those divisions. This
attempt may involve a somewhat more speedy disestablishment
of the church. To this Viscount Halifax seems reconciled.
Has Lord Halifax good reason to hope that the Church of
England when disestablished will prove a more reliable guar-
dian of truth ? Have not the churches in communion with the
Anglican departed even farther from the lines of Catholic faith
and practice ? Have not the Irish Church, the Protestant
Episcopal Church of America, and we believe most of the
Colonial churches, proved faithless by having already decreed
that which is only being proposed in England — the disuse of
the Athanasian Creed? And does not the spirit of the age
manifest itself and dominate in these non-established Episcopal
churches to a greater degree even than in the Mother Church,
bound as she is by more manifest historical ties to the past?
Another charge brought against the bishops by the presi-
dent of the Union, formed, it would seem, in their default, to
defend the doctrine of the church, is that^ they have not openly
given their approbation to the setting at naught by clergymen
of the law of the church as laid down by the Privy Council.
Lord Halifax is not satisfied with being let alone on account
of these violations. He admits that the majority of the
bishops have had no wish to force the rulings of the Privy
Council on the church; but he finds grave ground for com-
plaint that they have never had the courage openly and
unmistakably to say before the whole world that they did not
recognize the law as laid down by the Privy Council. Is not
this lawlessness run riot ? Not being satisfied with being allowed
to violate laws as interpreted by the highest tribunal, a claim
is made upon the highest spiritual authorities to sanction —
shall we say sanctify ? — this violation. 'We are afraid Lord
Halifax is far from realizing a principle so essential for every
true Catholic — that of submission to authority. He de-
clares the firm resolution to persevere to the end in the work
which is to lead to the eventual reunion of all those who love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth in one visible
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Unanswered Prayer. 669
fold, under one Shepherd — that one fold where both the right
of the Primate of Christendom is fully acknowledged on the
one side, and the right of the Catholic episcopate is no less
fully acknowledged on the other. This is a holy desire; the
fear we have that it is not destined in the n^ar future to be
accomplished springs from what seems to be the inwrought
insubordination of so many who, however many may be the
number of the Catholic doctrines and practices which they
have recognized, fail to see that submission to authority is the
first of Catholic principles, the root and spring of all the rest.
THE UNANSWERED PRAYER.
BY L. F. MURPHY.
HROUGH long, long years a prayer arose each day
To Him who answereth each pure request ;
But no bright message came. ** He knoweth best ! *'
The heart cried out, — but hopeful lips would pray,
And murmur at the strange and long delay.
Without tka: gift, life never could be blest I
Dreaming of it, the heart was happiest !
Still, out of heaven came no answering ray.
The years fled on, — a heart at last forgot
A pleading pray'r that heaven answered not.
Diviner gifts came streaming from above
In tender token of the Father's love.
One day a soul, remembering, looked to heaven.
And thanked its God for what He had not given ! .
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670 A DEAD VILLAGE. [Aug.,
A DEAD VILLAGE.
LES SAINTES MARIES DE LA MER.
BY SOPHIA BEALE.
[T is said by the Cynics that the pleasure we feel
at the realization of our dreams never equals
the joy of anticipation, and that the making of
plans is the best part of travelling. All is
vanity and vexation of spirit to the pessimist
traveller as to the pessimist home-dweller; and probably the
degree of satisfaction felt by the dreamer when his dreams are
realized varies according to his temperament. But, however
this may be, it is to most of us a delightful sensation to feel
that our desires have become accomplished facts ; or rather, that
the dream is rapidly being metamorphosed into absolute reality.
One of my many dreams was to visit the south of France;
to revel in the legends and associations of old Provence. For-
getting the evil side of ancient Rome, no one can help being
impressed by the marvellous grandeur of its amphitheatres, its
temples, and its aqueducts; they are all amazing even unto
this day. As one sits on the grass under the southern sun
gazing at the Pont du Gard, one feels overwhelmed by its
stupendous magnificence. It is isolated, with surroundings of
•woodland, standing away from any habitation but a small
wayside restaurant, which adds to its grandeur, being as isolated
a monument as the Sphinx itself — possibly more so, consider-
ing the facilities afforded by Egypt to the modern tripper.
But there are other associations than those of Rome,
though Nimes alone, with its exquisite little temple of the
Nymphs, its stately Maison Carrie, and the beautiful gardens
surrounding the Roman Baths, risings terrace above terrace, up
the hill, clothed with southern vegetation, — Nimes alone suffices
for a journey to Provence. And yet, for one person who stops
at any of the numberless interesting places, or even travels
through them by day, hundreds whirl past them in the dark-
ness, thereby losing all the beauties of the Rhone Valley, the
old towns, the Cran, and the salt lagoons.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A DEAD VILLAGE, 67 1
And Provence has still more attractions than its Roman
remains. The . Romanesque churches at Aries and at St. Gilles;
Avignon, Romanesque and Mediaeval; Aigues-mortes, surrounded
by salt lagoons, with its memories of St. Louis and the Ciu-
saders ; there you seem to be in the presence of ghosts — ghosts
of men, and ghostly enthusiasms. The town is hemmed in
by ancient walls and towers, somewhat over-restored ; but
when you issue from one of its many turreted gates and come
upon lagoons and salt* covered grass, stretching out (or miles
into mysterious space, you feel that you are in an old-world
wilderness. The idea that the town was formerly a seaport
is, according to modern students, pure fiction. M. Lenth^ric,
in his Villes Mortes du Golfe de Lyon, proves from ancient
documents that the sea in this part of Provence has not en*
croached upon the land for many centuries. Nor is there the
slightest evidence that the galleys of St. Louis were attached
to rings in the walls of Aigues- mortes. *' Rien n'est moins
vrai," says M. Lenth^ric; ''la mer etait alors comme aujourd'hui
i cinq kilometres de la ville." Moreover the ramparts did
not exist in the time of the Crusades, having been built
by St. Louis' son, Philippe le Hardi, and it was by the Canal
de Viel that the Crusaders gained the sea.
Delightful as the memories attached to Ihe old towns cer-
tainly are, there is yet another place situated upon the
Camargue which appeals still more to our imaginations and
our enthusiasms ; for which of us who delights in the miracu
lous has not longed to stand upon the ground in Provence
where, says the legend, the Holy Marys landed, when they
were expatriated from Palestine by the Jews. "Legtnde!"
quoth Mademoiselle the fair Arl^sienne, as she gave me my
change, — ''legendel Vous voulez dire Thistoire." And after
all, where are we to erect the barrier between history and
legend, and where draw the line between fact and fiction?
There is no direct evidence that the Jews evicted the three
Marys, St. Lazarus, St. Martha, St. Maximin, and St. Joseph
of Arimathea, after the ascension of our Blessed Lord. But,
on the other hand, legend accounts for their arrival in Frame
by giving the details of their dispersal. St. Mary Salcme and
St. Mary the wife of Cleophas stayed upon the spot in the
Camargue — Insula Cameria — where they landed; St Lazarus
went to Marseilles, became its first bishop; St. Martha jour*
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672 A DEAD VILLAGE. [Aug.,
neyed to Tarascon, giving the name to the town by reason of
her defeat of the evil beast — the Tatasque ; St. Mary Magda-
len departed to St. Baume, St. Maximin to Aix, and St.
Joseph of Arimathea to Glastonbury. Sara, their Egyptian
servant, accompanied them, wishful of sharing their dangers
and banishment, dangers the greater as the boat was cast
adrift without mast or sails, without anchor or rudder, and
without food. This is recorded in an ancient Latin prose in
a book of offices formerly used in the church of Les Saintes,
as also in the popular verses:
" AUez sans voile et sans cordage ;
Sans mat, sans ancre et sans timon,
Sans aliments, sans aviron,
Allez faire un triste naufrage.
Retirez>vous d'ici, laissez-nous en repos,
Allez p^rir parmi les flots."
But the saints improvised some sails by holding up their
mantles ; and a modern painter, M. Henri Gaudemaris, in a
beautiful version of the voyage, gives as steersman a large-
winged angel propelling the boat with a paddle- shaped oar.
Naturally the scoffer has had his say, and has endeavored
to throw light upon our spiritual ignorance by asserting that
in apostolic times the site of the little town was under water;
but M. Lentheric has come to the rescue and proved by vari-
ous arguments that the littoral of the Camargue has remained
the same for centuries.
As early as A. D. 513 St. Cesaire, Archbishop of Aries,
founded a religious house for women at the Saintes Maries,
but in the eighth century the land was laid waste by the
Saracens, and all that remained of the convent was the little
oratory erected during the lifetime of the holy women. Hap-
pily some pious souls, who survived the reign of pillage and
bloodshed, buried the relics of the saints in a safe place, where
they were subsequently discovered by Guillaume I., son of
Boson, Count of Provence. The discovery was in this wise:
During a hunting excursion in the Camargue the count met
a hermit, who told him that in a dream he had seen the tomb
of the saints by the side of a spring. Excavations were made,
and there lay the relics — a discovery which so impressed the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A DEAD VILLAGE. 673
count that he built a church on the spot, covering the ancient
oratory. In 1280 this was partly destroyed by fire during the
siege under the princes of Anjou, but the present fortress
church was erected, after the war, upon the charred founda-
tions. Houses soon surrounded the church ; hence the Villa de
la Mer — the town of the Saintes Maries de la Mer. In 1448
King Ren^ obtained a dispensation to open the ground under
the oratory, when not only were the relics rediscovered, but a
leaden casket was found containing the head of St. James
Minor, Bishop of Jerusalem, brought by St. Mary Jacobus, his
mother. The authenticity of these relics was attested by the
archbishop, the legate, twelve bishops, the chancellor of the
University of Avignon, and divers other dignitaries of the
church.
A pilgrimage to the Saintes may now be made by train,
slowly but not unpleasantly, as the pace gives us the opportunity
of studying the country, and the manners and customs (some
of them) of the natives. For instance, the district school is
at the Saintes Maries, and so we take up in the morning
and set down in the afternoon divers small boys and girls;
not necessarily at stations, of which there are few, but at
cross roads, where, on the return journey, we find mothers
awaiting their children, for the Camargue is a desolate and
dangerous place for young children to walk alone, the farms
being scattered over a large area. Post girls, carrying little
iron boxes with handles, also await our advent. These are
handed up, and another is given in exchange. The cars are
good, and the regulations better; but in spite of the public
being invited to help the officials in carrying out the regula-
tions, they seem to be a dead letter. '' II est defendu " to get
out of the train except at stations, and otherwise than by the
door of the carriage ; ''to * smoke inside or outside " — the
people do both; but the carriages are nevertheless excessively
clean.
In an ordinary spring one ought to see the mirage rising
from the salt-covered soil and the marshes; also the ibis, the
pelicans, and flamingos should be visible, as in Africa, to which
country the Camargue is sometimes likened. But in the year
of grace 1902 May was everything that month ought not to
be. The sun, it is true, battled with the mistral; but the vic-
tory was with the wind.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
674 A DEAD VILLAGE. [Aug.,
The Camargue is a delightful swamp. Just outside Aries
a good deal of the land is cultivated. Here and there little
fields of corn and tiny vineyards struggle for life with the
poorness of the soil. Stagnant pools and tamarisk loaded with
beautiful purple flowers ; roads covered with shallow water,
dikes, vines under water, roses, acacias, poplars, weeping wil-
lows, planes, fruit trees, hedges of bamboo to break the force
of the mistral, and fields of blue green artichokes surround us
on every side. After a time this gives place to uncultivated
swamps with long lines of tall, lean, lanky pollard elms, and
here and there a farm or a bastide (hut) bamboo thatched, as
primitive as those of our pre- historic forefathers. May not the
saints have taken refuge in one of these cottages, surrounded
then, as now, by reeds and rushes? Here and there one sees
an umbrella pine, small and puny, as if it had lost its way, and
was dying in the cold blast ere it had arrived at maturity.
How can the inhabitants live in this waste of water ? But I)Ow
beautiful it is as the sun's rays skim the stagnant pools — beau-
tiful but ineffably sad. At Icard only two living creatures were
to be seen — the girl with the letter-box and a black poodle.
So we dawdled on until we arrived at Les Saintes, a poor little,
sad town of rambling, unpaved streets,, a huge crucifix raised
upon several steps, and the curious fortress church with its t^o
eccentric towers. Round the roof of the old building, behind
the battlements, is a paved, pathway, where in times gone by
the lookout man solemnly paced to and fro. Now the swallows
and the mosquitoes share the solitude between them, " dancing
in the sunlight," as the Provencal poet says : " When the mos-
quitoes dance, elles font avec leurs ailes la musiquette de leur
bal, et dans toute la plaine, par les jours tranquilles, sur les
fils d'or de la lumi^re, c'est un bourdonnement de *guitare."
This kind of dancin^^^ like . that of superior persons, is more
entertaining to the performers than edifying to the onlookers.
On the outside of the church is a sculptured marble slab,
representing two lions; one has a cub between its paws, the
other a young child. They are attributed to Greek workman-
ship, and by some persons are thought to have formed part of
the temple of Diana of Ephesus, which the Marseillais erected
upon the littoral of the Camargue.
The interior of the church is encumbered with seats, images,
and trumpsry decorations, but the apse is an interesting ex-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A DEAD Village, 675
ample of Romanesque architecture, and one or two of the acan-
thus capitals are antique. In the centre of the nave is the
miraculous well ; and on the north wall, under glass, the curious
boat with the two saints standing erect.
The old sacristan, who was sweeping the church when I
entered, promised to show me over it in the afternoon; "just
now M. le Cur6 was having his dejeuner." Earlier in the
morning I had seen M. TAbb^ instructing half a dozen boys
and girls in the mysteries of tKe Creed. At 5:30 I duly re-
turned, but no sacristan was visible. At last, after waiting a
quarter of an hour, he peeped in to see "if I were really
genuine in my desire," and again he disappeared, this time
to find the cur^ and accompany him to the meeting place.
The old priest was tall, with a fine profile and a soft voice ;
but he looked dismally poor and unkempt; a man of few words
and a sad countenance, without a grain of that old-fashioned
fine-gentleman courtesy of the Parisian priesthood. But he was
no peasant; he seemed to be simply weak, weary, and worn
out. He told me he had only been at the Saintes Maries
eight days. Was he thinking of the evil times which had fallen
upon this place of pilgrimage ?
We mounted the narrow stairway by the light of a dripping
candle — more by feeling than by sight; and duly arrived in
the chapelle haute without damage other than a coat of dust.
The chapel is an eighteenth century, blue-and-gold panelled
chamber, the ^alls a mass of ex-voto slabs and pictures, but
oddly, considering that most of the inhabitants are fishermen,
very few ships. M. le Cur^ opened the door of the closet
where the large chasse reposes. This is only a commonplace,
coffin-shaped, painted wooden reliquary, with a representation
of the heavily laden boat, copied from the older chasse in the
lower church. At the fete it is pushed out upon a sliding
platform, and by ropes and pulleys lowered into the church
(where it rests upon a table), amidst the cries of the multitude :
" Vivent les Saintes Maries ; Voild^ les Saintes.** So enormous is
the crowd of people who pour into the village that many are
obliged to sleep in the church or the streets the night before
the festival
At 10 A. M. Mass is said; at 4 P. M. Vespers are sung;
and then, during the chanting of the Magnificat, the great
solemnity takes place. The descending chasse^ covered by a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
676 A Dead Village. [Aug.,
mass of flowers, and illuminated by hundreds of tapers, is held by
the excited crowd. Incense rises amidst the cries of '^ Miracle !
Miracle / " as some hapless cripple approaches the relics, and
struggles or is pulled through the surging crowd ; for healing
is given to him who first touches the cAasse.
But in the crypt below a most curious scene is witnessed.
The gypsies, popularly called " Pagans," pay their devotions to
St. Sara, the saints' serving-maid, who came out of Egypt.
Some writers have confused St. Sara with St Mary of Egypt,
but without any evidence. The gypsies have played their part
for centuries, making their semi-pagan rites at the Saintes Maries
an excuse for thieving, fortune- telling, and general vagabond-
age. They flock from all parts of Europe, and are a curse to
the genuine pilgrims, if not an absolute danger as propagators
of dirt and disease.
The next morning all the world goes down to the shore —
priests and people bearing banners from all parts of Provence.
The boat reliquary is taken from its bracket in the church, and
carried by barefooted fisher-folk, popular tradition affirming
that as it approaches the sea the waters retire, symbolizing
the happy transit of the saints in the ship ''without sails and
without mast."
It is doubtless a moving and picturesque scene; but the
charm of the Saintes Maries is its desolation, its endless waste
of land, and sky, and sea stretching out into infinite space, and
its dunes with here and there a tuft of grass or rushes trying
to withstand the terrors alternatively of the fierce sun and
the fiercer wind. Standing upon the sandy shore watching the
barelegged fishermen as they drag their flat-bottomed boats
through the surf under the shadow of the great cross, which is
at once a protection and a sea-mark, one can almost imagine
that the speck upon the horizon is that boat without sails and
mast, floating out of the sunny mist; for undoubtedly it is
the legend — " I'histoire," which is the great attraction of the
place. Connected with the feU suffering, misery, and squalor
are mixed with enthusiasm; but the desolate shore and the
illimitable sea speak only of peace, even though the mistral
be raging ; for its icy blasts are, after all, the grand purifier of
the fascinating but fever- stricken Camargue.
Parkstone, England,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 New Superior-General OF THE Paulists. 677
THE NEW SUPERIOR-GENERAL OF THE PAULISTS.
(T is no news to our readers, whb must have read
the accounts in the secular and religious news-
papers, that the Paulist Fathers have a new
Superior- General — the fourth in the history of
the Institute — in the person of the Very Rev.
George M. Searle, Ph.D., whose portrait forms the frontispiece
of this number of The Catholic World.
The election was an intereslring and important event. It had
been the tradition of the community to keep the '* old guard/'
the actual founders, at the head of affairs as long as they lived.
Father Hecker's mantle fell on the shoulders of Father Hewit;
Father Deshon worthily bore it until his death, in turn ; and with
that death the last of the " founders " passed to his reward. In
the election of Father Searle all must feel that the Paulists have
made a wise and prudent choice — ^a choice of one eminently fitted,
mentally, morally -and spiritually, to be their leader and guide.
Though born in England (London, June 27, 1839), of an
English mother, who was a relative of Captain Parry, the
Arctic explorer, he is on his father's side of genuine Yankee
stock; in direct male line from Robert Searle, who lived in
Dorchester, Mass., in 1662 ; and through his paternal grand-
mother, on her father's side, a descendant of Thomas Dudley, first
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, and on her mother's, of the
celebrated Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, a cousin of the poet John Dryden.
He was baptized in London, in the Church of England, and
was brought to this country the following year by his parents,
who died shortly afterwards, leaving the care of George and
his brother Arthur, two years older — now professor at the Harvard
Observatory — to their paternal uncle and aunt, with whom they
lived in Brookline, Mass., until 1858. Both brothers were brought
up Unitarians, as that was the religion of their foster parents.
At the early age of eighteen Georgie Searle was graduated
at Harvard College, a Phi Beta Kappa man, taking fifth place
in the famous class of 1857, the man immediately preceding
him being John Long, the former secretary of the navy.
The future Paulist superior early showed a remarkable
interest in, and capacity for, mathematical studies, especially in
the branch of astronomy. In the year of his graduation, |^|^
678 New Superior- General of the Pa ulists. [Aug.,
special mathematical examination, he won a $200.00 prize for
a paper on astronomy, which attracted the attention of
astronomers generally, and especially of the distinguished Dr.
B. A. Gould — the greatest practical astronomer of America,
who afterwards did such monumental work at Cordoba, Argen-
tine Republic. (Indeed, Dr. Gould was anxious that young
Searle should be his companion and assistant in that work.)
H'e was engaged on the American Ephemeris and Nautical
Almanac, as computer, till April, 1858; going then to the
Dudley Observatory, Albany, N. Y., with Dr. Gould (where
he discovered the asteroid Pandora), and being subsequently
associated with the doctor in the work of the United States
Coast and Geodetic Survey until September, 1862.
Meanwhile his religious opinions were undergoing change.
He returned to the church of his baptism, the Protestant
Episcopal, in January, 1859, and after further study and reflec-
tion — an account of which may be found in the Stories of
Conversions — he was received into the Catholic Church, in
Brookline, by Rev. Father Finotti, August 15, 1862.
In September of that year he was appointed assistant Pro-
fessor at the United States Naval Academy — at that time, on
account of the Civil War, situated at Newport, R. I. — a posi-
tion which he held for two years, having for his pupils many
of the now famous captains and admirals of our navy.
In 1865, as the result no doubt of the first faint stirrings
of a priestly vocation in his heart, he went to Europe and to
Rome. It was the real Rome then, be it remembered — the
Rome when, the pope was ** il Papa- Re " — when the benignant
and gracious figure of Pius IX. was often seen in the streets
of the Eternal City, and the Sardinian usurper's hand had not
been laid upon the Quirinal. Who can tell what potency the
sights and associations and prayers of that six months' stay at
the fountain of Catholicity had in shaping the future career of
the subject of this sketch ? A chosen companion and cicerone
and fellow lodger during his Roman stay was the well-remem-
bered Father ArmcUini.
Returning to America in 1866, George Searle was assistant for
two years at the Harvard College Observatory, a co-worker with
S. P. Langley, now the distinguished head of the Smithsonian In-
stitution. Professor Langley has not forgotten his old friend,
and only a short time ago invited him to co-operate in the work
of the Total Eclipse Expedition at Wadesboro, N/X.^Ja| 1900.
Aq\ ize ■ y ^
1 904.] New Superior- General of the Pa ulists. 679
In 1868 the question of vocation seemed to be definitely
settled, and the future Superior entered the Paulist Community
March 31 of that year, and was ordained priest March 25, 1871.
Father Ssarle has never lost his interest in mathematical
research. He has written treatises and scientific papers too
numerous to mention. He taught mathematics In the Paulist
House of Studies. He was the first Director of the Observa-
tory at the Catholic University at \yashington, and is still
honorary professor of the higher mathematics there.
But it may be asked : " Is a mathematician necessarily the
best religious superior ? " To this it may be answered — first,
that a man who is pre-eminent in one way is pretty likely to
be above the average in other ways; and second, that Dr.
Searle, the astronomer, is wholly subordinate^ to Father Searle,
the priest. He is priest first of all, and the ;icience of the
saints has bsen studied by him as well as the Table of Loga-
rithms. He taught theology for years in the Paulist Seminary.
Hs has won signal distinction as a religious, as well as a
scientific writer. Take the instance of his well-known Plain
Facts for Fair Minds, Of this notable contribution to Catholic
apDlogetics no less than half a million copies have been printed
and sold. Two other similar works are nearly ready for the
press. In all the years of his priesthood no one of his breth-
ren has been more assiduous in the discharge of the duties of
his sacred office, or more regular and edifying in his observance
of his rule. By the sick and poor of St. PauFs parish his
name is venerated and beloved ; to his fellow- Paulists his
example has been uplifting and stimulating; to his penitents
he h^s been a loving father and spiritual guide; to his supe-
riors always a wise and careful and discreet coun.sellor.
He is a preacher of exceptional ability. His sermons are
what might be expected from a keen and logical mind. There is
no attempt at fine language, no verbal pyrotechnics, no assem-
blage of overworked adjectives. They are clear and crystal-
line and to the point; and they always have a point. They
are as straightforward and direct as a proposition of Euclid,
without being at all dull, bien entendu ; for Father Searle for-
tunately possesses a very delightful and saving sense of humor.
Taken for all in all, the new Paulist Superior is a man '* teres
atque rotundus" ; a man of ability, a man of judgment, a man of
charity, a mm of piety. The Community is fortunate in having
him at its head. May he fill the honored place many-^years]
.digitized by VjQOSlC
^ ^ Zhc %ate8t ifiSooks. ^ ^
The explorer's story of new or
AFRICA. little- known lands and peoples is
By Major Gibbons. always sure to gain the interest of
the general reader. This is espe-
cially true of interior Africa, the land of which we have so
little accurate information, *' the land of contrasts and extremes ;
of unrestrained freedom and slavery in its crudest shape;
where similar conditions brutalize one character but develop
and purify another ; whose climate often wrecks the strong, yet
not infrequently invigorates the weakly constitution; where
vitality and mortality wrestle so fiercely the one with the other
that the most prolific increase is neutralized by virulent epi-
demics and far-reaching plagues."
Therefore the many who are familiar with the pages of
Livingstone, of Speke, of Grant, of Stanley will welcome this
new work* of Major Gibbons. The two volumes, beautifully
printed and amply illustrated, with fine and accurate maps of
the regions traversed, have more than the interest of the best
fiction. The story is told in plain, straightforward English,
just what one would look for in a soldier's narrative. It is
free from details of a purely scientific nature, which, however
necessary for the specialist and for the main purpose of the
expedition, are monotonous and burdensome to the general
reader. The scientific observations and data have, of course,
been collected, and are in the possession of the geographical
expert. Nor does the author unduly intrude his personality
on the reader; there is just enough of the personal element
in the narrative to give life to the picture of the countries
traversed, the characteristics of the tribes encountered, and the
general conditions which the future traveller may expect.
For this is a region which is soon to be easy of access
through the railway. Besides the determination and accurate
mapping of the principal source of the Zambesi, over two thou-
sand miles from the sea, one of the chief purposes of this ex-
pedition was to furnish information of such a character as might
* Africa from South to North throvgh Afarotsehnd, By Major A. St. H. Gibbons,
F.R.G.S,, R.C.S. With numerous Illustrations . and Maps. In two volumes. New York
and London : John Lane.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Latest Books, 681
be of assistance in selecting a route for the trans- continental
railway which had long been the dream of the late Mr. Cecil
Rhodes. The vast plateau of the Zambesi is shown to be a
land of wonders. It is a '* white man's land/' offering, with
Uganda, the best prospects for European settlement. Besides
its undoubted mineral wealth, it is capable of growing on the
most extensive scale the cereals, the vegetables, and the fruits
usual in Europe. It is a land of the fairest scenery, *' Nature
at her best wherever the eye rests." But the glory of its
scenic splendors is the marvellous Victoria Falls, which in its
-unique grandeur and massive proportions eclipses our world-
famed Niagara.
Major Gibbons devotes one of his chapters to the mission-
ary as a factor in the regeneration of the black races in Africa.
He discusses the question with great fairness from the layman's
stand*point, explicitly ignoring all reference to religious con-
troversy ; his interest is centred on the practical and moral
improvement of the blacks. And from this point of view he
gives the highest praise to the labors of the Catholic mission-
aries. He finds them everywhere the most practical men in
the field. And he insists upon a .principle that ought to be
obvious, but is too often lost sight of in the choice of men for
such missions. To do good work and to have its results last-
ing requires the best type of man. High character, a deep
sense of responsibility, noble aspiration, a zeal daunted by no
obstacles, impervious to discouragement, the highest Self-denial,
and conscientious labor — these are the qualities demanded of
such missionaries: the man who has been a failure elsewhere
is more than a stumbling-block to effective work among the
blacks. Hence the author says that of all the systems within
his experience ''that employed by the Roman Catholics alone
reaches the standard" he advocates.
Among recent publications we find
PRATERS AND MEDITATIONS, one that is especially welcome, a
By A Kempls. carefully prepared translation of
A Kempis* Prayers and Medita^
tions on the Life of Christ,* Hitherto the only complete Eng-
* Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ. By Thomas Haemerken ^ Kempis.
Translated from the text of the edition of Michael Joseph Pohl, Ph.D., by W. Duthoit, of Exeter
College, Oxford. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder.
VOL. LXXIX.— 44 V^ T
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
682 The Latest Books. [Aug.,
lish version of this book has been that of "Thomas Carre,"
published in 1664, and of course practically inaccessible to present-
day readers. Two other translations made by Protestant writers
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries carefully excluded
all words that seemed to sanction Catholic beliefs or practices,
and consequently fell far short of the fidelity desirable in such
a work as this. The present version, so far as can be judged
in the absence of the original text, is a successful attempt to
provide readers with an opportunity of entering into the thoughts
of the autl)or just as he intended.
Although the book before us can hardly be said to enjoy
an absolutely undisputed title to genuinity, and although the
most favorable rating would necessarily rank this volume far
below The Imitation of Christ, nevertheless the meditations here
to be found are indisputably valuable by reason of the pure and
fervent piety in which they abound and which will help many
a soul to enter 'feelingly into the passion of Christ and dwell
in His sacred wounds.
A new, popular edition of the
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA. Apologia • has been prepared by
By Cardinal Newman. Father Neville, Cardinal New-
man's literary executor, and placed
upon the market by Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. at the
remarkably cheap price of twenty- five cents, postage prepaid.
It is in octavo, with sewed papet covers, and contains nearly
two hundred double- columned pages of easily readable print.
The preface is that of the 1865 edition, and there is added a
hitherto unpublished letter of the Cardinal's to Canon Flana-
gan, giving a very interesting statement of the writer's atti-
tude toward "the Roman Church," in the years immediately
preceding his submission. Writing in 1857, Dr. Newman de-
clares: "I never to this day have felt necessary to be dissatis-
fied with the drift or the substance of (Tract) No. 90." He
mentions that in 1841, in a letter required of him by the
Bishop of Oxford, he wrote violently against the Roman
Church, because, much as he loved it, he felt bound to speak
out, under this official compulsion, his mental conviction that
Roman doctrine was false. His last two years of delay were
* Apologia pro Vita Sua. Being a History of his Religious Opinions. By John Henry
Cardinal Newman. New York: Longmans, Green & Co.
Digitized by VjOQQ IC '
1904.] The latest books. 683
due to a sense that he should listen to his friends warning him,
" Your new views may be a delusion, and if you act on them,
without a fair trial of their enduring, you may find out they
are so when it is too late."
It is seldom indeed that we meet
WHERE SAINTS HAVE with a book of such exceptional
TROD. merit and power as that of M. D.
By M. D. Petre. Petre, entitled Where Saints Have
TrodJ^ It is a small volume in
size, with a preface by Father Tyrrell, and treats of difficult
yet all-important subjects, the nature of which is made clearer
by the sub title, "Some Studies in Asceticism." In the treat-
ment of these the author gives abundant evidence of an
extended study of St. Thomas Aquinas and a wide reading of
the classical ascetical writers. She has .applied herself dili-
gently and thoughtfully, employing always a comprehensive
vision, to the truths of the spiritual life, and sought to express
their enduring, fundamental and eternal content. It is needless
to say that the foundation and real significance of these truths
are often lost sight of by writers who, pushing special devo-
tions to fanciful limits and exaggerating externals, give no pro-
portionate thought or exposition to what is basic and per-
manent.
Miss Petre has called her book " Studies in Asceticism."
Many may be led by this to judge it a book suited only for
those who desire to lead a most perfect and a continuously
mortified life. Not only these, but all who strive to love God, -
will find it most useful and most helpful, even to the extent
that such as before were not fired with enthusiasm to lead the
most perfect life will here be enlightened, at least, as to the
beauty, the depth, the value of that life. The book will give
an insight into matters that daily enter into our every-day
spiritual existence, matters most common yet oftentimes either
neglected or insufficiently explained or misrepresented in their
treatment. And that insight will beget a truer sense of the^
beauty of ancient truths, a wider and deeper conception of
the creature's responsibility and dignity before his God, and a
firmer love of our divine Redeemer. Among the subjects
• Where Saints Have Trod. Some Studies in Asceticism. By M. D. Petre. With a
preface by Rev. George Tyrrell, S.J. London ; Catholic Truth Society.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
684 THE LATEST BOOKS. [Aug.,
treated are Commandments and Counsels, The Buried Life,
Devotion and Devotions, The Sacrament of Love, Death before
Dishonor, Self-will and Freedom, Deus Meus et Omnia. These
short essays are almost as valuable for what they suggest as
for what they actually say, and in their writing, besides her
theological learning, Miss Petre has evidenced a clear English
style and a pleasant facility of illustration.
The new Year-book of the Catholic University of America
has just been issued. It contains the changes in entrance re-
quirements and courses called for by the action of the Board
of Trustees in deciding to admit graduates of high-schools to
the University. These modifications do not imply that the
University is to lower its standards or abandon the field of
advanced work in which it has hitherto been engaged. It is
hoped, on the contrary, that a larger number of men, trained
in their preliminary courses by the University teachers, will
become candidates for the higher degrees and devote themselves
to scientific research.
By placing its extensive resources and equipment within
reach of candidates for the baccalaureate degrees, the University
expects to retain within Catholic influences many of our young
men who otherwise would enter non- Catholic institutions.
This book relates the life of St.
ST. COLETTE. Colette of Corbie,* a fifteenth
By A. Germain. century ascetic, as remarkable by
her social influence as by her
spirituality. She enjoyed in her day a European fame. By
saving her memory from oblivion Alphonse Germain has done
a work both useful and interesting. His book, which is copi-
ously documented from the most reliable sources, forms a seri-
ous contribution to the history of France during the reigns of
Charles VI. and Charles VII. Colette indeed enjoyed the
esteem and respect of the most high-placed personages of her
time, and had a most beneficial influence over them — especially
over the wife and son of John the Fearless. The religious and
patriotic movement which permitted Joan of Arc to accomplish
her mission was developed and vivified by Colette's reform of
^ SainU Colette de Corbie. Par Alphonse Germain, laur^at de 1' Academic fran9aise.
Paris: Poussielgue, Maison St. Roch, Couvin, Belgique.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE Latest Books. 685
the Franciscan order ; and, by the counsel she gave princes, as
well as by her intervention with the various political parties,
she contributed much towards the pacification of France. M.
Germain has drawn the sweet figure of Colette, and he has
told her heroic, curious, and even extraordinary life with much
felicity. For most readers this work will be a revelation. No,
one, interested in the history of France, will regret having read
it. One may not, it is true, always share the author's beliefs,
and one may even reject some of his ideas, or what he has to
say about the supernatural faces attributed to the saint; yet,
if one wishes to be impartial, one must admit that his book
presents sufficient facts solidly established, and that, on the
whole, he shows such an amount of genuine erudition that it
may safely take place among the works to be consulted.
Alphonse Germain, already well known by his numerous works
on esthetics — the latest of which is Le Sentiment de I* Art — has
suddenly revealed himself as an earnest historian.
To readers familiar with Father
THE BURDEN OF THE TIME. Clifford's previous volume, /«-
By Rev. C. Clifford. troibo, it will be unnecessary to
say more than this, that the new
book* is conceived and executed in the same general spirit as
its predecessor. A new addition has thus been made to the
slowly growing class of spiritual works written by English
authors, in the English language, for English readers. What-
ever question is raised by the new volume, all will readily
recognize it as of a type that should be encouraged. The
defects which may be found in it are defects of the kind that
attach to writings of a high order; and when due allowance
is made for each shortcoming of style or sentiment, or what
not, the work must remain an acknowledged prize for the
Catholic public.
Father Clifford has a keen and . penetrating mind ; his
teaching is given out with force and decision ; he uses language
that reveals the well-trained and widely- educated man. Com-
pared with what has hitherto been almost the only available
sort of spiritual literature, his book must be called remarkable
* The Burden of the Time: Essayi in Suggestion based upon certain of the Breviary
Scriptures of the Liturgical Year. By the Rev. Cornelius Clifford, New York : The
Cathedral Library Association.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
686 The La test Books. [Aug.,
for originality. A palpable sympathy for the condition and
the tastes of the reader to whom he addresses himself is usu-
ally manifested in his statements as in his tone. At the
same time the uncompromising insistence on principles — with-
out distinction into repugnant and pleasant — that marks the
truly religious mind is in full evidence. Hence these pages
are calculated to be extremely profitable without ceasing to be
very attractive reading.
The character of the author's work may be best explained,
perhaps, by saying that it is a collection of miniature spiritual
essays (some two hundred of them) on topics suggested by the
Scripture readings apportioned to the different seasons in the
Roman Breviary. " It is for the * modern * reader, most of all,
that he has written for that breathless, forward- moving public
of devout but over-busy men, whether in the cloister or out of
it, who are spiritual enough to find conscience- room for an
idea, but not leisured enough to labor it to a poor third of its
issues." And his purpose has been admirably fulfilled. So that
if you like to meet with the spiritual reflections of a cultured
Catholic mind, well fitted to represent the church in her appli-
cation of the eternal truths to the conditions of ordinary
personal and social existence, why then you had better dip
into the pages of The Burden of the Time,
Father Thurston's work on Lent
LENT. and Holy Week* is an extremely
By Father Thurston. valuable addition to historical litur-
giology. Father Thurston is wide-
ly known as a thorough and painstaking student of liturgical
and devotional development, and any such woik frcm his pen
is guaranteed beforehand as sound and scientific. This volume
presents in a charming manner the rise and growth of the
Lenten fast and Lenten ritual ; and, whether from the point of
view of history or of devotion, is in a high degree valuable.
We know of no better way of appreciating the Church's Lenten
and Passion- tide solemnities than by reading a bcok like this.
For history is the best interpreter of public worship, just as
worship is the holiest record of history.
•Lent and Holy Week. By Rev. Herbert Thurston, S.J. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co.
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1904.] The Latest Books. 687
Whether a life of Pius X. is prc-
LIFE OF PIUS X. mature or not, here it is.* It is
padded, to be sure; so that only
about the middle of the book do we begin to read about the
subject of it But the padding is good, nevertheless. There is
a long summary of the life of Leo XIII. which is interesting ; and
some historical information on Papal conclaves and elections
which is valuable. Excellent illustrations are abundant, and
altogether it is a volume worth possessing.
The Reverend Arthur Ritchie,
SERMONS. rector of the Ritualistic Church
By Rev. Arthur Ritchie. of St. ^Ignatius in New York, has
published a volume of sermons f
which does credit to his heart. They are simple, strong, and
earnest, full of zeal for souls, and eloquent with exhortations
to righteousness and sanctity. They profess also the utmost
solicitude about genuine and old-fashioned Catholicity. Mr.
Ritchie urges his people to go to confession oftener, to receive
the Eucharist more worshipfully, to believe in Hell more firmly.
He hints plainly his disapproval of Protestantizing the Anglican
Church, insists upon the folly of private judgment which leads
to countless sects, and appeals for submission to the sure
authority of Catholic faith. Concerning the text, "Thou art
Peter, etc.," there is one sermon which, we respectfully suggest
to Mr. Ritchie, is by no means the most creditable in his book.
We think that if he were to reflect with open mind upon both
text and context of our Lord's special commissions and promises
to St. Peter, then upon the history of the church in which, as
Mr. Ritchie himself believes, God has not for a single century
or generation ceased to dwell, and finally upon the true mean-
ing of Infallibility, which his use of the term " autocratic "
leads us to think he hardly apprehends aright, we are inclined to
fancy that there would not appear in any future sermon of his
so curt a dismissal of Papal claims ; and so iinphilosophical a
procedure as the thinking that the Catholic doctrine of the
Primacy, which is in itself so momentous, and in its historical
associations so vast« could possibly rest upon so slender a
* Lift of Pope Pius X, With a Preface by Cardinal Gibbons. New York : Benziger
Brothers.
\ Sermons from St, Ignatius Pulpit. By Rev. Arthur Ritchie. Milwaukee: The Young
Churchman Company.
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688 The LATEST BOOKS. [Aug.,
foundation as "fbc dust of theological controversy." Our hope
is that our author's dieeply religious spirit will find for itself
thd true and authoritative Christianity, the un- Protestantized
and genuine Catholicity which in these discourses he urges his
hearers to profess.
The " North-Country Curate " who
VIA DOLOROSA. wrote Via Dolorosa* has given us
By a North-Country Curate, a fairly good story. It tells of tw«
vocations lost at St. Sulpice, one of
a Frenchman through rationalism, the other of a fascinating young
Irishman through falling in love. The rationalist is converted at
last, and appears at the end of the book as — well, to tell what
appears at the end of a book is hardly fair either to author or
reader. The author hfis in him possibilities of good story telling.
But he must study, and re-study, and still continue to study
the construction of plots, the nature of dialogue,, the descrip-
tion of incident, and everything else that goes toward the fiction-
maker's most exacting profession. About all these matters our
author has a great deal either to learn entirely or to become
skilful in handling. Then as to conveying moral lessons or
dogmatic instruction in a novel, this is a thing that must be
done by way of suggestion to be tolerable. Whole paragraphs
and pages of one or other kind of preaching strike one ill if
one has bought a book to enjoy as a story. With great care
and constant labor the author of Via Dolorosa should produce
thoroughly good work. His first venture promises well.
He That Eateth Bread With Me t
HE THAT EATETH BREAD is a curious sort of book concern-
WITH ME. ing which the most that can be
By H. A. M. Eeays. said is that it will be admired by
many for its cleverness and by a
few for its ethical inspiration. The least that can be said of it
is that those who view it from the stand-point of traditional
morality and prevalent conventions will regard it with censor-
ious eyes. That the author has a keen eye and a ready pen
not even her unkindest critic can deny. Whether or not the
book will bear a helpful message to the individual reader, must
* Via Dolorosa. By a North-Country Curate. St. Louis : B. Herder.
\He That Eateth Bread With Me. By H. A. Mitchell Keays. New York: McClure,
Phillips & Co.
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1904.] The Latest Books, 689
depend mainly on this issue : Will said reader be more shocked
or edified by the . contemplation of a model character who,
after desperate struggles with natural inclination, accepts as a
terrible duty the task of renouncing her husband to the woman
whom she feels he should try to save ? If unselfishness is to
reign as the supreme, truest test of nobility and the strongest
force to lift humanity, then what shall be done in cases where
renunciation runs counter to Christian ideas of right and law ?
It's a sort of Enoch Arden affair, you see ; but we do think
that a pagan, or one who believed in the divorce remedy,
might get some good, health-bestowing shocks out of this book.
As an instructive introduction to
DANTE'S INFERNO. readers of the Inferno of Dante
By A. T. Ennis. we recomnitend Mr. Ennis' study,.*
which has just been published.
The author's purpose is not to give^ any origiaal or exhaustive
study of the first part of the Divine Comedy^ nor to explain
historical events and personages and every mythological refer-
ence. The object of his work is to act as a guide to the
reader on the great highway of the poem, and to show him
the principal, the absorbing, the one great theme of its author.
The value of such an exposition may be easily known when
one considers the endless discussions concerning Dante's work,
the interpretations to which his lines have been forced, and the
manner in which secondary, political purposes of. his work have
been made to appear its chief end and object. ''To mistake
some minor phases for the dominant note of the symphonic
poem betrays a lamentable ignorance of the structure of
the immortal composition," is well said in the preface. Mr.
Ennis has grasped the spiritual and supernatural aim of Dante's
work. He has realized the supreme message which the Floren-
tine gave to man : the eternal despair of sin, never to be taken
away yet ever to be expressed in the pains of hell, the com-
forting hope of purgatorial suffering, the triumphant and com-
plete union in heaven — all portrayed with the view to teach
men the bitterness of sin and the glory of virtue. The per-
ception of this main purpose has fitted Mr. Ennis to be a suit-
able guide, and as a guide he speaks well and clearly. The
* IntrodvctiaH to Dantt's Inferno, By Adolphus T. Ennis. Boston : Richard G. Badger,
The Gorham Press.
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690 The Latest Books. [Aug.,
author promises similar introductions to the Purgatorio and
ParadisOf and the reader of the present one will look forward
with eagerness for the other two.
Few sciences have progressed more
RELIGIOUS PEDA60GT. within the last few years than
By Burton and Mathews, that of teaching. Pedagogy has
become a definite science grounded
on the principles of psychology. The results of this welcomed
progress is perhaps nowhere more marked than in our Sunday-
schools. The dry, irksome system of catechetical instruction has
been, in part at least, superseded by methods calculated to
arouse the interest of the child and fill him with a love of his
faith as well as store with definitions and formulas his memory.
Happily "the sacredness which belongs to the ancient doc-
trines is no longer regarded as attaching also to the ancient
but antiquated methods of teaching them."
It is also encouraging to find that, for the most part, our
Sunday-school teachers are persons filled with true zeal for
their work and genuine sympathy for the little children com-
mitted to their charge — persons who, though receiving little or
no aid from those whose duty it is to instruct and encourage
them, are nevertheless^ in many ways at least, earnestly striv-
ing to prepare themselves for the work. To such persons we
are glad to recommend in the way of practical assistance Pro-
fessors Burton and Mathews' .treatise * on the Sunday- school.
This work deals with the most perplexing problems met with
in any class- room, such as Incentives to Study, Attention,
Methods of Conducting Recitations, and contains discussions of
these questions every line of which is both suggestive and illu-
minating.
Here is a little book f intended to
STORY OF ISRAEL. answer a need keenly felt by all
By Evelyn L. Thomas. teachers of Bible history. The
successful teaching of any branch
of history requires that the facts to be learned should be
repeatedly gone over by the child until they are firmly fixed
* Principles and Ideals for the Sun day- school. An Essay in Religious Pedagogy. By
Ernest De Witt Burton and Shailer Mathews, Professors in the University of Chicago.
t The Early Story of Israel, By Evelyn L. Thomas. New York, London, and Bombay:
Longmans, Green & Co.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 691
in his memory. To omit repetitions means failure. But repe-
titions are proverbiaUy dull, and if not skilfully conducted may
have the disastrous effect of creating in the pupil a distaste
for study. To devise means of making these indispensable
repetitions at once profitable and attractive has severely taxed
the ingenuity of our most competent instructors. One of the
most practical helps that has as yet been discovered is the
use of collateral readers in w^hich the facts of the text are
clothed in other and^ if possible, more attractive language. It
is with the view of producing a book that would thus sup-
plement the ordinary Bible history that Mrs. Thomas has given
us this admirable sketch of Israel's early history. It contains,
as the author explains, not a detailed account of the period
but rather a brief, lively description of the principal events and
characters, with the view to arouse the child's interest and im-
pel him to more diligent study. Charming language, together
with the judicious use of pictures, anecdotes, and illustrations^
combine to make the volume a most attractive supplementary
reader.
Largely based on the plan of
A COURSE IN SPANISH. Woodbury's Practical Course in
By Monsanto and Languellier. German, the Monsanto-LangueU
lier Spanish Grammar* will prove
to be a useful manual both for class- rooms and for private
work. It covers the elementary ground carefully and syste-
matically, contains a good tabulation of the irregular verbs,
and in the present edition has been conformed to the latest
rulings of the Academy in accentuation and spelling.
The Faith of Menf is Jack Lon-
THE FAITH OF MEN. don's most recent offering to read-
By Jack London. ers of fiction. Eight short stories
comprise the volume, a majority of
them being reprinted from various periodicals. All of them deal
with the prose and poetry incident to life in the mining camps
of Alaska and the cold, mysterious North. In character the
stories are widely different, ranging from the grotesquely hu-
* A Practical Course in Spanish. By H. M. Monsanto and Louis A. Languellier. Re-
vised by Freeman M. Josselyn, Jr. New York, Cincinnati, Chicago: American Book
Company.
t The Faith of Men. By Jack London. New York : The Macmillan Company.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
692 The Latest Books. [Aug.,
morous to the dcpressingly tragic. They are smart, well-told
tales, with well- conceived plots and graphic characterizations.
" The Faith of Men," from which the book takes its name, and
" The One Thousand Dozen," are tragedies too probable to be
shaken off, while " A Relic of the Pliocene " is a monstrous
yarn concerning the killing of the last mammoth.
The element of cruelty enters largely into some of Mr. Lon-
don's serious tales. This may be characteristic of the writer or
the country of which he writes. At all events, when he starts
out to write a tragedy he does it with a keen relish and re-
lentlessly.
This book • is disappointing. There
THE PINE GROVE HOUSE, is incompleteness in its plot, and a
By Ruth Hall. want of high finish in its tone.
The characters are not strong, and
its hero and heroine unreal. The little Maud Talbot is as strik-
ing a figure as the "leading lady," Helen Loring, while the
descriptions of Harold Smith's illiterate mother, who is a washer-
woman made rich, and the fallen woman, Sara Joralemon, who
is so strikingly beautiful, seem to jar on the best parts of the
narrative. There is, in our opinion, little benefit to be derived
from the perusal of Pine Grove House, and the reader will lay
the book down dissatisfied. Descriptions of cheap boarding-
houses and ''decayed aristocracy" are not elevating, nor cal-
culated to incite cheerful or beautiful thoughts in a world where
so much shadow is mingled with the sunshine. A fluent writer
like Ruth Hall can give literature something better than Pine
Grove House,
" This book f aims to give a sketch
IRISH LIFE IN IRISH of the vista of Irish life opened by
FICTION. the novelists, and to consider their
By Horatio Sheafe Kraus. novels carefully where they seem
representative of national life and
character. The value of the fiction of the period before the
great famine is, on the whole, historical, not artistic; and there
may . be seen just how the racial antipathies, the religious an-
tagonisms, the sleepless consciousness of past wrongs, fourd
• The Pine Grove House. By Ruth Hall. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
t Irish Life in Irish Fiction. By Horatio Sheafe Kraus. New York : Macmillan Company.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 693
expression." These words are taken from 'the preface, but the
closing chapter remarks that since this work was written a new
school has arisen having a higher standard of art and style in
general. New forces are astir in the realm of literature, both
in . prose and verse. The book is interesting as a study in com-
parative literature.
The evolution of the dime novel
' WHEN WILDERNESS WAS of a few decades ago and its
KING. • appearance among us as the mod-
By R. Parrish. ern historical romance would be a
fruitful subject for the literary
chronicler. Indians, soldiers, burnings at the stake, bloody
attacks and thrilling escapes, are the paraphernalia of the up-
to date cloth-bound version, just as they were of its maligned
predecessor. None of the essentials of a good historical romance
are lacking in Randall Parrish's When Wilderness was King,*
Fort Dearborn is the scene of this tale, and the plot is worked
out by the English settlers on one side against their Indian
adversaries on the other. The story is told in the first person,
and that is a comfort, for no matter how dire his distress, we
have the assurance that the hero has lived to tell the tale.
The book is published in attractive form and its illustrations
are an interesting feature. As for its literary value, the story
ranks in plot, character development, and style with the be$t
of its class, and it should find many appreciative readers.
There is the ring of " the true po-
SONGS BY THE WAYSIDE, etic talent" in these verses f by
By William J. Fischer. Dr. Fischer, and with this is the
ever turning to God, the Author of
beauty, of all things lovable and winning. The spirit of faith
and hope and love gleams through the pages like a thread of
gold, and we are the purer and better because we have read
them. We admire particularly "In the Cathedral," *• Faces in
the Street," "A Song of the End." No sweeter gift could be
offered to a friend.
• When Wilderness was King, By Randall Parrish. Chicago : A. C. McClurg & Co.
\ Songs by the Wayside, By William J. Fischer. Boston, Mass.: The Gorham Press.
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«t «t «^ Xibtans XCable. # # # |
^ +
The Tablet (ii June).: An editorial discusses the question of
Catholic Secondary or Higher Education and calls atten-
tion to the lirgent necessity for the foundation of
Catholic secondary sthools, none, or almost none, of
which at present exist. The immense disadvantages
under which Catholic children labor because of the lack
of such schools ; the grave dangers confronting Catholic
youth attending Protestant schools and colleges; the
serious inefficiency, if not total ruin, of the present
Catholic elementary school system unless quickly rein-
forced by a system of well- equipped schools and col-
leges for Catholic secondary and higher education — all
these call for vigorous effort and co-operation on the
part of English Catholics, if they wish to reap the
fruits of the victory already gained for Catholic educa-
tion, and at tfa« same time secure for their children
some share in the many educational advantages offered
by the government. An article on " Russia in Cen-
tral Asia " points out the retrograde and unprogressive
policy of the Russian government as evident in its
recent dealings with Buriats, Tibetans, and other tribes
of Eastern Asia. In its efforts for the " russification '^
of the various portions of the empire the imperial gov-
ernment has sought by merciless means to crush out
every vestige of independence, religious or political;
a policy long since abandoned by civilized nations, and
one which, especially in view of the present crisis of
affairs in the Far East, is fraught with the gravest
dangers for the unity and peace of Czardom.
(June i8): One of the results of the Russo-Japanese
war is the new development of activity among the Bal-
kan States ; the rulers of which have formed an alliance,
and assumed an aggressive attitude towards Austria.
Under the heading '^ Austria and the Balkan States "
the writer reviews the situation there and speculates at
length upon the possible outcome of the movement.
The Roman Correspondent discusses the friendly atti-
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1904.] Library Table. 695
tude of His Holiness Pius X. towards the Italian govern-
ment, and the spirit of conciliation at present pervading
the Vatican. A . review of the political campaign of
the Italian Socialists in preparation for the coming elec-
tions, the most prominent and important part of which
consists in bitter charges, vile and savage attacks upon
the church and clergy, Announcement is made of
the marriage of Lord Acton with Miss Dorothy Lyon
on June 7, at the London Oratory.
- (June 25).: Reluctantly complains of rules enforced in
some of the London hospitals. The grievance is that
some regulations infringe on the religious freedom of
the Catholic patients and nurses, and deny to the
Catholic priest the privileges granted to other clergy-
men. Rev. Herbert Lucas draws an analogy between
the educational crisis of 1843 and the peril which now
threatens the English Catholic schools. He points out
the main features of the present situation and states
that the remedy must be of a financial order. From
Rome comes news of the audience and cordial reception
which the British sailors were given at the Vatican.
The report is denied that there is in preparation a papal
document which will abolish the non expedit.
(2 July) :. Commenting upon the approaching national
conference of the Franciscan tertiaries at Leeds, the
writer expresses the hope that the "tertiary movement
is prepared to receive into itself the new enthusiasm for
St. Francis which is at present so largely outside the
order and the church, and give it a definite leading as
a religious force." The Rev. J. R. Madan contri-
butes a third installment of his article on " St. Peter
and St. Paul at Antioch," dealing in this number with
the early days of the Antiochene Church. ^The
announcement is made in the Notes that the reorganiza-
tion of the editorial staff of The Correspondant has been
accomplished. M. £tienne Lamy has been made editor.
^The Roman Correspondent reports that the Biblical
Commission is working quietly but effectively. Father
David Fleming, one of the two secretaries of the com-
mission, has declared that he is quite satisfied with the
progress made. A considerable number of students duly
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696 Library Table. [Aug.,
qualified with the degree of Doctor in Sacred Theology
have applied for examination for the degrees in Scrip-
ture to be awarded by the commission.
The Month (July) : Decides that the Tractatus de Conceptione
is to be ascribed neither to St. Anselm nor to the
• Abbot of Bury, but solely to Eadmer. Relates "the
Legend of Abbot Elsi " ; but comes to a "somewhat
vague conclusion " as regards the author of this legend,
which has some bearing on the obscure history of Our
Lady's Conception feast. Defends the French religious
against the charges preferred by calumniators. Enumer-
ates some of the accusations, examines in general the
nature of the testimony adduced, notes the attitude of
the an ti- clerical party, and contrasts the morality of
the clergy with that of the other professional classes in
France. Emphasizes the importance which attaches to
the conversion of the Copts in Egypt. Shows that such
event would be instrumental in checking the spread of
Mohammedanism in northern Africa, in reuniting the
Abyssinians with the church, and in facilitating the
evangelization of the Soudan and the adjoining countries.
Hibbert Journal (July) : Bishop Talbot, in a criticism of Sir
Oliver Lodge's "Suggestions towards the Reinterpreta-
tion of Christian Doctrine," expresses, first, satisfaction
that a man of scientific distinction should come upon
theological ground ; and next, gratitude for the spirit in
which he deals with his subject. His acknowledgment
of God as a Being whom it is possible to love, to serve,
and to worship, and his assurance that science surmises
what looks like " spiritual existence before all worlds,
makes him recognized as a comrade. In criticism of ' the
doctrine of the Atonement as traditionally and officially
held, or supposed to be held, by the churches to-day,'"
Sir Oliver "has credited theology with what is not
really hers, and he has refused on insufficient ground
what she rightly maintains. The foundation stone of the
doctrine of the Atonement is not the imputation of
vicarious sin, but that great terrible truth which, as
Driver says, ' history no less than individual experience
only too vividly teaches each one of us.' " A second
error is the notion that [^the Atonement implies a
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capriciously angry God, whereas it implies what Lyttle-
ton calls ''the fixed and necessary hostility of the
Divine nature to sin." But what Sir Oliver has missed
he may well be led to recognize, later on, as a legiti-
mate and necessary part of theological interpretation.
Prof. Bradley attempts to sketch in the language of
ordinary literature the theory of tragedy evolved by
Hegel, the man who has been rivalled in this matter
only by Aristotle. — — ^T. Bailey Saunders describes the
too little known Herder, whose great service was that of
an enthusiastic pioneer exploring the entire field of
knowledge and making luminous suggestions everywhere.
Prof. Sorley contrasts the intellectualist form of
idealism traditional since Plato with that which is gaining
ground since Kant, and of which the fundamental pro-
position is the assertion not of the intelligible but of
the spiritual nature of reality. A form of Realism is
entering speculative thought at present, and so far
adopting Idealism as to contend both for the Indepen-
dent existence of the objects of sense- perception and for
a reality corresponding to scientific and ethical conception.
In " Present Aspects of the Problem of Immortality,"
by S. H. Mellone, M.A., D.So., we are told that we desire
an immortality which shall signify a personal life in the
full sense of the word, not an existence of disembodied
spirits. We desire immortality to adjust the deserts and
merits of men so disproportionately accorded in time.
^The answers to questions asked by the Society for
Psychical Research, viz., (i) "Do you desire a future
life whatever the conditions might be ? " (2) " Can you
say what elements in life are felt by you to call for
perpetuity ? " seem to show that many desire annihila-
tion, many do not care, and that the number of those
desiring future life is usually overrated. The value of
such questions is dubious.
Those who object to immortality because it is mere
rest, endlessness, fail to grasp the vital and predominant
element of the concept which is continuous growth.
Immortality is not the whole of the religious view of the
world, but only a subordinate part of it, a consequence
of the more fundamental view that Goodness, Beauty,
VOL. LXXIX.— 45
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and Truth are supernal realities whose permanent worth
does not depend on the continual existence of man.
''Human ministers of justice fail; justice never." Death
is but a stage of life. Personal growth for each
continues. Writing on the religious temperament
of the English the rector of St Ethelburga's, Rev.
W. F. Cobb, uses the doctrine of the Virgin Birth as an
illustration. Concerning it he says that fortunately the
time is passed when, with Anselm, one might say on
this head "non opus est disputare." The stress laid
on that teaching is bound up with a low view of reli-
gion and a heretical view of the nature of matter. It is
'' cowardice, obstinate conservatism, or want of educa-
tion in religion which attaches a religious value to the
doctrine of the Virgin Birth : I say the doctrine, and
not the fact. The fact no loyal churchman cares to
contradict. Its religious value no Christian man is at
liberty to appraise high." Materialism as now enshrined
in the temples of English Christianity does appraise it
highly; but a silent, little- noticed, almost subterraneous
movement is, like the action of leaven, gradually affecting
the whole lump. Professor Knight tells how the use
of the historical method in philosophy will eliminate
intolerance towards what we now consider uncouth or
outr^.-: Discussing the problem of evil St. George
Stock insists that we must frankly acknowledge God's
Kingdom to be not of this world; but that must not
prevent us from striving that his kingdom may come.
Civilta Cattolica (18 June): Continues the series of articles
entitled "The True Christianity of the Gospel and the
Christianity of Alfred Loisy." The author states that
he has not been following the synthetic method (in which
pre-established theses are confirmed with arguments), but
the analytic (in which one proceeds without any pre-
suppositions to the discovery of truth, part by part).
Among the points treated is Loisy's position on the
Resurrection, and the French critic is "very easily"
confuted. Loisy calls the Resurrection undemonstrable.
" But what more is needed for the demonstration of a
fact than the testimony of many eye-witnesses who are
neither deceiving nor deceived? — and who, moreover.
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have no interest in lying? What further evidence did
Europeans ask from the comrades of Columbus on his
return from America ? And what more is required for
any historical fact ? Now, that Jesus Christ was dead is
attested by all, both friends and enemies : the centurion,
Pilate, the persons who embalmed and buried the body,
the Sanhedrim, the soldiers, the piQus women. That
Jesus Christ rose again is attested by the pious women
who went to anoint him, by Mary Magdalen, and the
other two who spoke with the risen one (John xx. 14;
Mark xvi. i); by St. Peter (Luke xiv. 34); by the two
disciples near Emmaus (Luke xxiv.) ; by the twelve
Apostles gathered together in the absence of St. Tho-
mas (John XX. ig) ; by the same, in the presence of St
Thomas (John xx. 26) ; by the disciples in Galilee
(John xxi.); by St Paul (I. Cor. xv. 8), and by five
hundred persons gathered together (L Cor. xv. 6)."
An account is given of Denifle's Luther and Lutheranism^
a work of which the first volume, containing nine hun-
dred pages, has just appeared. The book is described as
an expos^ of Luther's morals,. and of the true origin of
hi$ theological teachings. A great outcry against the
work has been made by the German reviews, and it has
met with severe criticism at the hands of Harnack, See-
berg of Berlin, and Hausleiter of Greifswald, as stupid,
unscientific, uncharitable, indecorous, inaccurate. Deni-
fle has made answer to his critics.
Revue de Lille (April) : M. le Vte. de Meaux continues
his article on the '' Catholic Church in the United
States." Two important factors, he thinks, in the future
of the church in the United States are the Society of
the Missions to non- Catholics and the Federation of
Catholic Societies. In noting the opening of the Mis-
sion House at Washington, he recalls the work of Fr.
Hecker and of the missionaries to non- Catholics, and
their efforts in the West and South. He also dwells on
the work of the Federation, quoting the words of Presi-
dent Roosevelt in congratulating it on its efforts for
national unity and for the morality of the whole coun-
try. The conditions of the workman and the capitalist,
and how far the Catholic Church can better these con-
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700 Library Table. [Aug.,
ditionSy are discussed. Finally the writer explains the
contradiction in the meaning in this country and in
Europe of the '' separation of Church and State." " In
France it means the suppression of the Church by the
State/' and is founded on ''affected indifference and
real hostility. In America it signifies the independence
of Church as opposed to the domination of the State."
In concluding, the author contrasts the conditions in
France with those in the United States.
La Revue Apologetique (May i6) : An article on the
Temporal Power is contributed by H. Nimal, C.SS.R.
He traces out the growth of this power and shows the
good that resulted from the union of Papal with civil
power. A. De Ridder continues his article on the
" Catholic Renaissance in England." This number tells of
Newman's entrance into the church, of the impression
made in England by his action, and of the controversies
that followed close upon it.
(June i6) : In an article on the Spanish Inquisi-
tion M. TAbbd Gaffre shows the historical unreliability
of Llorente ; then gives the true account of the Inquisi-
tion, of its members, of the rules regulating it, of the
crimes it dealt with, of its method of trial, and of the
punishments it inflicted. -This division of A. De Rid-
der's article on the "Catholic Renaissance in England"
is devoted to the story of Manning's conversion; tells
of the establishment of the episcopal hierarchy in Eng-
land and of the progress of Catholicism in that country.
Studi Religiosi (May-June) : Continuing a resume of the vari-
ous articles occasioned by the Loisy case. Editor Minoc-
chi mentions first a paper in the Siecle signed by
Albert R^ville. It states that the same publications
which several years ago caused Loisy's departure from
the Catholic Institute of Paris gained for him a position
at the Sorbonne, where his colleagues came to recognize
in him a profotfnd scholar and a loyal Catholic. The
disposition to question Loisy's Catholicity is traceable^
says Rdville, to misunderstanding of his theory upon
the .church, for he believes in the Catholic Church in
the strongest sense of the word believe. Under threat
of excommunication Loisy wrote President R^ville a
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letter announcing the discontinuance of his course at
the Sorbonne ; and the news that, having been forced to
choose between heresy and retraction, he had elected. to
be i^ilent. Another paper mentioned is that of Paul
Sabatier in the Revue Chretienne^ which declares that
Loisy's book will have a profound influence in the
French Church, which is everywhere beginning to feel
the stirring of a new life and to which Loisy has given
an intellectual programme. Other papers are those pub-
lished in the Church Quarterly Review of April and in
the Correspondant by Mgr. Mignot, as already noticed in
these pages. Mention is likewise made of a correspond-
ence that appeared in the London Times^ and in which
one writer .declared, that the following theses of Loisy
are opposed to the ProvidentissitnusDeus, and a second
writer declared that they are not peculiar to Loisy, but
are held by many members of the Biblical Commission
instituted by Leo XIIL:
The Pentateuch in its present form cannot have been
written by Moses.
The first chapters of Genesis do not contain the true
and precise story of the origins of mankind.
The books of the' Otd Tdstament and their various
parts have not all the same historical character.
All the historical books of Scripture, including the
New Testament, were written with a greater freedom
than is usual in modern histories ; and. a certain liberty
of interpretation is a legitimate consequence of the
liberty of their composition.
The history of the religious teaching of the Bible
shows that this doctrine .uiv<lQrwent a real development
in all its elements, in the idea of God, in the idea of
human destiny, and in the idea of the moral law.
The teachings of the Bible on natural science do not
rise above the level of the common notions of antiquity,
and such notions have left their imprint on the religious
teachings of. the Bible.
The church with its dogmas is derived from the Gospel
of Christ, but is not formally contained in that Gospel.
Two other papers noticed are those of Lagrange and
of Battifol in the Bulletin of Toulouse ; and still another
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702 Library Table, [Aug.,
is that of Portalie, S.J., in the same periodical, and
finally comes one from the Revue du Clerge Franfaise.
P. Fremont's criticism of Loisy is described as lack-
ing scientific seriousness. P. Emonet's article in the
£tudes is fair and kindly, although concerning Galileo
he writes " one unfortunate page."
Le Correspondant (lo June): Contains an article on the Russian-
Japanese war. The two plans devised by the Japanese
in their effort to conquer Russia are clearly shown ; oixe
of them Russia has upset ; the other is, thus far, success-
ful. The author adds a few reflections on the difficul-
ties and advantages on either side, citing distance as the
greatest obstacle to the Russians, while her enormous
army seems well able to cope with the small army of
Japan. Time has been the " precious ally " to the Japan-
ese, who for t*h« past ten years have been' preparing
for this war, and this, coupled with loyal and fearless
soldiers, is likely to turn victory against the Russians.
F^Iix Klein contributes another interesting addition
to his sketches of "The Land of the Strenuous Life."
In this number he writes of his trip to Baltimore, where
he was entertained by Cardinal Gibbons ; of his visit to
Washington, where he had a lengthy conversation with
President Roosevelt, whose character and ideas, tolerance
in theory and in practice, fair attitude towards both
Catholics and Protestants, he does not fail to notice.
(25 June) : An article on " Bazaine and the End of the
Mexican Expedition," by £mile Ollivier, deals with the
final struggles of Maximilian's government to maintain
itself on the American continent. Briefly a version is
given of the causes leading up to the evacuation ; the stu-
pendous financial embarrassment, and consequent dearth
of troops and supplies ; the attitude of the United States ;
the final and unsuccessful effort of Maximilian to obtain
greater resources at the court of Napoleon; and above
all, the influence of Bazaine upon Mexican affairs. In the
light of the latest documentary evidence that general's
conduct now stands free from the charges of intrigue,
ambition, or incompetence, and the failure of the expe-
dition is seen to have been due solely to the difficulty,
if not utter impossibility, of the whole project ^An
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1904] Library Table. 703
article by M. G. Arrcn brings forward evidence to the
effect that the trend of " lay teaching " in France at the
present time is in a very marked degree Socialistic and
revolutionary.
The Critical Review (May) : Rev. James Iverach calls attention
to some of the weak points in Herbert Spencer's s3^stem
of philosophy. The most serious of these defects is, in
his opinion, Mr. Spencer's failure to account for the ori-
gin and development of human intelligence consistently
with the assumption that "all evolution is an integration
of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion." Mr.
Iverach maintains that ''we cannot think of mind in
terms of . matter and motion." ''Feelings, volitions,
thoughts are real, and have their own nature; they may
have material movements as their accompaniment, but
they themselves are not material. What we ought to
have from Mr. Spencer is an attempt to trace the
evolution of mind from an indefinite, incoherent homo-
geneity, in which the possibility of cognition, feeling, and
volition as it lay there at the outset, may be seen to
evolve into the articulated equipment of mind as it is
in the highest kind of mind we know. Instead of that
we have an account of the evolution of the nervous sys-
tem, with the assumption that the evolution of the mind
is bound to follow." Prof. V. Bartlet contributes a
brief review of Bardenhewer's Altkirchliche Literatur.
The reviewer is, with the exception of a few minor criti-
cisms, most favorable in his estimation of the work, declar-
ing it to be "indispensable to the full equipment of the
theological library, not only of the church historian but also
of the student of exegesis and of doctrine, ... a great
achievement and a real service to serious patristic study."
Theologisch'praktische Quartalschrift (July) : In an article entitled
"An Old Answer to the New Question: How can the
people be induced to co-operate more zealously in the
divine services of the church," summarizes the arguments
against having the Mass read in the vernacular, instead
of the Latin language, as a means to that end. Other
articles of interest in this number are "The Family and
the School," by Dr. J. Rieder ; and a review of Denifle's
" Luther and Lutheranism," by Eleutherius.
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704 THE Columbian Reading Union. [Aug.,
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
READING CIRCLE Day at the Champlain Sumpier-Schopl is assigned for
August 30, when the Rev. Morgan M. Sheiedy will ^iscuss many points
of inquiry regarding the growth and development of organized work for the
diffusion of the best books among Catholics. For the past twelve, years the
friends of Catholic Reading Circles have been able to gather amid the con-
genial surroundings of Cliff Haven, and to meet the leaders of the movement
from far and near. Though much has been done to awaken interest, and to
discuss plans for self-improvement by systematic reading, there is constant
need of further efforts to maintain a vigorous intellectual life. It is especially
desirable to encourage beginners, who may be diffident owing to lack of
guidance. For all such inquiries a number of Round Table Talks will be
conducted, beginning August 29, under the direction of Warren £. Mosher,
editor of the Ckampiain Educator— o^ct No. 39 East Forty-second Street,
New York City^ — which is especially devoted to Reading Circles. Aipong the
topics to be considered are the following:
.Value and necessity of organization in Reading Circle work. How to
organize. The question of membership. Systematic course vs. desultory
reading. Social features. Current topics. How to revive interest in the
movement. Relation of the Reading Circle to the Summer-School. How to
attract our young people and how to retain them in the Circle. Alumni
Reading Circles. A common line of work. C^tral direction. Advantages
and necessity. What the Circle can do for Catholic truth. University
extension. Catholic publications. The introduction of sound literature in
public libraries.
• . • • •
A recent writer has discovered that the Sumqier- School not only is an
adjustment to the needs of the age, but it takes the pupil home to nature. It
is largely out-of-doors work. It combines social sentiment with study, and
unites all ages. It emphasizes the great fact that education never ends, and
that other scarcely less important fact, that the book of all books to study is
the original book of creation. Its thought passed over to farm life, and
orchard schools were a consequence. Our regularly established institutions
of learning inherit more or less from the past. The. summer-schools come
out of the present century ; are fresh expressions of modern life and growth.
There is freedom to think, as well as study, along novel lines. Hazings and
gowns for boys are not considered essential to the study of comparative
literature and biological research. In all directions economy rules. There
are few large expenses, and none for social functions, athletic . meets and
degrees. In all ways the growth of summer- schools has been good for our
people, and good in its reaction upon our schools. Summer and out-of-doors
tend to vigor and wholesomeness, to clearness of thought and purity of life,
more than the lamp and the study desk.
• ' • •
The late Dr. John A. Mooney was a strong advocate of the Summer-
School in its early days, as well as a devoted friend of the Reading Circles.
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THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
705
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7o6 • The Columbian reading Union. [Aug.,
He held that the public library could briog together under one roof theolo-
gians, philosophers, poets, writers of fiction, essayists, economists, humorists,
biographers, and others. In the social club a member is precluded from de-
termining who shall be his associates, but in the library every man chooses
his own company. There neither clique nor crowd control; there the most
radically democratic student may share in the glorious independence of an
autocrat.
His impressions of a visit to one of the New York libraries were thus
recorded :
A bibliophile could easily fill a volume of moderate size with readable
notes on the rare books or editions in the Astor Library. On the shelves there
are incunabula quite as interesting as those in the cases in Middle Hall ; . manu-
scripts, rubricated and ornamented with miniatures, whose art is out of the
common ; Bibles printed before Luther manufactured his ; Columbiana as old
as Columbus ; and editions de luxe of literary and art works that are, and
always will be, a delight to the trained eye.
I suggested that there were wants on the library shelves. .A Catholic
would note more than one, not only in Theology and Ecclesiastical History,
or in plaia History, but also in Science and in Literature. However, in time
all these wants will be filled ; or if not, it will be on account of the deficiency
or the inexperience of Catholic students. The administration of the Astor
Library invites those who fail to find important works in the catalogues to
send the full title and a description to the superintendent. The books may
not be on the shelves a month later, but they will be ordered in due time.
Probably there is not a single Catholic connected with the library. Un-
der the circumstances it would be unfair to expect that the administration
should have a close acquaintance with Catholic works. Indeed, how could
they form an intelligent opinion of the intrinsic value of a Catholic work on
theology, or even on history ? The demand for a book can be their only
guide. A recent experience in the library will serve as an illustration. Be-
side me stood a gentleman who asked a librarian for a book giving a Catholic
statement of Catholic doctrine. 1 ventured to suggest that the Faith of Out
Fathers^ by Cardinal Gibbons, would probably serve the purpose. of the appli-
cant, who proved to be a Methodist minister. The book was not in the
library, thouglf a later volume by the cardinal was there. Expressing sur-
prise that the famous volume was lacking, I was told that they had no demand
tor it. Demand will bring a supply.
This experience confirmed me in a view that I have long held. It seems
to me that if Catholic writers, instead of lavishly distributing volumes to
newspapers and magazines, were to present copies of their books to the
prominent public libraries the writers would serve themselves and others more
than they have done heretofore. Being catalogued in a library catalogue is
not altogether the same as being catalogued in what a Catholic publisher still
calls a catalogue ; but, to the coming historian of Catholic, literature in the
United States, I dare say, the one catalogue will be at least as useful as the
other.
Even socialistic students should join with their saner brethren in rejoicing
that the first John Jacob Astor preferred being a millionaire landholder rather
than a professional single-taxer. Thanks to his earned and unearned in-
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1904.] The Columbian Reading Union 707
Crements, New York students have facilities denied to others. Year by year,
from the cash increment, an increment of books will accrue ; and from this
again, an increment of knowledge, of intellectual pleasure, of trtie politeness,
and, unless the students fail in their duty, — of virtue.
• • •
Hon. M. £. Driscoll, of Syracuse, delivered a stirring and eloquent
address in the House of Representatives a short time ago in support of a
monument to Commodore John Barry. He said in part :
Barry was descended from that unfortunate people who have no
Washington whose memory they may venerate as the father of their country,
who have no diy to celebrate as the anniversary of a great victory which gave
them a place among the nations of the earth. Erin is depopulated, not
because her sons and daughters have not loved her green banner and hillsides,
but because ' the political conditions have compelled them to seek their
fortunes under other skies and in other countries.
An oppressive and short-sighted government made it impossible for her
self-respecting and ambitious young men to remain at home. In their
desperation they looked across the sea toward the setting sun for deliverance.
They thought and dreamed of the great Republic of the West, where all men
were equal before the law, where' education was not forbidden, where the
avenues to success were not closed, and where merit was rewarded. Thfc
Irish youth longed for the time when he could buy or beg his passage across
the Atlantic. He came to stay and became a citizen as soon as the law would
allow. He believed in our institutions. He inherited that belief from his
fighting ancestors. He inhaled it with his mountain air and imbibed it with
his mother's milk. He loved our flag before he saw it, and was always true
to that flag and the government it represents.
In the dark days of the Revolution there were no Tories of Irish birth or
blood. There were no Royalists with Hibernian names. They hated oppres-
sion and the flag that represented it. They believed in the patriots' cause,
and for it they endured the trials of heat and cold, thirst and hunger. On land
and sea they fought for the new flag and the government of the people and
by the people and for the people until the victory was won. In the second
war with Great Britain they again rallied to the standard of their adopted
country, with Old Hickory at their head, and in the Civil War, when the
integrity of the Union was in danger, they contributed their full quota to the
Federal armies.
A reference to individuals or recital of their achievements would be as
laborious as unnecessary. Then, of all the men of Irish birth or descent who
deserve well of their fellow-citizens, why have Hibernian organizations and
students of Irish and American history selected John Barry for this special
hon6r? Because between them and him there is a fellow-feeling— a bond of
sympathy. They revere his memory, not only for what he accomplished as a
man, but for what he endured as a boy. Their old men experienced it ; their
young men have read of it. They love him because his early environment did
not sour his teinper, for he retained his happy disposition through life, and
he impersonated in a marked degree the highest characteristics of their
nature — ^loyalty to his plighted faith, patriotism of an exalted type, and fidelity
in his affection^.
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7o8 THE Columbian Reading Union. [Aug.,
A nation which expends annually $96,000,000 for the maintenance and
development of its powerful and efficient navy can afford to pay this tribute
of respect to the memory of its first commander. It has been too long
delayed. His name and fame should not be permitted to go into oblivion,
but should be kept fresh and green in the hearts of our people. The children
of our capital should be prompted to read of him. Visitors to our capital
should be prompted to think of him. Our naval officers, who enjoy the
luxuries of the modern club on land and the modern battleship on sea, should
be daily reminded of the dangers and trials of naval warfare in the early
history of our country. To this end an appropriate monument should be
erected in one of our beautiful parks to the memory of John Barry, Father
of the American Navy.
• • •
Every Reading Circle should have a complete set of the works of the
Rev. P. A. Sheehan, D.D., especially his later books: My New Curate j
Luke Delmege y Under the Cedars and the Stars, Not only is he an accom-
plished writer, but also a reader of rare discernment, as indicated by this
passage :
A piece of pure, cold intellectualism, a Phidian statue in the ice- grotto
of a glacier, lit up occasionally for worship by magnesian and other lights —
that was Goethe ! But intellectualism ! One of the heresies of the age 1
The intellect starving out the heart, and demanding the sacrifice of all that
is most holy and sacred in human emotions and aspirations^ whilst stifling
conscience and all the moral sense — there is the danger that lies in the path
of all modern reformers and progressivists in the supreme matter of
education.
Can you explain it ? Very easily. Literature has usurped the place of
religion as a guide and teacher of mankind ; and religious persons have not
been wise enough to retaliate and carty the war into the enemy's country. It
must be close on fifty years since Carlyle mockingly boasted that the press
had taken the place of the pulpit, and that religion had been relegated to
the organ-loft and psalm-singing. He was speaking of his own experiences ;
or rather of his experiences of Protestantism, for he never entered a church
for the purpose of worship. He was cognizant, however, of the vitality of
Catholicity, which he admitted in so many words, and still more by the fierce
virulence with which he attacked it. But the fact remains that literature
throughout the whole nineteenth century assumed a didactic and even dog-
matic tone, which ran through novel, essay, poem, article, and which was,
of course, unrestrained except by literary canons. Hence, we find Goethe
had a Gospel; so had George Eliot; so had Tennyson; so had Browning.
The troubadours of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, if they could return
from the shades, would stare aghast at the rhyming prophets of our age,
who preach a kind of pious rogation to a generation that is sick unto death.
Another book that should be better known is entitled Becks and Bead-
ingy by Brother Azarias, written especially for Catholic Reading Circles, ard
first published in The Catholic World Magazine. The name and fame
of Brother Azarias has passed far beyond the bounds of his community, and
his writings are appreciated by students and scholars who have no sympathy
with the church to which he belonged. In that church his memory is cher-
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1904.] The Columbian reading Union. 709
isbed as a profound thinkeri* an elegant writer, a wise educator, not only
successful in teaching but skilful in gauging/ developing, and stimulating
the intellectual nature of the pupils.
Those who would learn through reading should study the chapters
devoted to that subject. His advice as to method in historical reading is
S^olden:. "Hold fast by leading dates and keep your maps before you,
remembering that history without chronology or geography is not history; it
is merely a romance of the land of Nowhere."- His running criticism on
poetry is delightful reading, but the best proof of the popularity of this
volume is the fact that it has passed through several^ editions, and is still iii
demand.
A memoir of Brother Azarias, by Dr. John A. Mooney, is prefixed. To
no one better qualified by sympathy of feeling and similarity of literary taste
could the task have been confided. It is brief, for the semi-cloistered life of
a Christian Brother is uneventful, and devoid of incident, unless the publica-
tion of a book or the delivery of a lecture might be so called. But Dr.
Mooney gives us an insight into the character of the man, as distinguished
from the writer and teacher, in these words :
Brother Azarias had one gift that his writings did not disclose, — a genial
sense of humor. Why he concealed this charming quality I do not know.
Perhaps it was through modesty ; or perhaps, again, he feared lest a display
of humor might seem undignified in a teacher, and especially in a religious.
Whatever the reason, it is notable that his happy sense of humor was known
only to his friends. As a man. Brother Azarias was of a lovable, genial
character; not only guileless, but generous, hearty, and affectionate.
Always simple and unaffected, he made friends everywhere. In gaining
them he used no arts. He was blessed with a soft, gentle voice, and this
made a lasting impression on many who met him but once. Among educated
men of all religions he had friends.
•• . . • •
The centennial of the birth of Nathaniel Hawthorne was fittingly cele-
brated in many ways on July 4, 1904, and proved the fact that he has more
numerous ac^irers now than he had at the time of his death in the year
1864. The late George Parsons Lathrop, after he became a Catholic, gave a
most interesting lecture on the growth of Hawthorne's gifted mind as indi-
cated by The Scarlet Letter and his later book The Marble Faun^ which
reflected his impressions of Catholic life in Rome.
The Boston Pilot of recent date contains an appropriate editorial tribute
to Hawthorne in relation to Catholics in New England, and gives him an
assured place among the immortals of American literature in the passage
here quoted :
A sojourn of a year and a half in Italy, chiefly in Rome and Florence,
yielded him The Marble Faun, the greatest of all his books except The Scarlet
Letter, On these two his fame and many fames might rest, for they are
instinct with genius. It is these two books also which make their author a
character of peculiar interest to Catholics.
The great novel of Puritan days shows that its author was not unfamiliar
with the practical Catholic idea of penance for renounced and regretted sin,
as distinguished from the hazy and comfortable Protestant idea of repentance
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
7IO The Columbian Reading Union [Aug., 1904-]
without the necessity for personal reparation. Never has a more striking
argument been offered for tt^e human need of sacramental confession than in
The Scarlet LetUr.
The idea is even more strongly emphasized in The Marble Faun, In
this sombre and splendid romance we have an unsurpassed word-picture of
The World's Cathedral — St. Peter*?. Hawthorne got into closer sympathy
with the Catholic Church than most of the eminent Americans who visited
the Eternal City in his day. But he had stumbling-blocks apparently insur-
mountable. He could not understand the heavenly treasures being entrusted
to earthen vessels. He would admit the divine origin of the church, but
would contend that it should be managed by angels. He loved Catholic art,
and he loved Rome, which he calls more intimately our home than even the
spot where we were born — a characterization which every Catholic who has
ever visited the city of the soul will appreciate, while marvelling that a non-
Catholic could have made it.
Hawthorne's marriage was one of the ideal marriages of history. Its
fruit was three children : a beautiful daughter, Una, long dead; a son, bow
the well-known novelist, Julian Hawthorne ; and a daughter. Rose, later the
wife of the poet, George Parsons Lathrop, and since her widowhocd the nun
Mother Mary Alphonsa. For Hawthorne's daughter did what Hawthorne
declared, in portraying his immortal Hilda, no daughter of the Puritans could
ever do. In 1891 she became a Catholic with her husband.
M. C. M.
NEW BOOKS.
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GiNN & Co.. Boston. Mass.:
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Macmillan Company, New York:
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" 'THE
Vol. LXXIX. SEPTEMBER, 1904. No. 474.
AMERICAN PRINCIPLES VERSUS SECULAR EDUCATION.
BY THOMAS F. WOODLOCK.
fY purpose in this article is to deal with the per-
ennial " school question " in an aspect which
may be new to many people, and which has the
advantage of eliminating from the argument the
denominational prejudice and bitterness that
usually accompany discussion of the matter upon the more
familiar lines. I claim, of course, no originality of thought in
this, as my endeavor is simply to apply principles which are
as old as reasoh itself, and are indestructible because they arie
true. The object which I aim at is the establishment of a thesis
which may be simply stated as follows :
TAe system of universal free secular education which has been
adopted in the United States is not capable df fulfilling the pur-
pose for which it was established^ and no system of purely secular
education ever can fulfil this purpose.
By secular education I mean a system of training from which
all religious teaching, whether by affirmation or denial, is abso-
lutely excluded. Clearly, the first thing to investigate is the
nature of the purpose aimed at by the state in its establish-
ment of the common schools. This involves the question of the
respective rights of the parent and of the state in the matter
of education.
A. Rights of the parent. It is beyond question the exclusive
right and duty of the parent to provide his children with all
those aids which are necessary to their physical, intellectual,
and moral life — subject to the special right and duty of the
church to add thereto a training in the Christian faith. The
The Missionary Socibtt of St. Paul the Apostle in the State
OF New York. 1904.
▼OL. LXXIX,— 46 ^ ^
Digitized by LjOOQ IC
712 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES VERSUS [Sept.,
special right and duty of the church, however, does not enter
into the present argument, and no further reference to it is
required. .
The parent cannot surrender his exclusive right to direct
the education of his children, nor can he avoid the exclusive
responsibility for performance of his duty. He may, and indeed
usually does, perform this duty through competent agents
selected for the purpose, but he remains fully charged with
responsibility for the acts of these agents.
B. Right of the state. From this it follows that the state
has no direct right to control the education of children, and
that whenever it undertakes a scheme of public education it
does so simply as the agent of the parent. It is bound to
consult the proper wishes of the parent in the conduct of its
common schools in whatever pertains to the physical, mental,
and moral training of the children.
The condition of modern society, however, has made it ex-
pedient for the common good of all that children should re-
ceive a certain minimum, of mental training, and the state, under
its general power to legislate within certain limits for the com-
mon good, has rightly demanded of its citizens that they give
their children this minimum of mental training. The state's
demand is just because it simply calls upon the parent to ful-
fil a duty already incumbent upon him. The state cannot, how-
ever, rightly demand more than this, nor can it demand any-
thing inconsistent with the performance of this duty by each
individual parent. In exacting its demand the state has under-
taken for reasons of expediency to provide by taxation for a
system of universal free education. In theory this is just, pro-
vided that the system be so arranged as to be entirely satis-
factory to parents, for whom the state acts, not as a sovereign^
but as an agent.
Thus, the ultimate purpose aimed at by the state in estab-
lishing a system of universal free education is subservience of
the general good of the commonwealth, but in provision of ways
and means for accomplishing this purpose it acts as agent and
not as sovereign. The only right that it has in the matter is*
that of compelling parents to perform a part of their natural
duty towards their children, and assisting them towards its
most efficient and economical performance.
The state may rightly prescribe a certain minimum of edu-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Secular Education. 713
cation as obligatory for the children of its citizens,' but this
minimum must be within the minimum prescribed upon parents
by their duties under natural law, and must contain nothing
that is antagonistic thereto. For the exclusive right to pre^
scribe the general scope of education resides in the parent and
the duty is incumbent upon him to give his children such mental
training as is suitable to their state in life, in the conditions of
the society of which they are members. So much of this men-
tal training as conduces to the maintenance and stability of
social conditions as they exist the state may properly exact
and properly provide by means of taxation. More than this
the state may not rightly do by compulsion of the individual.
The minimum of education demanded by the state in this coun-
try has for (its immediate object the training of children for
proper performance of their civic duties, this being the main
concern of the state, and the only pretext for its interference
in the matter of compulsory education. In conditions such as
prevail in the United States it is necessary for the common
good that every citizen should be so trained in the laws and
principles of civil society that he is enabled properly to per-
form his duties as citizen toward the state and his fellow-
citizens.
Therefore the direct and principal purpose of the common
schools in this country is presumably to furnish in the minds
of its citizens a logical basis for the principles upon which
American civil society is founded. Considerations of the general
good demand this at all events, whatever else the school sys-
tem may do for the individual. The common schools must in-
culcate in the minds of future citizens a full knowledge of and
a devotion to American institutions and the principles upon
which those institutions rest. The schools, to succeed in their
purpose, must enable their pupils to account for these principles,
justify them and uphold them by logical methods. If they do
not accomplish this they must be accounted as having failed,
from the point of view of the community, no matter what else
they may accomplish.
According to this argument the contention is that the present
purely secular system does fail, and that every purely secular
system must fail to support the principles of American in-
stitutions.
What are these principles ? Fortunately the answer is clear,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
714 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES VERSUS [Sept.,
complete, and specific. Our system of society is organized as
a representative democracy based upon certain first principles
which are stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence.
This document, taken in connection with the Constitution of
the United States, contains the very keystone of our civil
society. The Declaration states the principles which the Con-
stitution in part applies. The Declaration stands for ever, while
the Constitution may be amended from time to time. The
Declaration says:
** We hold these trutJts to be self-evident: that all men are
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with cer-
tain unalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty^ and
the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights govern^
ments are instituted among men^ deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of govern*
ment becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the
people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government^
laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their safety and happiness'^
This is the vital part of the Declaration of Independence, as
the rest consists mainly of its application to the case of the
United States. . The paragraph quoted contains three most
important statements, viz. :
1. That men are created.
2. That men are equal in the enjoyment of certain unalien*
abl£ rights,
3. That the object of government is to secure men in pos-
session of these rights.
These are the principles enunciated as the foundations of
our civil society, and for present purposes they may be resolved
into two, viz. :
I. Possession of certain unalienable rights,
II. Protection of those rights the purpose of law.
Our common schools must be able to defend these principles
in logical method, or must be confessed unable to defend the
very foundation stones of our social system. But it is to be
noted that as regards the very first important statement of the
Declaration, viz. : That men are created, the common schools
are silent and must remain silent. A secular school system
can legally neither affirm nor deny that God exists or that He
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Secular education. 715
created man or any other thing. Teaching of any kind on
these points is barred bylaw absolutely. Therefore, one '* self-
evident " truth of the Declaration of Independence is removed
from the province of the state schools, and pupils can learn in
those schools nothing about it. No common-school teacher
could legally answer a pupil who asked regarding the attributes
of the ** Creator " who endowed men with ** rights," except by
total evasion of the question. Here, then, is failure open and
confessed. But passing over this let us test the common schools
in the light of the two principles into which we have resolved
the Declaration of Independence, viz. :
I. The existence of unalienable rights.
II. The object of legislation being the protection of these
rights.
In effect these two principles are part of the same idea, as
will later appear. First as to unalienable rights: either such
exist in man or they do not exist. The common schools are
bound to teach that they do exist. The schools, therefore,
are obligated to
{a) assign an origin for them ;
{b) defend their justice.
{a) Now, the origin of unalienable rights is clearly stated in
the Declaration of Independence as God the Creator, and we
have already poiqted out that the common schools cannot
teach this doctrine. What doctrine can they teach ? Can they
jteach a human origin for unalienable tights ?
' A right is the power to do or refrain from doing something,
or demand that another shall do or refrain from doing some-
thing. An unalienable right is a right that cannot be taken
away. The doctrine of unalienable rights, therefore, teaches
that in each and every individual there inhere certain powers
as against the community, which may not be taken away from
him at the mere will of the community. These powers must
have either a Divine or a human origin. Therefore, the
common schools, being unable, as stated, to assign to them a
Divine origin, must, assign to them a human origin or no
origin at all. But to assign to them no origin at all is to fail
in the purpose for which the schools were established, and 50
the schools are obligated to teach a system of unalienable rights
having a human origin.
How can such a doctrine be taught ? Power conferred
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
7l6 AMERICAN PRINCIPLES VERSUS [Sept,
upon any one can of necessity be taken away by the given
The central authority in a civil community, whether it be
monarch or majority, can certainly withdraw the rights or
powers that it confers as easily as it can confer them. These
rights or powers connote a limitation of the scope of the
central authority over the individual. The state cannot of
itself set limits to its own powers which it cannot as easily
remove. The doctrine of unalienable rights presupposes sc'me
such limits which are permanently fixed. What purely human
power can fix them so that they cannot be removed?
The difficulty may be pushed a step backwards by suppos-
ing that the state fixed the limits in accordance with dictates of
general Justice^ recognizing that they ought to be so fixed — but
it is only a step. For in this supposition we find fixed princi-
ples oi justice which the state did not fix and obligations that
the state recognizes as incumbent upon it. Whence arose those
principles and those obligations?
It may be moved yet a step farther backwards by postulate-
ing a system of morality with the notion of God excluded —
morality without religion. Quite apart from the utter failure
that has characterized all efforts to construct or philosophically
defend such a system, it is evident that the common schools
cannot legally teach it, because it is tantamount to a denial of
religious principles and doctrines, which is as completely barred
by law as the affirmation thereof. The common schools can^
not, therefore, take refuge in a system of purely secular morality.
The simple fact is that it is impossible for the common
schools to teach the doctrine of a purely human origin for ihe
unalienable rights spoken of in the Declaration of Indepen-
dence; impossible legally and logically. It is legally impossi-
ble because it is illegal for the common schools to teach
'' morality without religion " as a philosophic doctrine, and
logically impossible because in no other way could the doc-
trine of rights with a human origin be a moment defended.
It may be said, moreover, that even were "morality without
religion " admitted to teaching in the schools, there would be
insurmountable difficulties in logical defence of the doctrine of
unalienable rights on that basis.
The common schools may not teach God as the origin of
unalienable rights, and cannot successfully teach any other
origin. Yet they must teach the existence of these rights. For
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Secular Education. 717
a very little thought will show that with the doctrine of
unalienable rights stand or fall the doctrines of abstract justice,
equity, right and wrong. No concept is dearer to the heart
of the American citizen than that of liberty. In what does
liberty consist? Tllere is much loose thought on this point.
Many people appear to think that the essence of liberty is
participation in the law-making power, but they forget that a
majority can be fully as tyrannous as a monarch, as poor
Madame Roland realized when, standing on the scaffold, she
said : " O Liberty ! what things are done in thy name I " The
essence of liberty in the ordinary sense of the word consists
in immunity from coercion at the hands of another. No citi-
zen is free who is subject to unlimited compulsion by a major-
ity of the citizens in his community — even though he have a
vote on all matters. His liberty lies in the admission by the
community that he has rights which it is bound to respect —
rights to do and not to do, rights to demand that others shall
do or shall not do certain things. No one can be free who
does not claim the unalienable rights specified in the Declara-
tion of Independence.
(b) The common schools, then, are legally or logically
debarred from assigning and accounting for the origin of the
unalienable rights on which our social system is founded. Can
they defend their existence on the ground of justice ? It is
impossible for them to do this in a purely secular way. No
purely secular system of authority can ever rise above the
notion of expediency; it can never reach the level of pure
justice.
No possible logical connection can be made between the
notion of expediency and that of an unalienable right. How
then can a system of purely secular education defend the
existence of unalienable rights, or their justice ?
The simple fact is that it cannot do so. And the reason
is that the doctrine ot unalienable rights as laid down in the
passage cited from the Declaration of Independence is based
upon recognition of what we call Natural Law — and this in
its ultimate conception is what St. Thomas describes as a faint
reflection of the Divine Reason pervading the whole universe.
Natural law, he says, is ** participatio legis atema in rationali
creatura** {Summa TheoL^l. II. q. 91 a. 2). How symmetrical
is the doctrine as contained in the Declaration of Indepen-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
7 1 8 American Principles v. Secular Educa tion. [Sept.,
dence ! The origin of the law is stated clearly and correctly,
and the object of human government is declared to be to give
effect to the dictates of eternal law naturaliter promulgaia in
the form of natural law. The doctrine is logical and complete
— but our common schools cannot legally teach it. Nor can
any system of purely secular education teach it. That which
it can legally teach is logically debarred, and vice versa.
Now, if the common schools cannot legally or logically
teach the existence of any limitations on the power of the
central authority — the state — over the individuals, it is clear
that the logical deduction from their teachings must be that
there are no such limitations, and that the power of the state
is supreme and unrestricted. As already pointed out, the first
concept to go down in such case is liberty ^ with the concepts
of justice^ equity^ right and wrong closely following. Vox
populi suprema lex would be the doctrine. Ultimately this
would resolve itself into the axiom Might is Rights and brute
force would become the final arbitrament of justice. The end
would be social chaos.
And yet our common schools must either inculcate doc-
trines which in their last analysis mean this and nothing else,
or they must teach the doctrines of the Declaration of Inde-
pendence parrot- wise, being unable to defend or justify them
in a logical way — which is equivalent, of course, to not teach-
ing them at all. For man is a rational creature, and he will
not permanently accept ideas for which his reason cannot fur-
nish a foundation. The principles of the Declaration are '* self-
evident " only in the light of the Creatoj-'s existence ; they are'
otherwise inconceivable. Thus the root of the failure on the
part of the common schools to furnish a solid foundation for
the first principles of our social system lies in the fact that as
secular schools they cannot furnish religious teaching. ** Eeligio/*
says St. Thomas, ** proprie importat ordinem ad Deum " {Summa
Theol.t II. II. q. 8i, a. i), and religion, as we understand the
word, denotes that group of truths which set forth man's rela-
tions to God and his duties arising from these relations.
The foundation of our political system rests securely upon
natural law. Men are equal only before God ; liberty as we
know it is a religious truth. Our common schools are unable to
teach our children why they are free men and women, and they
will remain unable to do so while they remain purely secular.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Absolute and Relative Efficiency, 719
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE EFFICIENCY.
BY J. C. MdNAGHAN,
Head of United States Consular Service,
^N English geographer^ Mr. Mackinder, of Oxford,
writing in the Geographical Journal of April,
1904, says : " From the present time forth . . .
we shall again have to deal with a closed
political system, and none the less than one
of world-wide scope. Every explosion of social forces, instead
of being dissipated in a surrounding circuit of unknown space
and barbaric chaos, will be sharply re-echoed from the far
side of the globe, and weak elements in the political and
economic organism of the world will be shattered in conse-
quence. There is a vast difference of effect in the fall of a
shell into an earthwork and its fall amid the closed spaces
and rigid structures of a great building or ship." Proba-
bly some half- consciousness of this fact is at last divert-
ing much of the attention of statesmen in all parts of the
world from territorial expansion to the struggle for " rela-
tive efficiency." If the foregoing were a fact, it would furnish
a great deal of satisfaction and cause for economists and geog-
raphers to congratulate the countries possessing the class of
statesmen that are turning their attention from the problems
of territorial expansion to those infinitely more ^ interesting
though much more difficult ones connected with efficiency.
I take it the words ** relative efficiency," as used by Mr.
Mackinder, the geographer, refer to industrial and' commercial
as much as to military and naval efficiency. Even if they do
not, I shall give them such a significance, for I have a pur-
pose in doing so. It is the fashion nowadays to coin all sorts
of words to express the perils, political and otherwise, resulting
from all kinds of possible and impossible combinations. Thus,
we have the " black peril," the ** yellow peril," the " American
peril," the " European peril." This last is to affect us. It is
based upon a belief that Europe is to organize its powers to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
720 Absolute and Relative Efficiency. [Sept.,
resist the '' American peril.'' Then, again, the ipse dixits of
some writers are accorded a too great importance. When a
writer of history standing as high as the late Professor Free-
man says '' the only history which counts is that of the Medi-
terranean an^ European races," he is saying a great deal and
saying it so carelessly, it seems to me, that it ought to excite
a great deal of surprise. Every son of Adam counts, counted,
and will count to the very end of time. It is hard to say
just what races have contributed most or least to the lump
sum of what we call civilization, or rather to the ^' relative
efficiency" of successful states. In a certain sense we are able
to separate Egyptian from Assyrian, Babylonian from Indian,
Greek from Roman, mediaeval from modern contributions; but
to assign its separate share to each race or nation is to assume
as settled problems the very vastness of which is only just be-
ginning to be realized. The judgments of age after age have
been reversed. The last word has not been uttered in regard
to the races.
The first man that guided a pointed log in the water,
paddling with his hands and feet, from the mainland to an
island or from the island to the mainland, was the historical
prototype of Columbus. Without the one the other is unthink-
able. In the evolutionary procession of time the pointed log
of the primitive man became the caravel of the Genoese. How
much of relative efficiency England owes to Rome, France,
Denmark, and others will never be known. That much of each
went into her making and moulding is certain. No nation
liveth for itself. There is a racial ugliness in assumed superi-
ority ; a nastiness in such terms as Anglo-Saxon superiority.
It is offensive. Besides, it is not true. The elemental forces
of every people depend for their development upon very dif-
ferent causes. If the boat- load of people that first passed
from the north into the Peloponnesus, provided that is the
direction whence they did come, had gone onward into Italy,
and the boat- loads that first landed in Italy had gone into
Greece, does any one believe that the history of Greece and
Rome would have been very different from what they have
been ? Nature '' initiates," it seems to me, much more than
Mr. Mackinder is willing to admit. When he says that Euro-
pean civilization is, in a very real sense, the outcome of the
secular struggle against Asiatic invasion, he says only half as
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Absolute and Relative Efficiency, 721
much as he should say. There is always a very great danger
in half the truth, particularly if it se€ms to suppress or to
stand in the way of the other half.
European civilization owes as much to what its Crusaders
brought back from the East, and to what the East poured into
its lap for two or three hundred years, as it does to the eiForts
to exclude the Eastern invaders. It would take a long time
to tell the tale that will one day be told of the world's in-
debtedness to the countrymen of Avicenna and Averrhoes.
To say that the course of empire is westward, is to put into
picturesque language only things that appear to be true. Such
phraseology is misleading. The course of empire, li power is
to be its measure, has been as much northward and eastward
as it has been westward, except that when it began to move
westward it took on an unwonted velocity. Empire is a nebu-
lous term any way. If from the unknown recesses of Asia, by
the gateway between the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea,
in all the centuries from the fifth to the sixteenth, there csme
a remarkable succession of Turanian nomadic peoples, and
Europe and European civilization, less able then than now to
defend themselves, were not overwhelmed, what cause for fear
is to be found in the imaginary perils conjured up by the
writers on Eastern questions?
What Europe, leit to itself, would have been can hardly be
conjectured. Whether harm came to it from the Turanian in-
vasion or from the Turks, it is hard to say. Certain is it that
an impression is abroad that England owes a very great deal
to the Continental European peoples, French, Norman, and
Scandinavian, that went in at her gates from the departure of
the Romans to the present day. England's indebtedness to
Continental Europe is infinitesimally small, however, compared
with our debt to all Europe. The world is a great building
or ship. It is a vast workshop. A full consciousness of this
fact is being forced on others as well as on ourselves. The
statesmen of the world are wondering what part they are to
play in arranging the forces and factors of production in this
great ship or shop.
While the geographical problems presented by Mr. Mackin-
der are intensely fascinating, there are others equally interest-
ing. The problcm^s of commerce, agriculture, and manufactures
press for solution. They are national and normal problems.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
722 Absolute and Relative Efficiency. [Sept.,
The war problems have been with us for a long time, it is
true ; but the world is tired of them. They are not what we
are wont to think of as measuring man's normal attitude
towards society. The purpose of this paper was not to discuss
the geographic or strategic values of the states interested in
the European and Asiatic and American problems or perils.
It was to offer a word in regard to some phases of the problems
connected with ** relative efficiency." We are apt to look upon
the successes of such men as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others
as the results of a higher efficiency. If we stop long enough
to define words, we will find that ability and efficiency are
words whose meaning may be very easily misunderstood.
I often wonder what Carnegie could or would have done
had he gone to Essen, or to Dortmund, in Germany, rather
than to Pittsburg, Pa. Would Mr. Rockefeller have been the
multimillionaire he is had his parents picked out Berlin for
their abode when they migrated from Scotland ? Would
Bismarck born in England ever have been prime minister?
Could Gladstone have done Bismarck's work? It seems to me
that Gladstone would have been great anywhere ; Bismarck only
under conditions like those that prevailed in Pru.^sia and
Germany. Are we as efficient, even relatively, as we claim to
be or as we ought to be ? I hold that we are not. Bismarck
is reported to have told a convention of teachers that the
nation that has the schools is to have the future ( *' Wer die
Schule hat, hat die Zukunft**). He was thinking of Germany.
She had the schools. He knew that. It was a piece of
German Chauvinism, pardonable perhaps in the man who had
made Schleswig-Holstein, Sadowa, and Sedan possible. Coming
from Bismarck, the greatest constructive statesman in Europe,
it carried great weight. And yet, like all half truths, it was a
dangerous falsehood. It was hardly half true; that is, unless
Bismarck meant a future like the past of Greece. If he did,
he wajs riglit. But his life does not say that his meaning was
such. What he meant by the future was, undoubtedly, one
filled with material prosperity. It was a future in which
agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, carried to their "high-
est possibilities, would pour a golden stream into the coffers of
any country wise enough to provide its people with the educa-
tional forces that Bismarck was clever enough to believe were
behind material prosperity. What Bismarck failed to see, his
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Absolute and Relative efficiency. 723
successors soon found. It was forced upon them. His famous
proposition needed " eine Ergdnzutig " — a filling or piecing out.
"The nation that has the schools and the resources has the
future/' was the revised reading. It is to this reading that
attention ought to be called. There is a "pivotal area'' of
industrial power that is sure, sooner or later, to affect the so-
called pivotal area of the political world. This pivotal area
may be one of vast intellectual potentialities rath£^ than one
of vast resources in coal, iron, cotton, and copper. But when
intellectual powers and possibilities are allied with the cotton
and copper, coal and iron, in the same country, a pivotal area
ts inevitable. The pivotal area in the "Post- Columbian"
period — /. ^., for the last four hundred years — was England and
the Netherlands. The Belgian monk's curiosity led to the
use of coal, and the efforts of Dudley, one of Elizabeth's
courtiers, were helpful factors, possibly the most helpful, in
helping England to wrest the sceptre of sea power from Philip
II. and the Netherlands. Other forces were the skill of the
guild-trained weavers and workers that went out of France into
England. A third contribution to the island empire's power
was made by the genius of the men trained in its own shops
and mines, men like Watts, Hargreaves, Stephenson, Crompton,
etc. As the resources in raw materials grew dearer and dearer
the efficiency in intellectual capacity was called more and more
into activity. When and where it failed to respond retrench-
ment in output, curtailment of profits, and loss of power were
inevitable. For a long time the workers of England were the
world's industrial and commercial masters. They were the rule-
of-thumb men that spun and wove and worked and wrought.
From the day Samuel Slater went out of England with his
head full of plans and designs down to this day, England has
been sending us rule-of-thumb workmen. The dyers, bleachers,
spinners, designers, all the leading textile workers for a long
time, were Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Irishmen, men who had
worked in or about Manchester, Glasgow, or Belfast. Roebling,
a German, built the first big bridge over the East River.
Ericsson built the Monitor and invented the screw propeller.
Much of our efficiency, and we had a great deal, was relative.
To-day a very large part of the high- class labor, the men who help
a great deal, if not most, to make up our " relative efficiency,"
are men who came from far-off countries, men who were trained
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
724 ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE EFFICIENCY. [Sept.,
in or under the guilds and schools of Great Britain, Ireland, or
Continental Europe. In an address delivered a few years ago
by Theodore C. Search, at the time president of the Manu-
facturers' Association of the United States, the speaker showed
''that one country at least," not our own but Germany, "is
psychologically sound," that it is making ''conspicuously suc-
cessful efforts" to make of a people a great industrial army,
" steady as a church and irresistible as an avalanche." In other
words, the question of " relative efficiency " has been subjected
by the Germans, like so many problems, to scientific analysis.
The result was an absolute efficiency along some lines that is
simply phenomenal. Take, for example, the work of the Reichs-
anstalt founded by Helmhoh and the Old Kaiser. Is there
anywhere on earth a stronger argument in favor of technical
education ? Besides its inestimabhc value to the empire it is a
world benefactor. As a model of all that is best in a scientific
system it has a wide reaching moral influence. It is one of
those victories of peace no less renowned than those of war.
Like the golden robe of the famous statue of Jupiter by Phidias,
it is the crowning glory of a system of education whose chief
claim for support is the absolute and relative efficiency it
affords to an entire people. Attention ought to be called to
this system of education, particularly at a time when Mosely
Commissioners and loud sounding phraseologists are more or
less liable to lead us astray. If half the flattering things said
about us were true, we would have very great reason to
rejoice. The fact is they are not true, and the one deplorable
feature about them is that they might have been true had we
been wiser in earlier days ancl generations. If it is never too
late, we may make amends. The past, however, is past. - The
lost is lost. All we can hope to do is to make better use of
the years that are to be ours.
What we should have done fifty or seventy- five years ago,
when we began to erect the tariff barriers behind which we
were to protect and build up our home industries, was this:
we should have built industrial, industrial art, commercial,
commercial high and technical schools. The one great crime
was not the tariff wall but the neglect to build up behind it
the educational arsenals and *' relative efficiency " that would
have made us independent of the outside world for a very
large supply of the higher grades of manufactured articles.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Absolute and Relative Efficiency. 725
Just where the fault lies it is hard to say. Whether the
movement towards technical education should have come from
the nation or from each State is a question that will be decided
according to each one's predilection for state or national
sovereignty. While Germany was getting ready for Sadowa
and Sedan she. was preparing her Krupps, Hartmanns, Siemens,
and Halskes for the far more important fields of foreign com-
mercial conquests. Her record along both lines reads like
romance. Her efficiency is effecting almost incredible results.
Otherwise how explain the fact that a land so wretchedly
poor in soil, dependent upon the outside world for almost all
of the raw materials used in its mills, has been able to outstrip
others, even England and ourselves, relatively ? It is all due
undoubtedly to efficiency. It is necessary now to find out to
what the empire owes its success. What has helped it to beat
England and France in the East, in Australia, in Africa, in
South and Central America? Industrial, industrial art, com-
mercial and technical schools. These gave the empire its mar-
vellous efficiency, absolute and relative; such a system, one
similar to that of Germany, Italy, or France, will do as much
for us.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
726 Richard Baxter, [Sept,
RICHARD BAXTER.
BY DUDLEY BAXTER.
fHEN, a short time ago, the latest collateral
descendant of this famous divine — perhaps the
greatest of Nonconformists — was brought to the
Catholic font for baptism,* yet another glimpse
was afforded of the remarkable religious deso-
lation occurring in old England.
Yet our ancestor was not so ultra-Protestant as most peo-
ple imagine, and by no means an early ' edition of modem
Nonconformity. Thus, in A. D. 1880 a little book appeared
entitled Richard Baxter on the Sacraments^ compiled by an
** advanced" Anglican (the late Rev. Mr. Pollock, of St-
Alban's, Birmingham), while quite recently he has actually
been evoked by St. Alban's, Holborn, on behalf of Prayers
for the Dead — of which more anon.
Baxter was born in A. D. 1615, and descended from an
ancient family long settled in Salop; from his subsequent
writings concerning his own early experiences we obtain some
insight into the appalling state of contemporary Anglicanism.
The clergy, often themselves dissolute and worldly, frequently
employed immoral or illiterate men as '' readers " — a lazy
species of lay curate, specially useful to pluralists.
The Baxter family, however, became very pious — in the
Puritan sense — and, for instance, were intensely annoyed one
day by the erection of an ungodly maypole right in front of
their house. Young Richard's education was obtained under
decided difficulties, such as that of having successively drunken
curates as his tutors ; at length, when under the private
tuition of the chaplain at Ludlow Castle, he was enabled to
read for himself.
In his fifteenth year he was much influenced by an old
book — adapted from Catholic sources — called Bunny*s Resolu-
tion (sic) ; we also learn that he was " chilled *' by the formal,
• In the infant person of Stafford Squire Charles, son of Mr. and Mrs. S. S. Baxter, of
the Boarded Barn, Copford, Essex, England, and nephew of the writer.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Richard Baxter, 727 -
hasty method in which Anglican confirmation was administered
to him.*
Meanwhile this chaplain and his parents persuaded him to
go to court, instead of the ministry, in 1633 ; but a month at
Whitehall was more than sufficient for the future divine.
Thereupon he commenced to read for Anglican Orders with
the Vicar of Wroxeter; despite his ill- health, Richard worked
hard and, moreover, became acquainted with the great Catho-
lic schoolmen, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, as subsequently
displayed in his writings.
Religious persecution generally defeats its own object, and
thus Richard Baxter, upon becoming acquainted with two
pious and learned Nonconformists, was drawn to sympathize
with them amid the relentless persecution of highly unapos-
tolic Anglican prelates. His remarkable intellect was soon dis-
covered, and in 1638 Baxter became head- master of Dudley
School. Having been ordained in Worcester Cathedral, and
having duly signed the Thirty-nine inarticulate Articles, with
their incomprehensible comprehension, the bishop licensed him
to teach as well as preach.
Baxter became very friendly with the local dissenters, and,
as a result, began to waver over many points, such as the use
of the surplice or the sign of the cross. He soon regretted
having subscribed to the aforesaid Articles, and noiy com-
menced to carp at, first, the Anglican Liturgy and then at
episcopacy itself. Another sore grievance to him was the
utter lack of discipline in the Established Church, but then this
concerned such instances as giving the Lord's Supper to
drunkards or other bad characters ; for Nonconformity began
with quite a primitive severity.
When, later on, curate at Bridgnorth, he never wore the
surplice or used the sign of the cross at baptisms; we find
him successfully resisting ecclesiastical despotism over the "et
cstera " oath, and thus he came to inquire into the raison
d'itre of episcopacy. This very naturally in turn convinced
him that the Anglican hierarchy bore no resemblance to the
bishops of Apostolic days — at that time, indeed, they were
primarily county magnates. Unfortunately, Baxter did not
* Vide the Dictionary of National Biography, whence this and many other details have
been taken.
VOL. LXXIX.— 47
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
728 RICHARD BAXTER. [Sept.,
stop here ; soon the rumor spread that he held Presbyterian
doctrine, and altogether he became a marked man.
Meanwhile the neighboring town of Kidderminster had been
thrown into a ferment of religious turmoil. Its vicar was an
ignorant person, who only preached once a quarter, frequented
taverns (and frequently became " overcome " therein) ; more-
over his curate was worse — a "common tippler," as well as a
vigorous agent in unlawful marriages. The hapless parishion-
ers, in desperation at this scandal, forwarded a joint petition
against their vicar, who now offered to '' compound " with them
by exchanging his curate for a preacher to be chosen by the
town.
Consequently Richard Baxter was invited to come there in
1 64 1, and before long secured a wonderful transformation in
this parish — almost recalling Savonarola at Florence, and long
afterwards commemorated by the erection of his statue in the
market place. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, although
loyal to the throne itself, Baxter sided with the Parliamen-
tarians in opposition to the local sentiment- Eventually driven
out of Kidderminster, he proceeded to Coventry, and acted as
chaplain to the Puritan soldiery ; here he met other fugitive
" ministers of the Gospel " and again exercised a striking influ-
ence — though Cromwell himself thought him far too loquacious.
In 1647, owing to illness, our ancestor withdrew into retire-
ment and thereupon commenced to write his immortal work.
The Sainfs Everlasting Rest ; this immediately became famous,
has been in circulation ever since, and after nearly three cen-
turies remains one of the most popular of books. Numerous
editions have been printed, but his lineal representative must
confess agreement for once with Oliver Cromwell 1
His biographer truly says that " Richard Baxter was an
extraordinary man," with his amazingly fecund brain and his
indefatigable activity despite a weak physique ; he even entitles
him the creator of our popular Christian literature. Book fol-
lowed book, in rapid succession and often admirable eloquence ;
the great Nonconformist occupies over twenty- five pages in the
Index alone at the British Museum, London.
At length he was enabled to return to Kidderminster, and
there spent several more years. It is a curious trait of Dis-
sent that. its ministers are often political demagogues — Baxter
being no exception. Scrupulously conscientious, he appears to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Richard Baxter. 729
have been ^m -consequence) somewhat indefinite over politics! —
siding with the people, but at the same time not abandoning
the monarchy; practically a Presbyterian, though not entirely
anti- episcopal.
At much personal danger he had condemned the regicides
and strenuously advocated the accession of Charles II. ; so in
A. D. 1660 he proceeded to London and, like other Noncon-
formists, joined the Cavalier Restoration party. Indeed, he
himself was one of the leading instruments in the exiled
prince's triumphal return, being admitted into all the inner
projects. On April 30 Baxter preached before the Commons
at St. Margaret's, Westminster, and we may note that Parlia-
ment voted for the Restoration on the following day. Again,
on May 10 he preached before the lord mayor, the aldermen,
and a great congregation, in old St. Paul's Cathedral — bein^;
the thanksgiving day for Monk's decisive victory.
The new sovereign afterwards treated Baxter with marked
honor, and created him one of his royal chaplains; moreover,
the Bishopric of Hereford was now actually offered to' and
declined by this prince of Dissenters. At the subsequent
Savoy Conference he played a prominent part, and presented a
remarkable '^ reformed Liturgy " in vain, though it was much
commended — by Dr. Johnson among others.
Richard Baxter, too, was inhibited by a Bishop of Wor-
cester, and therefore not enabled to return to his beloved
Kidderminster, but occasionally preached, by Bishop Sheldon's
license, in London. Finally, in 1662, just before the Act of
Uniformity, he publicly seceded from the Church of England
^* established by law," in the old Blackfriars' edifice, soon after-
wards destroyed in the Great Fire. Baxter now dwelt in
retirement at Acton, then a country village, and his house
there was only demolished quite recently. Here he continued
to write, and sometimes was still even allowed to preach ; dur-
ing the Plague he stayed with Richard Hampden in Bucking-
hamshire.
Then came the cruel ''Clarendon Code" and the contem-
porary persecution of Nonconformity by a veritable Anglican
" Inquisition " ; our venerable divine was illegally arrested in
the pulpit and nearly thrown into prison forthwith. There-
upon the wicked " Merrie Monarch," who certainly possessed
a kind as well as an amorous heart, with kingly tact himself
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
730 RICHARD Baxter, [Sept,
procured his release ; but the great Nonconformist continued
to suffer relentless hostility with uniform patience, and his
various meeting-houses were all disbanded.
Knowing how anti- Popish he was, we can imagine Baxter's
horror when he heard of Charles's deathbed, and when a Catho-
lic sovereign sat once more in St. Edward's chair. Despite
King James's well-known liberality of mind — a trait in which
his unfortunate majesty was in advance of his times, and which
eventually cost him a precious crown indeed — the ruling powers
resumed their persecution of Nonconformity, and Baxter's trials
were increased henceforth.
In 1685 he was imprisoned on a ridiculous charge of libelling
V the Church " in his paraphrase of the New Testament. The
judge before whom this holy man had to appear was none
other than the infamous Jeffries, who grossly insulted- his
revered victim (as described so graphically by Macaulay).
Being condemned to pay a heavy fine, or to imprisonment
until it was paid, Baxter actually remained in jail for a year
iand a half.
He was released on November 24, 1686, and the fine
remitted — the government vainly hoping that he would now con-
form ; from time to time he managed to preach again, always
to enormous gatherings of people. Curiously enough, he en-
deavored to promote unity between Anglicans and Noncon-
formists, though himself a separatist and largely to blame for
this further breach in a divided Christendom. He continued,
moreover, firmly to believe in the validity of his orders — in
the Protestant sense, of course ; he now completed his pathetic
ReliquicB Baxteriana,
Meanwhile King James's well-meant but highly injudicious
efforts to secure toleration for both Catholics and Dissenters
only ended in his becoming himself the victim of disloyal
bigotry. Like his fellows, rather than obtain freedom at this
price, Baxter eagerly joined the grateful Anglican mob in their
victorious onslaught.
Then came the so-called Toleration Act of Dutch William
and unfilial Mary, to which he submitted — continuing his zeal-
ous labors up to the last. It is touching to read how, on his
deathbed, being reminded of the good achieved by his works,
the dying man murmured : '* I was but a pen« and what praise
is due to a pen?" On December 8, 1691, he passed away to
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Richard Baxter. 731
eterna] life, and was buried beside his childless wife (whose
death ten years previously had been a severe affliction) in
Christ Church, Newgate. This interesting Renaissance edifice
occupies the site of London's Franciscan friary, ^here three
queens were laid to rest ; it seems strange that there is no
monument or inscription of any kind. It is said that no private
funeral in England had ever approached Baxter's in its great
popular tribute to his memory — a memory still cherished by
unknown thousands, to whom his books have brought, and
bring, so much spiritual consolation — especially the famous
Sainfs Rest.
Richard Baxter was amongst the most prolific of writers;
publications of all kinds and sizes appeared at short intervals —
in fact, nearly one hundred and fifty books alone ! His writings
have appealed to all classes, and ever since his death some
have been in circulation — in itself greatest of tributes; they havie
been translated into many languages, and still have an almost
unrivalled popularity among the English-speaking race.
With regard to Rome, some of their titles are suggestive,:
thus, one is called "A Key for Catholiks to open the Jugling
of the Jesuits and satisfie all that are but truly willing to
understand, whether the cause of the Roman or Reformed
Churches be of God; and to leave the reader utterly inexcus-
able that after this will be a Papist" (1659) — subsequently
reprinted in 1839 in that spiritual physical- culture, ''The Morn-
ing Exercise against Popery " series !
Then we find, to our surprise, ** Catholic Communion
Defended " against an Anabaptist — for Baxter called himself a
true Catholic — wittily answered by " Bellarminus Junior enerva-
tus," who made out that his arguments exactly paralleled those
of the great cardinal. Other volumes are headed — '* Catholic
Unity," " The true CathoHck, and CathoHck Church, described.;
and the Vanity of the Papists, and all other Schismaticks, that
confine the CathoHck Church to their Sect, discovered and
shamed." Even the titles are voluminous, and it is rather per-
plexing to find, on the other hand, "The Protestant Religion
truly stated and Justified," or ''The successive Visibility of
the Church of which the Protestants are the soundest mem-
bers."
One is glad to notice that the hapless recusants took up the
gauntlet — thus, one publication is entitled " The good CathoHck
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
732 Richard Baxter, [Sept.,
no bad subject; or, a Letter from a Catholick Gentleman to
Mr. R. Baxter, modestly accepting the challenge by him made "
in a certain sermon. Another tract, addressed "to all Baxter-
ians," again accused him of agreement with Cardinal Bellar-
mine concerning justification, while in 1681 appeared "A
Dialogue between the Pope and the Devil about Owen and
Baxter," written under the pseudonym of His Holiness Pope
Innocent XI.l Spiritualists would be interested, doubtless, in
his book upon "The Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, fully
evinced by the unquestionable Histories of Apparitions and
Witchcrafts, Operations, Voices, etc."
We have already adduced his defence of the term Catholic,
but of chief interest to us are his decided leanings towards
Catholic sacramental teaching — an important point little known.
Now, in the aforesaid " Ritualist " appreciation of the great
Puritan, several interesting proofs of this are brought for-
ward.
Baxter had written inter alia " Monthly Preparations for
the Holy Communion" (second edition, printed in 1706), which
was decidedly in advance of his age. His strictness with regard
to the communicants themselves evoked the enmity of Bishop
Morley, of Worcester, who accused him of inculcating "the
same thing in other words with that of Auricular Confession "
— the only difference, in reality, being that he did not uphold
its necessity.
This booklet certainly displays Richard Baxter in an
altogether new light, and, by means of various extracts from
his writings, shows how "Anglo- Catholic" his teaching was in
some aspects. Thus, he believed in " a Catholic, visible continued
Church" — "the Church, which is His Body" — but not in the
absolute necessity of episcopacy, although in that of "minis-
terial ordination." He recognized the value of tradition, and
upheld the primitive church's attitude concerning Scriptural in-
terpretation as opposed to private judgment ; he would defend
the teaching of the Fathers, five Sacraments, the necessity of
Baptism, and so forth.
With regard to Confirmation, it is interesting to read his
defensory words : " So that the Papists shall have no cause to
say that we needlessly or erroneously do deny either the name
of Confirmation, or the true use and ends of it, or the notional
title of a sacrament to it in a large (yet not the largest) sense.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 Richard Baxter, 733
We affect not to fly further from them than we needs must,
much less to fly from the ancient practice of the universal
church " (quoted in Richard Baxter on the Sacraments, p. 69).
Baxter's attitude about Penance was surprisingly Catholic.
He zealously advocated daily examination of conscience and —
most of all — private Confession of grievous sin, even upholding
the Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins.
In certain cases he actually imposed confession to a pastor
before allowing admission to the Lord's Supper, and said:
" In flying from their (Roman Catholic) invented way of Con-
fession, we have lamentably wronged the souls of men, by dis-
using so much as Christ hath made our duty and necessary,
and the ancient churches used; and we must use, before it
will be well with us " {ibid,^ page 84).
Apparently Absolution is reserved to the pastor's discre-
tion, and first Communicants should be examined by their
ministers; he frequently makes use of the Catholic simile
about a physician. His scathing attitude towards " the Eng-
lish prelacy" over this and kindred matters is quite in Church
Times style !
Absolution, said he, is no mere declaration but a delivery
of pardon to the penitent ; he upheld '' Excommunication from
Catholic Communion " for persistent mortal sin, and maintained
that such matters were ''sinfully neglected in the Church of
England." He frequently laments over the appalling contem-
porary neglect of discipline therein.
With regard to the Communion service, Baxter held that
the Sacrifice of Calvary is there re-presented (as opposed to
being renewed — the Holy Mass), believing in some sort of
spiritual Presence. He misunderstood and denied the awful
truth of Transubstantiation, erroneously thinking that the
Fathers had upheld the permanence of the Elements, and that
the Eastern Churches followed suit. All the same his lan-
guage concerning Christ's glorified Body is most beautiful, and
he makes use of a happy parallel over the sun and its all-
embracing rays of light. He advocated a constant reception
of this sacrament, at least every Sunday — then, of course,
quite the exception — indeed, once a quarter was barely the
rule.
Baxter here rises above Puritan gloom and, in his desire to
secure a joyous service of thanksgiving, boldly taught that
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
734 RICHARD Baxter. ' [Sept.,
" Eucharistical worship is the great work of the day " (Sun-
day), as in the primitive churches. He even advocated non-
communicating attendance, but, in reality, only to teach people
to become communicants or to secure conversions of sinners.
The prevalent neglect of the stipulated daily Morning and
Evening Prayer in church by *' the Conformists " had, of
course, confirmed the objection of Nonconformists to this
alleged burden. Baxter evidently wished the Saints' Days to
be reobserved, and approved of fasting or abstinence.
His words concerning the dead are exceedingly consbling,
and, in a limited sense, he may be said to have advocated
prayer for their souls. This is the point which St. Alban's,
Holborn, in their parish magazine for November, 1903, dis-
played in a series of extracts headed ''Directions about our
Communion with Holy Souls Departed, now with Christ "
(edition 1707). The words here quoted are singularly beauti-
ful, and he specially insists upon the comforting paradox that
the Dead are in reality Alive — as members of Christ's Body
Spiritual.
Baxter is interesting about church music, liking a cheerful
service, and we may note how he says the ancient Gregorian
''singing was liker our saying than to our tunes." He had no
objection to a metaphorical use of the words "priest" and
" altar," and in touching language pleaded for pictures of the
Crucifixion : " Now we set His picture, wounded and dying,
before our eyes. . . . And those eyes, through which folly
and lust hath so often stole into our hearts, shall now be the
casements to let in the love of our dearest Lord for ever"
{^Sainfs Rest^ I. vii. i.)
He at first, apparently, had refused to condemn the Sign
of the Cross, or its material erection ; the mixed chalice,
images, or turning to the East ; he even seems to have held
at one time that the rubric in reality enjoined the use of "the
cope, alb, and other vestments." We find him talking about
" the sad example of King Henry the Eighth's Reformation,
and the almost miraculous consumption of the estates of im-
propriators," and of how England had been punished for what
was stolen from the altar. It is delightful to read his condem-
nation of pew-rents or appropriation of seats — instancing how
after the Great Fire in London ministers had to preach "in
inconvenient tabernacles," the seats consequently soon became
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Richard Baxter. 735
taken, and an " eminent esquire " could not get one for a
fiver!
Baxter was consulted — even by royal command — in cases
of mixed marriagies or in the vain hope of stopping conver-
sions (for example, that of the Lady Anne Lindsay, who after-
wards became a nun in France). No doubt, after his secession
he became more pronouncedly Protestant, and this High Church
booklet scarcely seems to realize that he did deliberately secede
from Canterbury.
Although so opposed to the Papacy, Baxter only took up
this attitude because he honestly thought it was of mediaeval
creation; for his reverence concerning the Primitive Church,
or Apostolic customs, was profound : " If you find anything in
God's worship which the Primitive or Universal Church agreed
in, you may be sure that it is nothing but what is consistent
with acceptable worship. For God never rejected the worship
of the Primitive or Universal Church" {tbid.^ p. 159).
Perhaps I may commend these passages to that strange
phenomenon, the modern Nonconformist conscience; if my
ancestor had lived in our days of unlimited research, is it not
quite conceivable he might have resembled John Henry New-
man? He fearlessly advocated what he believed to be the
truth, caring nothing for reproach or rebuke : " If the cause I
defend be not of God, I desire it may fall. If it be, I leave
it to God how far He will prosper it, and what men shall
think or say of me. . . . Farewell." It was this same
trait which eventually, of course, landed him in Dissent —
private judgment, wrongly used, leading to its supreme excess.
Centuries afterwards Richard Baxter's most direct descen-
dants both also left the Established Church of England, but
travelled not along his Via Dolorosa. For they found, like
many another heir of Puritanism, this Primitive Church had
believed that Peter spoke by Leo, the Roman Pontiff — apertis
oculis viderunt.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
736 '"BUGG/NS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ [Sept.,
BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE."
BY M. F. QUINLAN.
^T was an outlying slum of the West End. The
hour was 8 : 30, and the Girls' Club in full
swing. A factory hand leaned against the piano
and watched my fingers moving over the keys.
" I knoo yer was 'ere/* she said fragmen-
tarily, ''cos I 'eard the music dahn the street; an' sez I ter
meselfy that 's er ! sez I, for nobody else ain't got 'er fingers.
So I come up."
Her appreciation was certainly a tribute. Presently she
looked up wistfully.
'* Wishes ter Gawd I could play the planner," she said
with much earnestness. " I did 'ave some lessons once — 'ad
'em off the lady as lives rahnd the corner." She paused.
" But the lessons was ^d, each, so I on'y 'ad two." And there
was a world of regret in the admission.
Hoping to abate her musical zeal, I mentioned a few of
the difficulties to be overcome before perfection could be
attained, to all of which Sarah Buggins turned a deaf ear.
" Me father sez as 'e '11 buy me a planner some day," she
remarked, as if I had been more encouraging.
** A piano costs a lot of money," I said tentatively, while
I gazed at the factory girl's rags.
*• Yuss it do," she confessed ; " but me father 'ad the ofi"er
of a pianner last week from some one as did n't want it."
** How much was it ? " I asked.
•"e wanted a pund for it, — but it wasn't new," added
Sarah conscientiously. Whereupon my heart went out to the
old piano that was going for one pound sterling. I could just
picture it laboring under the disadvantage of a broken leg and
possibly leaning for support against the damp wall of some
tenement room in the pathetic endeavor to stave off dissolu-
tion. Verily, the Muse dies hard !
" Does your father know anything of pianos ? " I asked
with some hesitation.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE:' 737
'' W'y ! my father 's a musician ! '' said the girl with filial
pride ; '' an' 'e plays somethink lovely ! Yer dunno' me
father ? '' She stopped and looked at me in commiseration.
*' Yer ought ter know *im/' said Sarah, " for *e 's tiptop.
Yuss ! an* 'e 's* a man of eddication, too. An' jes' ter 'ear 'im
on the cornet — w'y, it 's a fair treat ! "
From that time forward, possibly owing to a community of
interests, I experienced a sense of kinship for the father of
Sarah Buggins. This sympathy was further encouraged by the
many kind messages I received from him : messages that were
invariably prefaced by the "best respects" of Mr. Buggins.
Then a day dawned when he invited me to tea. In view
of his having moved in Society the invitation was perhaps
inevitable. Yet it was an honor that I had not coveted. To
be candid I even shrank from it. But one cannot plead an
engagement for ever, and there came a time when I was forced
to choose between tea and Mr. Buggins taken collectively —
and the loss of a meagre popularity.
Therefore I went to tea at the tenement It was a stumpy,
blind street — a sort of morbid excrescence out of the main road,
and this particular tenement house was more than particularly
grimy. Its front steps were broken and crumbling, and it
seemed as if the Spirit of Decay had inserted its clammy
fingers into the chinks of the walls and eaten away the corners
of the masonry. The wooden stairs were rotting and many
balusters were missing, and the balustrade altogether looked so
elderly and decrepit that I could not help comparing it to an
ancient person who had lost her teeth. In fact the unhappy
tenement claimed one's sympathy as if it were a human thing.
On each landing tousled heads were thrust out and hastily
withdrawn. Not that individual interest was abated thereby,
for I was conscious of eyes peering at me through the chinks
of the empty door-ways. That I was expected by the sum
aggregate of the lodgers was evident ; and even the strings of
wet washing that hung suspended from the ceiling seemed to
drip more vigorously at my approach.
My invitation was to the Third Floor front. So I clam-
bered higher and higher, dodging the washing as best I could.
Finally I reached my landing and knocked, whereupon the
door opened and Sarah Buggins drew me into the room.
The tenement seemed to be suffering from an epidemic of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
738
' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ [Sept.,
washed linen — the Third Floor front not having escaped the
infection. At first I thought we were alone, Sarah and I.
But standing clear of a wet shirt which had hitherto obstructed
the view, I was enabled to obtain my first glimpse of Mr.
Buggins.
He was in his shirt sleeves and a broken brace; while his
feet were encased in a pair of green carpet- slippers that
seemed to have fallen victims to the ravages of the moth.
Mr. Buggins was reclining in a rickety chair with his green
feet out of the window.
"Pa!" said Sarah hurriedly, "'ere's— "
But Mr. Buggins never stirred. As though unconscious of
transitory things, he continued to gaze abstractedly between
" My first glimpse of Mr. Buggins."
the flower-pots in which the stalks of last year's fuchias stood
up stiff and stark just as when the frost had surprised them.
Far be it from me to doubt the sincerity of Mr. Buggins'
artistic temperament, which would account for such moods of
mental aberration; for if one is to think great thoughts one
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE:
739
'Madam!— w£ meet I*
must see through this week's washing and beyond it. It was
not that which caused my suspicion. It was the coincidence
that Mr. Buggins gave me just sufficient time to be impressed
by his attitude of lofty abstraction before he withdrew his
feet from the window ledge. This he did with great delibera-
tion, lifting them down one at a time with a dignity incidental
to genius. After that he shook himself off the rickety chair
and drew himself up to his full height. Then, removing the
cutty pipe from his mouth, he threw back his head and ad-
dressed me in stentorian tones.
" Madam ! " he ejaculated — " we meet ! " And he grasped
my hand.
The melodrama of the situation appealed to me. Hastily I
rallied my mental forces and awaited developments.
But Mr. Buggins was silent. He only gazed at me ear-
nestly. This inspection was thorough and, as I hope, not
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
740 '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ [Sept.,
unsatisfactory; {or he finally waved me into a chair with the
air of a magnate who confers a favor.
The chair thus indicated had but three available legs, for
the fourth was too feeble to rely on. And xtiy mind was busy
with the abstract Laws of Balance as Mr. Buggins took my
soundings educational and intellectual.
" My gel 'ere 'as been a-tellin' me as y' are a musician/'
he said presently; ''been learnin' the planner in furring parts,
I 'ear."
I confessed to having studied abroad.
" Kin yer play any other hinstrument ? " he asked.
Here it was with diffidence that I mentioned a banjo. Mr.
Buggins frowned ; whereupon I endeavored to retrieve myself
by saying that my banjo- master was not sanguine as to my
ability. But this confidential outrider was nipped in the bud
by the freezing attitude of my host. To Mr. Buggins a banjo
was low; it was associated in his mind with Margate and
periwinkles. Therefore he frowned majestically and waived the
vulgarity of it, which immediately recalled me to a sense of
the dignity of music, as apart from the banjo.
" Now, wot abaht the orgin ? ' he demanded. " Kin yer
play that?"
I humbly admitted my inability, and that after several
months of fruitless labor.
At this Mr. Buggins gained confidence.
'' Ah 1 the orgin," he said impressively, '' is the King' o'
hinstruments 1 " He cocked his left eye in ecstasy and a smile
overspread his unshaven countenance. It was the smile of the
enthusiast.
" I plays it," he remarked, " so I s'pose I oughter know ? "
His tone was suddenly defiant.
'' Certainly," I acquiesced ; whereupon Mr. Buggins wkls at
once mollified.
He then drew up his chair to an imaginary, organ and
rolled up his sleeves with a business-like air. '*Theer's the
notes to think abaht," he said turning to me, while he ran his
fingers through the air ; •' an' the stops " — here he made a
sudden lunge to the right. It was to be presumed that he
seized upon the coupler, for his voice gained in volume and,
glancing at me hurriedly over his shoulder, his eyes burned
with the fire of genius.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] "BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE." 741
•>
"The organ was a hypothesis."
** An' don't forgit the pedals ! " he ejaculated. This was
actively demonstrated by Mr. Buggins sprawling his feet across
the pedal-board — which in itself was a mere hypothesis — over
which he played a fine chromatic passage, heeling and toeing
it across the floor of the tenement room. The impressiveness
of this performance was heightened by the musician half shut-
ting his eyes and humming a vocal accompaniment in quavers.
"Theer ain't no beatin' the orgin," said he; "for fust yer
'avc the singin'-like o' the 'igh notes, an' the boomin' o' the
bottom notes, an' the swellin' o' the middle 'uns."
" No," said my host in conclusion, " ev yer dunno' the
oi'gin» yei* dunno nothink abaht music." And he glared at me
with severity.
' So far there was only one thing that disturbed the com-
placency of Mr. Buggins, and that was the doubt whether I
believed a word of it; for my talented musician could no more
play the organ than I could. He knew this, and he wondered
if I did. But I maintained an expression of unsophistication
while he studied me furtively with the tail of his eye.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
742 "BC/GGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ [Sept.,
" I hear you play the cornet ? '' I said, with a view to
allaying suspicion.
" Ye 're right theer ! " he asserted. For diffidence was not
cultivated in the tenement.
'' Ask my gel theer/' he urged, '' ef I kin play the cornet
or no?"
The daughter, thus appealed to, supported the statement
with warmth.
" Yuss, they understands music," said the man, indicating
with a gesture his wife and family, ''though they ain't got no
eddication." This remark was received without rancor. In-
deed, the self-abasement of the Buggins family aroused my
interest, until I learnt that Buggins was the star round which
his family revolved.
He shook his head.
" Not but wot theer right enuff in theer way," he admitted
magnanimously. '' But bein' eddicated yerself," said Mr. Bug-
gins, " yer kin understand 'ow I feels."
It was the loneliness of genius from which he suffered ; but
not being stricken myself with a like complaint, my sympathy
was found to be inadequate.
A pause followed, during which Mrs. Buggins from force of
habit wiped her grimy face with the end of her apron, and
then retired into the inner room for the alleged purpose of
"cleaning herself."
So Mr. Buggins reverted to his cornet-playing. ''Yuss, I
plays the cornet; — wot say?" he demanded disapprovingly.
" Yer wants me ^to play yer somethink ? Well ! I dunno ev
I 'ave a hinstrument by me." He turned to his daughter.
" Ain't got one in the chest o' drawers, 'ave I ? "
" No, you ain't," said the daughter steadily.
Mr. Buggins sighed regretfully, and then changed the coi^-
versation.
" I s'pose," he began irrelevantly, " that you never knoo as
I was once a drum-major in the harmy ? " This honor having
hitherto been omitted, Mr. Buggins hastened to enlarge upon
the social advantages peculiar to such an exalted position.
"An' yer wouldn't b'lieve," he added, "the amount of 'igh
life yer sees in the Harmy."
" How ? " was my stolid inquiry.
" Why ! I remembers the day as if 't was yesterday," be-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ 743
gan Mr. Buggins. " I was jes' a-walkin' along the railway
station — 't were at Aldershot, ev I 'm not mistaken — w'en the
royal train pulls up, an' 'is Royal 'ighness the Prince o' Wales —
'im wot's King — 'e puts his 'ead aht o' the winder, an' seein^
me further along, 'e beckons me wif 'is 'and — *Mr. Buggins
'ere ! ' sez 'e. An' with that 'is Royal 'ighness — wot 's now
King — 'e gits aht o' the kerridge an' 'e shakes me be the 'and.
Then.'e introdooces me to 'er Royal 'ighness the Princess o'
Wales, wot was in the railway kerridge undoin' the lunch-
basket. So she takes off the lid o' the basket an' sez she:
' Mr. Buggins ! 'ave a sandwich,' sez she. Wich," said Mr.
Buggins, " I was 'appy ter do."
Here there was a break in my friend's narrative. Without
bestowing a glance upon me he raised his voice angrily and ex-
tended his lungs. "'Liza I" he roared, "tell this 'ere lady
ev I lie."
"Yer don't, Uriah!" came the voice of his dutiful
spouse.
" Yer 'ear thet?" he asked reproachfully. "Ycr kin b'Heve
Mrs. Buggins, I s'pose ? "
Further proof being impossible, I inclined my head to the
Friend of the Throne, while Mrs. Buggins emerged from the
inner room with the teapot in her hand.
On the whole, I think it was a successful tea-party. For
though my host snubbed me while there, he seems to have
thought much of me thereafter. Soon after this, however, my
lot was cast in other lines, and for eighteen months I received
no news from the tenement.
But one summer afternoon a visitor was announced — "Miss
Buggins" by name.
Owing to the whirl and rush of life I had meanwhile made
many new friends, and though the personality of the Buggins
family remained one of the treasures of memory, the name had
escaped me, and on entering die room I was surprised to find
myself face to face with Sarah the factory girl. Her hair was
in curling-pins, and her hat ornamented with a dreary- looking
ostrich feather. She shook hands in silence and drew her
shawl around her.
I saw that something was amiss.
" Me father 's bad, an' 'e wants ycr," she said with the
directness of slumland. " Will yer come ? "
VOL. LXXIX.— 48 ^ T
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
744 ''BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONEr [Sept.,
" Me father 's^bad
AN* 'E wants YER."
"Yes, of course I'll come/' I answered,
while a tear trickled down her cheek.
"I've been tryin' ter find yer fur two
days," she said huskily, " an' I did n't know
wheer yer was. But 'e kep' on arstin' fur
yer, so I puts on me hat an' shawl terday,
an' I sez to 'im, ' Don't yer take on abaht
it, father,' I sez ter 'im, ' I '11 find 'er wheer-
iver- she is ' — w'ich I 'ave."
The girl smiled through her tears, and
in a few minutes we had set off together
for the slums. On my arrival I found that
the tenement looked as dilapidated as ever,
and the washing still hung from the ceil-
ing. I was not taken into the front room
to- day, that being already occupied. For
when Mrs. Buggins was not out charing,'
she took in washing; and the washing
had to be done in the Third Floor front,
though Death stood by with outstretched
arms.
However, Mrs. Buggins left her work for a minute to fol-
low me into the little back room where the
sick man lay on the untidy tenement bed.
His breath came in painful gasps and the
hand that was laid in mine was almost
transparent.
" Looks bad, don't 'e I " said Mrs. Bug-
gins, by way of introduction; and shaking
her head she returned to her work. The
man raised himself feebly on his elbow
and his eyes seemed to be looking at me
from beyond the grave.
" Madam t " he said in a hollow whis-
per, '* we meet — again ! "
It was as though his ghost had spoken.
He sank back exhausted on the pillow and
his lips moved. I bent down to hear. ''I
ain't the man I were," he murmured, " w'en
last yer see'd me." He gave a hard, dry "^^^^^ ^^,^' ^^f*^'"^^"
' ** » .^ SAID Mrs. Buggins
cough that racked his feeble frame. philosophically.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONEr 745
His eyes closed and bis fingers worked nervously. So I sat
down by tbe bedside and took his hand, while I talked of the
things that endure, for I saw that his life's race was nearly
run, and the Angel of Death was in waiting.
But the call came not that day, nor the next; for he lin-
gered on for several days, sometimes weaker and sometimes
stronger.
^:^
^'
Xv^
,*-\
'Whbbr's yer bddication?" asked Mr. Buggins.
I remember one day sitting with him when the door
opened and Sarah's head was thrust in. " Miss ! " she ejacu-
lated, her face glowing with pride, " wot 'yer think ? W'y,
we was sent a telegrapht yesterday ! " Feeble and weak as he
was, Mr. Buggins sat up in bed and glared at his offspring.
*"0w dare yer?" he demanded. "Telegrapht! Wheer's
yer eddication — the eddication wot I give yer?" He turned
to me. " It ain't no use a-tryin' ter learn 'em. But," he said
in a broken voice, '*I calls yer hattention ter the fac' that, as
long as I were above ground, I taught 'em grammar I " Ex*
hausted with the effort, he lay back and looked like one dead.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
746 '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONED [Sept.,
" Well, anyhow yer need n't get so excited abaht it ! " ex-
postulated Sarah, who had resented the interruption. For it
was not every day that a telegram came to the tenement.
I remember noticing some fresh flowers on the mantel-
piece.
" How lovely your roses are ! " I exclaimed, while I exam-
ined a delicate La France, whose beauty was enhanced by the
surrounding squalor.
" Ain't they ? " exclaimed Sarah with pleasure.
'' You are fond of flowers, are you not ? " I asked hen
"Yuss, I loves flowers; they like reminds yer o' the cime-
tary," was the unexpected reply. And instinctively I recoiled
from the rose.
The next time I arrived at the tenement I found Sarah
waiting on the steps.
" It ain't safe fur yer ter go up be yerself," she said
abruptly.
I laughed. "Since when?"
Sarah assumed an air of mystery. " It 's the lady as lives
under us," she volunteered ; '' an' she sez that if she see 'd yer
goin' up-stairs agin, she 'd insult yer ! "
" I wonder why ? " I asked, for there seemed to be a
psychological interest involved.
" 'Cos yer ain't never been ter see 'er," replied Sarah.
"But do I know her?" I asked.
"Dunno' er as yer knows 'er or not," was the answer, "but
she see'd yer once at the Mothers' Meetin'. An' yusterd'y
w'en she knoo as ye'd been ter see me father, she s^z ter me
on the stairs : ' Sarah Buggins ! ' ^ez she, * if that theer lady
comes agin I '11 insult 'er,' sez she. An' she jes' would," added
Sarah, "fur she ain't no class."
But whether the insult was to have taken the form of
dynamite or broomstick I never discovered; for I was
jealously watched over by the Buggins family, who constituted
themselves my body-guard.
The following day when I got to the little back room I
found a visitor already there.
It was Sarah's rich aunt.
Aunt Belinda I had frequently heard of, as being a person
of great affluence.
" Rich ! " commented Sarah. " W'y ! she lives on 'er own
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE:* 747
••An* wot wif the worry o' servints an' one thing or another."
money an' keeps two servants/' The opulence o{ Aunt Belinda
was beyond local belief.
'* Now, ain't it lucky you come ? " said Mrs. Buggins on my
arrival, " fur we was jes' talkin' abaht yer " ; and forthwith I
was introduced to Aunt Belinda as the lesser is to the great,
and the second best chair was offered me. There were only
two, and Aunt Belinda had the other. She had brought with
her a basket of dainties for the sick man. This she hastened
to mention, adding that she could afford the expense of it.
"Ye're very good, Belinda," murmured the invalid.
"Well, Uriah," replied his rich sister, "ev things was dif-
ferent an' I was pore, I knows as you'd 'elp me."
" That I would," answered the dying man, whose generosity
was only limited by his poverty.
" So I sez ter meself," said Aunt Belinda, " theer's Uriah,
lyin' sick, I sez, an' p'raps 'e cud eat a chickin ! But," and
here she addressed herself to me, " wot wif me gentlemen
lodgers, an' wot wif the worry o' servints an' one thing or
another — " she shook her head until the large red rose in her
bonnet trembled on the end of its stalk — " I 've been that
worrited that I could n't come 'ere afore."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
748 '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ [Sept.,
"Yer do 'ave a letter see ter," said Mrs. Buggins respect-
fully.
Aunt Belinda held up a pair of fat hands that had been
squeezed into black kid gloves. "Wot it is/' she said with
impressiveness, " to 'ave a 'ouse an' servints of yer own, yer
would n't never b'lieve ! "
But now she shook off the gloom of her domestic respon-
1^^
Q..
' Not yet— Liza ! " pleaded the dying man.
sibilities and gave me her address. She even expressed a hope
that I might call upon her — our social equality being taken for
granted.
"You jes' drop in whenever yer like, an' welcome," said
this local aristocrat. And Sarah Buggins sat on the fender
with her elbows on her knees and looked at me wistfully; for
invitations were limited at Aunt Belinda's.
The next time I climbed up to the Third Floor back Mrs.
Buggins beckoned me in with a silent finger. The end was at
hand. The dying man stirred restlessly and the beads of cold
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904. J '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^' 749
perspiration stood on his forehead. He tried to speak, though
his voice failed him. But I knew that he could hear what I
said to him, {or from time to time he made a motion of assent
Meanwhile Mrs. Buggins sat on the fender and watched him.
Then she shook her head gloomily.
" 'E's goin* I " she said aloud, ** an* that 's sure an' certain."
The dying man opened his eyes. " 'Liza — not yet 1 " He
murmured appealingly, — "not yet — 'Liza."
'' Now, Uriah ! " said Mrs. Buggins with a firmness just
tempered with forbearance, " wot do you know abaht it ?
Think as the doctor don't know 'is business? W'y 'twas on'y
yusterd'y as 'e see'd yer, an' 'e sez ter me afterwards on the
landin' ahtside theer — ' Mrs. Buggins, I sez 'e ' — an' a nice-
spoken young man 'e were — ' Mrs. Buggins,' 'e sez, ' I'm sorry
fur yer, very sorry,* sez 'e, 'but 'e's goin'.' Now them was 'is
very words : 'e's goin* ! An'," said Mrs. Buggins looking
reproachfully at her husband, '' it ain't fur sich as you ter say
contrariwise."
Here I made an imploring gesture, which Mrs. Buggins half
resented.
"Thet's all very well, miss," she admitted, "but it ain't
my way. I 'm Jack Blunt, as the sayin' is, an' I likes ter
talk me mind. An' yer can't get away from fac's do. wot yer
will. Fur, 'owever yer takes it, a funeral is a 'eavy expense."
I glanced at the emaciated form on the bed, and as I
watched him struggling to live, I shrank back from the realism
of the tenement. The man's brows were contracted as if in
pain, and his breath came fitfully, but his lips were closed and
he held his peace.
"Yuss," continued Mrs. Buggins, "a 'eavy expense, an*
who's a-goin' ter pay fur it, I dunno'. Fur yer must bury
'im decent I An' it ain't as if 'e b'longed to a burial club —
w'ich 'e don't, wuss luck ! — so we 'd 'ave ter be content wif two
'orses an' 'ave things quiet-like." Here Mrs. Buggins sighed
regretfully. "Then theer 's the corfin ter pay fur," ticking it
off on the ends of her fingers, "a«* the 'earse. An' of course
you 'ave ter give some sort o' victuals ter the mourners, an'
wheer 's the money ter come from ? That 's wot I wants ter
know ? "
Mrs. Buggins was a practical person. But absorbing as this
financial problem undoubtedly was, my eyes were fixed on the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
750
'BUGGINS: A FRIEND 01- THE ThRONE.'
[Sept.,
-7777J7
"Then theer 's the corfin tbr pay fur— an' the 'earse,"
SAID Mrs. Buggins.
dying man, who was battling {or breath, and his whispered
appeal " 'Liza ! not yet/' found an echo deep down in my
heart.
Mrs. Buggins, however, continued her soliloquy. "Yuss,
these is the things yer 'ave ter think abaht/' said she with
philosophy; "an* likewise ter pay fur," she added. "An*
then — w'y lord love yer ! " she ejaculated, suddenly realizing
that the chief item of expenditure had been omitted — "Blest
cv I ain't forgot me black ! "
She ceased speaking and gazed into space, and I could see
that her mind was busy with detail. Would it be a two-horse
funeral ? or could she raise enough money, after all, for the
four horses ? What funeral meats would she cook ? How many
could she pay for? What of mourning coaches? And how
about a china wreath for the coffin? — for it must be a decent
burial. Then, of course, there was her " black." How long
would the dressmaker take to make it ? It must have crape
on it ; but what style should she choose ? Would the old
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] '' BUGGINS: A FRIEND OF THE THRONE^ 75 1
crape bonnet bear re-trimming? she wondered, or must she
buy a new one ? . . . But her reflections were interrupted
by the rustling of an Angel's wing, and the Voices of the Nine
Choirs became hushed while a human soul stood at the Bar of
Eternity.
It was some days later. The cofHn had been nailed down,
and the mourners had arrived. Mrs. Buggins was arrayed in her
new black dress, aild the old brown shawl was drawn across
her shoulders. The funeral mutes were carrying the dead down
the tenement stairs, and Mrs. Buggins followed next as chief
mourner. All the neighbors had collected into whispering
groups, and stood watching at their several doorways.
"'E were a good man — as men goes," said one. *' Ain't it
wonderful 'ow she bears up," said another. " Ah I poor thing ! "
said the rest. And the widow, feeling that the moment of her
life had come — for in the slums it is not the wedding but the
funeral that counts — walked with head erect and stepped into
the first coach with an assumption of dignity. From hence-
forth everything would date from to-day. For what the He-
gira is to the devout Mohammedan, the burial is to the widow
of slumland.
So Mr. Buggins was laid to his rest, and amongst the
mourners who stood by the grave there was found no repre-
sentative of Royalty.
For the ways of man are strange and unstable, and lo !
Mr. Buggins had been forgotten at the Court of St. James.
" Eheu 1 — sic transit gloria mundi ! "
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752 " FOLLOW THOU ME." [Sept.,
"FOLLOW THOU ME."
John xxi, 22.
BY SISTER M. WILFRED, O.S.B.
[OW lovely are Thy Feet upon the hills,
O my Beloved ! Lo the crystal rills
Of living water gush beneath Thy tread
To give ba'ck life to that which erst was dead,
And more abundant life to them that live.
For Thou, who lovest all, art fain to give
That All which is Thyself, a gift as free
As air or light, to all who ask of Thee.
Along the rugged thorn-set path, where'er
Thy nail-pierced Feet find rest, spring up the fair.
Sweet flowers of sacrifice. ** Incline Thine ear."
Thou sayest ** follow Me." Ah! Lord most dear,
Thou knowest well how weak I am and frail.
How to the dust I cleave, how mine eyes fail
With looking upward ! And shall such as I
Walk in the heights with Thee ? Hear how I cry
To Thee, halt, maimed, half dead ! It were more meet,
Low in the dust, to lie beneath Thy Feet.
II.
He who loves best fears neither depth nor height!
Humbly he scans as in his Master's sight
His misery and sin ! Yet, at His call
(Leaning on his Beloved, lest he fall),
He rises quickly and with willing feet
Hastens to do His Will and to complete
His given task ere night's soft shadows come —
The call to rest in his eternal home.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Irish Fairy and folk Tales. 753
IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES.
BY CHARLES WELSH.
CHE history of Ireland and of the Irish people
dates back from a very remote antiquity; in-
deed, its beginnings are lost in the twilight of
fable, but its language, as Mr. Douglas Hyde
says, '' has left the clearest, most luminous, and
most consecutive literary track behind it of any of the ver-
nacular tongues," excepting the Greek.
Linguistically speaking, the Celtic people are a branch of
the great Aryan race. The Irish are part of a vast Indo-
European family which countless ages ago spread to the West
over a great part of Europe. The Gaelic language has roots
which go far down towards the parent stock; its literature,
consequently, is of the utmost interest and value to those who
seek to read the riddle of the past and to push back the
horizon of knowledge concerning it. The reader will not,
therefore, be surprised to learn that the Irish Fairy Tales and
Folk Stories are among the oldest of those of any of the
European races. " Of all the traces that man in his earliest
period has left behind him," says Mr. Douglas Hyde in his
Beside the Fire^ "there is nothing except a few drilled stones
or flint arrowheads that approaches the antiquity of these
tales."
And although they have many counterparts in other lan-
guages, which would seem to indicate a common origin in the
far oflF past — notably in Oriental Folk Lore — the spirit of the
race is enshrined in them in a more characteristic and striking
degree, perhaps, than in the fairy tales and folk lore of any
other country. This is doubtless due to their preservation in
the ancient Gaelic ; to the fact that the wandering bard has
lingered longer in Ireland than elsewhere, and to the fact that
the professional story-teller, although fast disappearing, is not
yet entirely extinct in that country.
Story-telling has always been a favorite amusement of the
Celtic race. In ancient times the professional story-tellers
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754 IRISH Fairy and Folk Tales, [Sept,
were classified, and were called, according to their rank,
ollaves, shanachies, files, or bards. Their duty was to recite
old tales, poems, and descriptions of historical events in prose
or verse at the festive gatherings of the people. They were
especially educated and trained for this profession, which was
looked upon as a dignified and important one, and they were
treated with consideration and amply rewarded wherever they
went.
It is recorded how the story-tellers used to gather together
of an evening, and if any had a different version from the
others they would all recite theirs and vote, and the man who
had varied would have to abide by their verdict. In this way
stories have been handed down with such accuracy that the
long tale of Dierdre was, in the earlier decades of the eigh-
teenth century, told almost word for word, as in the very
ancient MSS. in the Royal Dublin Society. In one case only
it varied, and then the MS. was obviously wrong — a passage
had been forgotten by the copyist. But this accuracy is rather
in the folk and bardic tales than in the fairy legends, for these
vary widely, being usually adapted to some neighboring vil-
lage or local fairy-seeing celebrity.
While the Irish fairy tales and folk tales are among the
oldest in the world, they are also the most numerous and
diversified. Many collectors have classified them more or less.
The following will give an idea of the main grouping:
There are "The Sociable Fairies," who go about in troops,
and quarrel, and make love, much as men and women do.
They are land fairies or Sheoques (Ir. Sidheog^ "a little fairy")
and water fairies or Merrows (Ir. Moruadh, "a sea-maid").
The Sheoques haunt the sacred thorn bushes and the green
raths or royalties — those little fields circled by ditches, and
supposed to be ancient fortifications and sheepfolds. Many a
mortal they are said to have enticed into their dim world.
Many have listened to their fairy music, till human cares and
joys drifted from them and they became great seers, or " Fairy
Doctors,'' or musicians, or poets like Carolan, who is said to
have gathered his tunes while sleeping on a fairy rath; or
else they died in a year and a day, to live ever after among
the fairies. The Sheoques occasionally steal children and leave
a withered fairy, a thousand or maybe two thousand years old,
instead.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. 755
The Merrows sometimes come out of the sea in the shape
of little hornless cows. In their own shape they have fishes'
tails and wear a red cap, called in Irish cohuleen driuth. The
men among them have green teeth, green hair, pigs' eyes, and
red noses ; but their women are beautiful and sometimes prefer
handsome fishermen to their green- haired lovers.
"The Solitary Fairies" are mostly gloomy and terrible.
Among them are :
The Lepricaun (Ir, Leith bhrogan ; i.e.^ the one shoemaker).
He is seen sitting under a hedge mending a shoe, and whoso
catches him can make him deliver up his crocks of gold, for
he is a miser of great wealth; but if you take your eyes off
him he vanishes like smoke. He wears a red coat with seven
buttons in each row, and a cocked hat, on the point of which
he sometimes spins like a top. In Donegal he goes clad in a
great frieze coat.
The CluricaufCs (Ir. Clobhair-cean in O'Kearney) occupations
are robbing wine-cellars and riding sheep and shepherd'6 dogs
for a livelong night, until the morning finds them panting and
mud-covered.
The Gonconer or Ganconagh (Ir. Gean canogh ; i. e., love-
talker) is a creature of the Lepricaun type, but a great idler.
He appears in lonely valleys, pipe in mouth, and spends his
time in making love to shepherdesses and milkmaids.
The Far Darrig (Ir. Fear Dearg ; i. e., red man) is the prac-
tical joker of the other world. He presides over evil dreams.
The Pooka (Ir. Puca, a word derived by some from poc^ a
he-goat) is of the family of the nightmare. His shape is
usually that of a horse, a bull, a goat, eagle, or ass. His de-
light is to get a rider, with whom he rushes through ditches
and rivers and over mountains, and whom he shakes off in the
gray of the morning. Especially does he love to plague a
drunkard; a drunkard's sleep is his kingdom. At times he
takes more unexpected forms than those of beast or bird.
The Dullahan has no head, or carries it under his arm.
He is often seen driving a black coach called coach-a-bower
(Ir. Coite- bodhar), drawn by headless horses. It rumbles to
your door, and if you open it a basin of blood is thrown in
your face. It is an omen of death to the houses where it
pauses.
The Leanhaun Shee (Ir. Leanhaun sidfu ; i.e.^ fairy mistress)
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
756 IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. [Sept,
seeks the love of men. If they refuse, she is their slave ; if
they consent, they are hers, and can only escape by finding
one to take their place. Her lovers waste away, for she lives
on their life.
The Far Gorta (man of hunger) is an emancipated fairy
that goes through the land in famine time, begging and bring-
ing good luck to the giver.
The Banshee (Ir. Bean-sidhe ; i. ^., fairy woman) is a sociable
fairy grown solitary through much sorrow. The name cor-
responds to the less common Far Shee (Ir. Fear Stdhe), a man
fairy. She wails, as most people know, over the death of a
member of some old Irish family.
There are also the House Spirits; the Water Sherie, a
kind of will-o'-the-wisp; the Sowlth, a formless luminous
creature ; the Pastha (piastbestia) ; the lake dragon, a guardian
of hidden treasure; and the Bo men fairies, who destroy the
unwary ; and there is the great tribe of ghosts called Thivishes
in some parts..
And there is fairy poetry as well, and of which not a little
is to be found in the works of the Irish poets from William
Allingham to William Butler Yeats. But it is not so abundant
as one might expect. The ancient myths and legends and the
half mythical history of Ireland and her manifold wrongs and
sufferings seem to have appealed more to the Irish poetical
spirit.
The very first collection of Fairy Tales and Folk Tales are,
of course, to be found in the old chapbooks. "They are,"
says Mr. W. B. Yeats, " to be found brown with turf smoke
on cottage shelves, and are, or were, sold on every hand by
the pedlars, but cannot be found in any library of this city of
the Sassanach (London). 'The Royal Fairy Tales,' 'The
Hibernian Tales,' and ' The Legends of the Fairies * are the
fairy literature of the people."
Of a certain volume of the " Hibernian Tales " Thackeray
writes pleasantly in his Irish Sketch Book, remarking : " So
great is the superiority of the old stories over the new, in
fancy, dramatic interest, and humor, that one can't help fancy-
ing that Hibernia must have been a very superior country to
Ireland."
"These Hibernian novels, too," he continues, "are evidently
intended for the hedge-school universities. They have the
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1904.] Irish Fairy and folk Tales. 757
old tricks and some of the old plots that one has read in many
popular legends of almost all countries, European and Eastern;
successful cunning is the great virtue applauded ; and the
heroes pass through a thousand wild extravagant dangers
such as could only have been invented when art was young
and faith was large. And, as the honest old author of the
tales says 'they are suited to the meanest as well ai to the
highest capacity, tending both to improve the fancy and enrich
the mind/ let us conclude the night's entertainment by read-
ing one or two of them, and reposing after the doleful tragedy
which has been represented. The ' Black Thief ' is worthy of
the Arabian Nights, I think — as wild and odd as an Eastern
tale. • . . Not a little does it add to these tales that one
feels, as one reads them, that the writer must have believed in
his heart what he told ; you see the tremor, as it were, and the
wild look of the eyes, as he sits in his corner and recites and
peers wistfully around lest the spirits he talks of be really at
hand." And after telling us the chapbook version of the
story of '' Hudden Dudden and Donald," and of " The Spaeman,"
he says, ''and so we shut up the hedge-school library, and
close the ' Galway Nights' Entertainments ' ; they are not as
amusing as Almack, to be sure, but many a lady who has her
opera box in London has listened to a piper in Ireland."
It is significant of how Ireland's contribution to English
literature in every department has been ignored by the Eng-
lish, and in consequence by the entire literary world, that in
the two great collections of chapbooks made by the elder
and the younger Boswell, which are now in the library of
Harvard University, there are scarcely any of Irish origin,
though England and Scotland are fully represented ; and yet,
during the period covered by these collections, as these remarks
by Thackeray and W. B. Yeats would indicate, her output of
this literature was as large as, if not larger than, that of
either England or Scotland. If it had not been for a certain
purchase made by Thackeray at Ennis when on his tour
through Ireland, and for a certain rainy day in Galway about
1840, the English people might never have known that the
Irish people had their chapbooks from the fifteenth to the
nineteenth century as well as the people of almost all other
European countries.
The systematic collection of Celtic folk-tales began in
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758 IRISH FAIRY AND FOLK TALES. [Sept.,
Ireland as early as 1825, with T. Crofton Crokcr's "Fairy
Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland." Among the
novelists and tale-writers of the schools of Miss Edgeworth and
Lever folk-tales were occasionally utilized, as by Carleton in
his " Traits and Stories/' by S. Lover in his " Legends and
Stories," and by G. Griffin in his "Tales of a Jury- Room."
These all tell their tales in the manner of the stage Irishman.
Patrick Kennedy, a Dublin bookseller, printed about one hundred
folk and hero- tales and drolls in his "Legendary Fictions of
the Irish Celts," 1866; "Fireside Stories of Ireland," 1870;
and "Bardic Stories of Ireland," 1871. Lady Wilde has told
many folk-tales very effectively in her " Ancient Legends of
Ireland," 1887. Mr. J. Curtin's "Myths and Folk-Tales of
Ireland," 1890, must not be forgotten. Douglas Hyde has
published in "Beside the Fireside," 1891, English versions of
some of the stories he had published in the original Irish in
his " Leahbar Sgeulaighteachta," Dublin, 1889. Miss Maclin-
toch has published many various periodicals during the past
twenty years, a period which has been remarkably fruitful in
active workers in this hitherto comparatively untilled field. P.
W. Joyce's "Old Celtic Romances"; W. Larminie's "West
Irish Folk Tales " ; P. J. McCall's " Fenian Nights' Entertain-
ments " ; Seumas MacManus' " Donegal Fairy Tales " ; D.
Deeney's " Peasant Lore from Gaelic Ireland," and many other
books, too numerous to mention, are rich in material of this
kind. But Dr. Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory, and W. B. Yeats
have done more than all to reveal to us "the old weird world
which sleeps in Irish lore." They know the people of Ireland
thoroughly, and in their works they give us not only the folk
and fairy tales of the people, but they make us feel how entirely
they enter into and pervade and influence their every-day
lives.
One reason, perhaps, why the Irish people are as a rule so
supremely gifted with the power of poetical self-expression,
why they are endowed with so rich and luxurious a fancy, is
because for centuries they have been nourished on such a
wealth of fairy tales and wonder stories as is exceeded by no
other literature of the world.
But, on the other hand, the simple-minded, poetical nature
of the people, and the curious, undefinable, mystical character
which so often underlies its wonderful ready alertness, is the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Irish Fairy and folk Tales. 759
right soil for that crop of wonder tales and fairy lore which
has flourished for centuries as in no other country.
Emerson says : '' What nature at one time provides for use,
she afterwards turns to ornament " ; and Herbert Spencer, fol-
lowing out this idea, remarks that ''The fairy lore, which in
times past was matter of grave belief and held sway over peo-
ple's conduct, has since been transformed into ornament . for
'The Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'The Tempest,* 'The Fairy
Queen,' and endless small tales and poems ; and still affords
subjects for children's story-books, amuses boys and girls, and
becomes matter for jocose allusion."
Sir Walter Scott also says, in a note to " The Lady of the
Lake " : " The mythology of one period would appear to pass
into the romance of the next, and that into the nursery tales
of subsequent ages " ; and Max Miiller, in his Chips from a
German Workshop^ says : " The gods of ancient mythology
were changed into the demigods and heroes of ancient epic
poetry, and these demigods and heroes again become at a
later age the principal characters of our nursery tales."
In just the same way many of the Irish Folk Tales are the
detritus of the Ancient Bardic .Stories, and we can see this
detrition in actual process in Ireland to-day, where the belief
in the fairies and legends still exists in the minds of many of
the older folks. As Lady Wilde says in her introduction to
Irish Legends: "^yith the highly sensitive organization of their
race, it is not wonderful that the people live habitually under
the shadow and dread of invisible powers which, whether
working for good or evil, are awful and mysterious to the
uncultured mind that sees only the strange results produced
by certain forces, but knows nothing of the approximate
causes." And so Tir-nan-og, the country of the young, the
place where you will get happir^ss for a penny, so cheap and
common will it be, is still devoutly believed in by many to
whom Hy Braesill, the Island of the Blest, i? also something
more than a name.
'And it is not a little curious to note in this connection
that, while the fairy tales of other lands have long been the
natural literature of childhood, it is only in later years that
even in Ireland itself Irish fairy tales, folk lore, wonder tales,
and hero stories have figured in books especially made for
young people.
VOL. Lxxix.— 49 r^^^^T^
Digitized by VjOOQIC
76o IRISH Fairy and Folk Tales. [Sept.,
The fairy tales and folk lore of Ireland should have a special
interest not alone for Irish-Americans, but for that greater
American nation which is being evolved out of the mixture of
the blood of all the races of the world, to-day. We inherit,
we are infused by, and we are transmuting into terms of
national individuality, all the romance, all the culture, all the
art) and all the literature of the past, of all the nations of the
world.
And when this individuality shall have been achieved, we
shall have a culture which will be distinctly American ; we
shall have an art which will be distinctly American; we shall
have a literature which will be distinctly American.
There has entered, and there will enter, into the composi-
tion of this new and individual race a greater infusion of the
Celtic element than of any other, and it is therefore of the
highest importance that the literature in which this element
has been cradled, the literature to which the Celtic spirit
responds most quickly and with the happiest results, should
form part of the mental nourishment of our young people, in
the form of the fairy tales and folk lore of Ireland.
We have given our children freely for the last two hundred
years of the English Mother Goose rhymes and fairy tales, of
the German, and even of the Norse fairy tales and romancet —
much of the content and idea of which is - remote, and to
which, because, of race- inherited feelings and tendencies, they
cannot respond — while we have left unheeded the vast trea-
sures which exist in Irish fairy literature — a literature which
makes the strongest appeal to the largest ingredient in the
composition of the new American race which is being evolved.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A Little Journey in the Schwarzwald. 761
A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE SCHWARZWALD.
BY ESTELLE McCLOSKEY DASCHBACH.
^HEN I gave the guard my ticket and told him
that I wished to go to Konigsfeld the conster-
nation on his jolly face was slightly disconcert-
ing.
" Konigsfeld, -Fraulein ? " he demanded.
"Yes, Konigsfeld," I repeated.
" But there is nothing for the Fraulein to see at Konigs-
feld," he persisted with that polite tenacity so characteristic of
his countrymen.
I did not tell him that my reason for going to Konigsfeld
was because there was nothing to be seen. "A small Mora-
vian settlement with about three hundred inhabitants" was all
the information my guide book offered. It was enough to
determine me. Ever since I came to Germany I had been
looking for a small settlement of about three hundred inhabi-
tants. I was sure I should find it in the Black Forest, but so
far every village or hamlet possessed some waterfall or clock-
making industry to attract the tourist. Hotels, starred and
unstarred, were numerous enough to indicate that the water-
falls and clocks proved strong allurements. . Not a hotel or inn
was mentioned under Konigsfeld, however, so the guard's
efforts to deter me were unavailing.
"The Fraulein has friends at Peterzcll to drive her out to
Konigsfeld? Is it not so?" he questioned.
No, I had no friends; but I trusted to my purse and the
kind hearts of the people of Peterzell to see that I reached
the little village, which was three miles from the railroad sta-
tion.
Perplexedly mopping his brow, the guard turned away, and
I was left at last to the enjoyment of the beautiful country
through which the train was speeding. The forests on both
sides seemed never-ending. Older and darker and deeper even
than their name suggests, the shadowy woods stretched in ris-
ing slopes to the rounded hills in the distance. No sign of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
76a A Uttle Journey IN THE Schwarzwald. [Sept.,
life disturbed their solemnity and peace. The rushing train
was so little a part of the great, green grove that it seemed
unable to stir so much as a leaf on a tree.
However, I was not to be left to undisturbed delight in the
beauty of the scene, for the guard reappeared with his face
fairly beaming. The cause of his elation he hastened to make
known. Three Moravian sisters were on the train, also bound
for Konigsfeld. There would be a coach to meet them, and I
was welcome to a seat in it. The enthusiasm of this . worthy
official at his happy solution of my difficulty knew no bounds.
He hovered near me during the next half hour as if he feared
I might escape him and defeat his happily adjusted plans. At
last he had the satisfaction of telling me, with manifest deltgfat,
that the next station was Peterzell As the place was too
smair even for a '^ Gepacktrager " to find business lucrative, the
guard himself picked up my big carry-all — that happy inven-
tion of the Germans to circumvent baggage fees-^rand rushed
off with it to three black- robed, white- capped women on the
platform.
'' Here is the Fraulein," he explained hastily as he
dropped my belongings at their feet. And turning to me,
" Adieu, Fraulein," he exclaimed, '' the sisters will take care
of you. Adieu."
The sisters smiled upon me with benevolence and each one
shook me by the hand. Then we all climbed into a big black
coach. The Kutscher stowed away four carry-alls, mounted his
seat, and we started. The sisters spoke no English, but one of
them proudly drew a German-English lesson book from her
capacious pocket, and told me she was studying my language
with the expectation of teaching it My German was indiffer-
ent ; but feeling myself a guest of my three companions I
made strenuous efforts to take part in polite conversation. I
several . times agreed that the scenery was indeed wunderschoHy
and that Hamburg, their native city, was sehr intetessant.
With growing confidence I tried to explain why I wished to
go to Konigsfeld, and at last confided to them my presump-
tuous hope that some kind villager might be found to take me
into the bosom of his family and spare me the ceremonious
hospitality of the village inn. At this the three sisters leaned
forward and exclaimed breathlessly, ''You have yet no place
engaged ? " .
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE SCHWARZWALD. 763
''No/' I replied, smiling at their concern.
** Ach^** they cried, throwing up their hands in dismay,
^'then you cannot go to Kontgsfeld. Every room in the
GasthauSf every bed in every dwelling, is engaged, for the
Moravians from all over Germany are assembled there — is it
not so, Kutscherf**
The coachman had stopped his horses and with impassive
face confirmed their assertions.
" You must spend tHe night at Peterzell, Fraulein," the
sisters declared. Without further words the coachman turned
his horses back in the direction of Peterzell.
I was not pleased at the summary way in which matters
were taken out of my haa^ks^ Ever since I came to the
Fatherland I had been protesting against the paternalism with
which every native insisted upon favoring me. But this time
my protests were in vain, and in anything but a resigned mood
I was driven back to Peterzell. There was nothing at Peter-
zell but a telegraph station and an inn. The inn stood out on
the public road, a small, dingy brick building with curtainles^
windows and a broken outside staircase. With my spirit rebel-
ling at every step, I mounted the staircase and pulled at the
knocker. That was broken too, so I gave a feeble rap on the
door. It was opened with a jerk, and the most disagreeable-
looking woman I had seen in Germany confronted me. My
heart sank and I looked back helplessly at the coach from
which Fate in three white caps was poking out. Fate thought
that my vocabulary, not my courage, had failed me, and
bravely came to my assistance.
**The Fraulein wishes a bed for the night — she can remain
here ? Was kostet f "
*^ Kein Platz'' muttered the inn-keeper, and shut the door
with a bang.
*^ Ach,*' shrieked the sisters, "what for rudeness!"
" Ach** I replied inaudibly, " what for luck ! " I ran down
the steps and clambered into the coach again.
" Go on," I called to the coachman. " If no one in Konigs-
feld will take me in, I shall pass the night in the forest."
"No, no, Fraulein, that would be impossible," remonstrated
my three friends.
" Insects," said one, shaking her head.
" Perhaps brigands," added another.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
764 A Little Journey in the Schwarzwald. [Sept.,
" Cold in your head/' cried the third, pointing to her ears,
which were stuffed with cotton.
My practical companions would not have understood, had I
told them, that ever since I had read Robert Louis Stevenson's
Travels with a Donkey I longed to spend a night out of doors.
Here at last was an opportunity. I recalled his beautiful
description of the peace and stillness of a solitary night under
the stars, the sounds which but accentuate the silence, and the
great throb of dawning day. I forgot my companions and their
tragic distress over my predicament. There was the deep,
shadowy forest. The air was fragrant with pine, and a smooth
carpet of pungent needles offered sweet repose.
'' If the Frauleio wishes she may have a room in my house.
My daughter will care for her," quoth the coachman without
turning his head.
The sisters accepted for me with alacrity. They smiled and
nodded and congratulated one another. '' All right," laughed
the English student. Then they closed their eyes and bobbed
their heads in sleep during the remainder of the journey, while
I sighed regretfully for the night in the forest I was not yet
to know.
It was dark when the coachman stopped in front of a low,
rambling house. The sisters awoke, shook hands with me,
wished me luck and happiness, picked up their umbrellas and
carry-alls, and left me alone in the coach. For a few minutes
more the horses jogged on. Then they halted and with never
a word of explanation the coachman helped me out.
We had stopped before a small, newly-built hause, in the
door of which stood a young girl. She hurried out and at a
mumbled word from her father led me up the steps. The
daughter proved to be as loquacious as the father was taciturn.
She wished to know, as she took me to my room, whence I
had come and whither I was going? Was I an orphan or
were my parents living ? Both ? How many brothers and
sisters had I, and what were the ages of each ? Was America
very big, and did I live in New York? How much did my
hat cost, and what did I pay for my shoes ?
Laconic answers failed to stem the stream of questions so I
resignedly suffered the " story of my life " to be wrested from
me. During the catechism the girl made the bed. She laid
upon the canvas slats a high feather mattress, buttoned into a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] A Little Journey in the Schwarzwald. 765
clean muslin case. At the head of the bed ^ she placed two
great pillows^ one on top of the other. A thick blanket, which
was also encased in white muslin^ was spread over the mattresF,
and the whole crowned by a second huge feather bed. Against
the latter I protested, but I was warned that the nights were
cold in the forest and there would be need of warm covers.
Sure enough a few hours later I shiveringly groped ior the dis-
carded mountain of feathers and gladly buried myself under it«
Early next morning, before the village was awake, I walked
down the main road past the small, one- storied houses and
their trim little gardens. Two old women passed me on their
way to Peterzell. On their heads they carried big baskets of
green lettuce and berries.
" Guten Tagy* they greeted me, but without a smile. They
are not a happy-looking people, the German peasants. Life
seems to be all seriousness to them. The women with their
leathery skin, dull eyes, and brawny figures show the effects of
long years of never-ending tojl. Even the men, whose burdens
seem to be carried by their wives, take their beer soberly and
sadly.
From the door of the Gastkof Briider Gemeinde came the
fragrance of coffee, so I entered the Speisesaal^ where a few
early risers were taking breakfast. I chose a table where I
might sit with my back to the other guests. I am fastidious
enough to dislike the noisy delight with which a German eats
his rolls after sopping them in his coffee. Besides, the place I
chose commanded a view of the veranda and garden. Boxes
filled with old<fashioned roses and sweet- smelling verbenas
were placed in the windows and on the railing of the wide
porch. In the garden were fragrant shrubs and thick vines.
Across the road from the inn was a shop where the handi-
work of the Moravians is sold — baskets, carved woods, and
cuckoo clocks. I was idly wondering if I should have the
strength of mind to leave the Black Forest without buying a
cuckoo clock, for which I have above all other clocks a special
aversion, when the waitress came and I paid for my breakfast
Eighty pfennigs ! Anid I had eaten rolls, unsalted butter, and
honey with the appfetite of a school-boy. The girl who had
served me so bountifully told me that the profits from the shop
across the way went to extend the missionary work of the
society, which maintained in the village a large home for mis-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
766 A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE SCHWARZWALD, [Sept,
sionary students and retired missionaries. She pointed out
this building and then called my attention to the house adjoin-
ing, a large, low, sunny structure with vines and roses climbing
over it. " That," she said, " is the Wittwenhaus, or home for
widows." Every Widow has her own two rooms and the use
of a common kitchen. Near by was the Sch wester nhaus, for
unmarried women. These sisters have separate bed-rooms, but
general dining-rooms and sitting-rooms. They sell bread and
cakes, fine sewing and embroidery. For m&ny years a small
school flourished in connection with the Schwesternhaus, where
instruction in cooking, sewing, laundering, and other branches
of domestic art was given for a trifling sum.
When I left the Gastkaus church bells were ringing and a
group of persons, who looked as if they might be going to
church, were trudging up the road. I followed them and pres-
ently came to a plain building, which looked more like a
school- house than a church. On the door hung an advertise-
ment of lost articles which could be claimed at the post-office:
a pair of gloves, a pocket-knife, a string of beads. With the
temerity characteristic of my countrymen, I entered a large,
well-lighted room with an organ and a raised desk at oppo-
site ends. White curtains shaded the windows, but there was
no other decoration. At a small melodeon in front of the
desk sat one of the sisters. Her hands were hard and knotty,
but her face was beautiful. Her black dress and white linen
cap accentuated the spirituality of a countenance purified by
plain living ^nd high thinking. It is a type not common
among the Germans.
I was so engrossed in the characteristics of those about me
that I failed to observe that the men and women occupied
opposite sides of the aisle, and of course I was on the wrong
side. A benevolent old lady with a purple rose in her bonnet
called my attention to the blunder and made room for me
beside her.
The minister took his place at the desk. There were no
hymn books, so the congregation repeated the hymn after the
minister, line for line, which was scarcely necessary in this in-
stance, for the hymn sung was that one so dear to Protestant
Germany :
" Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Eine gute Wehr und Waffe."
Digitized by VjOOO IC
1904.] A Little Journey in the Schwarzwald. 767
The Lord's Prayer and a short talk by the minister followed.
His language was not a dialect, but the pure, correct con-
struction of litierary German. I learned later that the Mora-
vians are noted for the purity of their speech and the high
standard of their scholarship.
The morning service lasted about half an hour. There is
no evening service except on Saturday, when at eight o'clock
all the people assemble at the Schlusswoche devotion to give
thanks for the close of the week. This is in reality but a song
service with prayers and litany. One petition of the Moravian
litany has lingered long in my mind. It is the oft- quoted,
*'From the desire of becoming great, deliver us, O Lord."
There is no petition against the besetting sin of curiosity,
however, and the old lady who had rescued me from the
church brethren had a goodly share of it. After a few lead-
ing questions she suggested that I visit her, and she pointed
out a large thatched cottage at the foot of the hill. My own
curiosity seemed to be thriving on foreign soil, and I gladly
accompanied her.
'' This is my cow,'' she said, opening a shutter on the
ground floor. I looked in and beheld a really fine cow; but
no matter how well bred, scarcely a desirable coinhabitant.
However, without voicing my doubts, I praised the animal,
also the hay which was packed under the stairs, and which
filled the air with fragrance.
. '' In there," said the old lady, pointing to a door in the
plaster wall, ** there lives a baker,"
" Oh 1 " I gasped, speechless at the complexity of life un^ler
a single roof.
"These," continued my hostess, "are my stairs."
She had three large rooms at the top of the house, with
plastered walls and bare floors. Iii the living room a big Ger-
man stove reached to the ceiling. A German parlor stove
looks like an enamelled wardrobe. Frequent investigation as to
where the fire is kindled has not made me any wiser, and as
the people are very sparing of wood and coal, I have never
seen a stove in operation. Variegated tidies, wreaths of
autumn leaves making frames for pictures of the Kaiser and
the old Emperor William, quaint blue jars and bits of pottery,
dried herbs and grasses — these and a multitude of other things
distracted me in the best room. While I ate a piece of
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
768 A Little Journey in the Schwarzivald. [Sept,
Zwetschenkuchen, which is a little like an American pie with-
out a crust filled with tart plums, my new acquaintance told
me something of the Moravians and their settltmcnt here.
It is only one of numerous branches of the society, closely
resembling the settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The
Moravian society existed as early as the sixteenth century.
Later in its history the name of Count Zinzendorf is promi-
nent as its promoter and organizer. In religion' it is evangeli-
cal. The principle on which it is based is the '' Unitas
Fratrum" of Christianity. There is no community of goods,
no prohibition of marriage; but there really exists among the
Moravians a close following of the Golden Rule and a high
degree of morality. There are no poor in the ccmmunily and
no rich. Beggars are unknown.
Five minutes' walk from the church is the little cemetery.
There are no walls about it save the boundary of the tall for-
est trees. A walk leads through it, and where the walk enters
and leaves the graveyard are wooden arches. Over one is the
inscription, " Christus ist mein Leben und Sterben mein Gewinn.*'
Over the other is written, " Unser keiner kbt ikm selber und
keiner stirbt ihm selber^ This walk leads into one of the most
beautiful parts of the forest, and the site seems a most fittirg
spot for GotteS' Acker, The tall pines and birches shade it ten-
derly. Over the graves, with their simple stones, ivy and myr-
tle grow like a thick green counterpane.
No word so well expresses the peace and content which
here possess one's soul as the German " Ruhigkeit'' The for-
est stretches into unknown depths, and in its shadowy stillness
the world of care is forgotten. There is no sound of traffic,
no cloud of smoke to hide the blue of heaven, no hurry and
bustle of men to spur one on in the race of life. But under
the pine-trees oi the Schwarzwald the heart reiterates, " From
the desire of becoming great, deliver us, O Lord."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Black Hand. 769
THE BLACK HAND.
BY EUGENIE UHLRICH.
[HE teacher sat on Mrs. Garvin's front porch near
the end where the Gothic-pointed willow hedge
kept off the western sun in the summer and
the blizzard winds in winter. Away off east-
ward, on the level gray line of road, between
the pale, yellowish-green wheat fields, she saw a moving speck
growing into shape just below Peters's place three-quarters of
a mile away. -Presently Mrs. Garvin came out and sat on the
porch steps, fanning herself vigorously with her apron. ''My,
but it is hot ! You are the lucky one. All you have to do is
to sit here on the porch when school is out, and pretty soon
your term will be over, and then you can go away and won't
have anything at all to do until fall."
" Oh," said the teacher, " nothing to do and no salary,
and what about the Summer-School and the Institute? There
is no rest fot the wicked — nor for the teachers in these days."
The heat-flushed woman looked at the teacher in her cool
shirt-waist and linen skirt, her glossy hair stirring with the
movements of her big palm-leaf fan, with a sort of yearning
expression that told plainly that Mrs. Garvin had her own
ideas of that rest.
The teacher's eyes had . wandered . back to the road and
centred on the little speck coming nearer and nearer, so curi-
ous in its outline as it grew larger, like unto neither man nor
beast.
Presently Mrs. Garvin, following her gaze, said : " What can
that be coming down the road from Peterses ? It 's just creep-
ing along. It looks too big for a man and it isn't the shape
of a horse, nor of any other creature belonging to these parts."
The teacher had formed the happy habit of allowing Mrs.
Garvin the pleasure of her own discoveries. So she merely
said : " That is so. It is a queer-looking object. What do
you think it can be ? "
" Well, I don't know," said Mrs. Garvin ; " seeing you're
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
770 THE BLACK Hand. [Sept,
the teacher, it seems to me you ought to know, if it's a queer
beast of some kind. You 've a whole book full of them in
there."
The teacher shook her head and laughed a little by way
of the easiest reply possible, and sat there, fanning and watch-
ing. Mrs. Garvin became so absorbed that she stood up to
get a better view. "Sure," she said, "it's queer; I don't
believe my eyes are deceiving me, but I never saw anything
like it."
Nearer and nearer it came, down the highway, now covered
with foot-deep dust — for there was a midsummer dry spell on —
right in the face of the sun that had been blistering all day,
and along a bare, unshaded road, none the cooler in the sum-
mer because in midwinter the snow lay man high and whirled
over it in white clouds for months.
" I declare to goodness," said Mrs. Garvin, " I believe it is
a woman." The teacher, too, sat up and looked almost ex-
citedly at the figure that certainly moved with a looseness of
outline that could come only from skirts swaying as she
walked.
" She is carrying something on her head, that 's what makes
her look so queer," said Mrs. Garvin. " And a bag in each
hand," she gasped.
"That's so," said the teacher, with astonishment that was
not emphasized this time for Mrs. Garvin's benefit. Nearer
and nearer the woman came, until the bright yellow of the
'kerchief on her head shone out under the pack like a gleam
of light against the dark, coppery tan of her face.
In front of the drive turning in at Garvin's she hesitated,
looking at their place and then along the road, where a little
to the westward was the Gaffney farm.
" She has decided for us," said the teacher, as the woman
came in slowly.
"I wonder what she wants?" said Mrs. Garvin. "She looks
like one of them Eyetalian pedlars I have seen in the city, but
I never saw one before on this road. I wonder where she is
coming from. The nearest railroad stop east of us is Redbank,
and that is twelve miles from here " ; and she looked over at
the figure. " She surely could n't have walked all that way
with those things on her head and in her hands, could she
now ? "
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Black Hand. 771
The teacher vouchsafed no explanation. She had heard
some tales of robust womanhood in the Minnesota country —
stories of women who worked in the fields with their hus-
bands; of Bohemian women who grubbed out trees better than
the men; of a woman who had carried her month- old baby
five miles on foot to the hospital in town to visit a husband
with a leg broken by a falling tree. Such stories had come to
her to be traditions respected as possible, though quite out of
the line of understanding of her own slim girlhood and intel-
lectual associations ; but now the sight of a woman who had
walked twelve miles from Redbank on a day like this, loaded
down like a packi-mule, was like something on the other side of
a fence too high to look across. All sorts of things might be
there, but the imagination' had no basis on which to give them
form.
A moment later the figure had reached the end of the lilac
hedge and was standing over in the driveway, looking ques-
tioningly at the two women in the cool shade of the porch.
" Would you want to be buying anything of her, teacher ? "
Mrs. Garvin asked apologetically, as if seeking an excuse for
herself. ''I'd like to look at what she has, though I don't
know whether I have any change to throw away."
'' I may need needles and pins, and I do believe I ought
to have some fresh ribbon; I feel that I ought to take some-
thing of her to give her a chance to sit down and take that
pack off of her head."
When Mrs. Garvin motioned the woman to come on, her
face broke into a beatific smile and her step grew as springy
as a young girl's hastening to meet her sweetheart. The
teacher gazed at her in wondering admiration as she came
over and deposited her two bags, and bending her head with
a deft movement, slid her pack onto the porch.
" Sit down," said Mrs. Garvin, " woman alive ; it makes my
own feet ache to think how tired you must be " ; and she shook
her head a little deprecatingly and went on : '' and where did
you come from to-day?" The woman looked around uncom-
prehendingly. The teacher, used to putting her thoughts into
simple language and few words, leaned forward and said with
great distinctness, " Where — from — to-day ? " Again the woman
did not understand. *' From what railroad station did you come
to-day?" Again she looked blank. "What town to-day?"
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
772 The Black Hand. [Sept,
Then again that expansive smile broke over her face. '^ Red-
bank, RedbankI"
" So it was Redbank," exclaimed the teacher. "Think of it ! "
" Think of it ! " echoed Mrs. Garvin. " But she talks Eng-
lish well enough when she knows what she wants to say."
The teacher looked at the woman and smiled mistily, say*
ing : " Maybe she is a Syrian, and all Syrians talk English
well after they learn to speak it."
• Mrs. Garvin turned approvingly to the teacher. " My, how
much you know! If I had to remember all them names and
places like you do, I 'd surely have a headache."
The woman seemed to catch the idea and smiled. "Their
own language is so hard," went on the teacher, " that it seems
to. give; them a talent for languages."
The woman still seemed to feel the compliment and said :
" Syrian ver' ver' hard," and nodded her head. All the while,
mindful of business, she was steadily undoing her bundle,
bringing out bright-colored silk handkerchiefs, bits of ribbons,
celluloid combs, collar-buttons, and cheap pins to catch the
rural eye, with an assortment of needles and thread and tape
and pins and other outfit for a good .work*basket, so hard to
keep in stock when there are no corner stores nearer than five
or ten miles.
The teacher, with an impulse of generosity, began to select
pins and needles and bits of ribbon far beyond her immediate
use and up to the limits of her slender purse. The woman's
smile grew broader and broader when Mrs. Garvin, too, not
wishing to be outdone, hauled out a couple of aprons for her-
self and some handkerchiefs for the " good man."
" Why did you come to this country ? " asked the teacher,
sympathetically curious. The woman held up her hands with
the ready gestures of the Oriental. "My man dead fi* year,
three children in Syria. Bring here, cost money, much
money."
The teacher's eyes were fixed in fascination upon the woman.
She thrilled as though she had suddenly seen an act in a
great tragedy. Twelve miles a day with a pack she herself
could not even lift, to keep three little ones in Syria and
bring them at last to this country, on the profits of a few cents
worth of needles, tape, and so forth. Was there anything left
in the world that was impossible to devotion ? Her eyes
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Black Hand. 773
moistened, and the woman, with the sense of human fellow-
ship, which is beyond race and beyond language, suddenly put
out her brown hand and patted the girl's slim, white one.
The teacher rose quickly to hide more tears and hurried to
her room to get her purse. By the time she came back with
the change the pedlar was packing up her wares. The
teacher looked at Mrs. Garvin pleadingly. *' Oh, where is she
going for the night?"-
Mrs. Garvin's face, took a puzzled, hesitating look. " Sure,
I don't know; I never thought of that till this minute."
'' I think she would be glad to sleep out in the hay. It 's
nice and clean. She would n't even ask a place in the house,"
suggested the teacher, eagerly.
'' Oh, I would n't have her do that ; if I had her stay at
all she could sleep on the lounge in the sitting-room. I don't
suppose Pat would mind, although he don't like the looks of
them furriners, men nor women."
'' Well, if he does, play she is my company, and put it on
me.
''All right," said Mrs. Garvin cheerfully, and she motioned
to the woman to put down her pack. At first the pedlar did
not seem to understand what was meant, but when she realized
that she was to stay the night in this pleasant place she bent
forward and kissed Mrs. Garvin's hand. "Oh nowl what
would she be doing that for? Sure I am not used to that
sort of thing " ; and she blushed to the roots of her hair.
The teacher herself led the woman around to ' the bench
beside the pump in the back of the house, where the family
performed most of their ablutions in the summer-time, thus
saving both housework and porcelain. Then, she left her to
go and straighten her own hair and lend Mrs. Garvin a hand
at setting the table, to keep her in good humor in return for
the extra trouble she was to have.
In the morning, when the teacher appeared for her break-
fast, her first question was : ** Where is our guest ? "
'* Oh ! sure," said Mrs. Garvin, ** she has been on the way
since five o'clock, and is nearly in Goodhue County by this
time. She is not like some people I know about getting up."
The teacher thoughtfully stirred the sugar into her coffee
and made no remark at this comment.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
774 THE BLACK Hand. [Sept.,
" She would n't eat any breakfast either, only a cup of
coffee and a bit of dry bread ; and look at these ! She has
given everybody in the house something, even you. There is
a red and white handkerchief for that boy Wenzel/' said Mrs.
Garvin. "When she looked at that black-eyed Bohemian she
smiled, and I suppose thought be was one of her own kind. They
ought to understand each other, for the talk of one of them is
about as bad as the other. Then there are some collar-buttons
for Fat, which he is always needing, and a ribbon for £s-
peranza."
The teacher always suppressed a smile when Mrs. Garvin
brought out Esperanza in that unctuous way. It was a sign of
exceeding good humor. At times less cheerful, she was likely
to shorten it into Essie, and put the rest of her breath into
some such term as " ye little omadhaun."
"And here is another bit of ribbon for you." The teacher
looked at the ribbon with a grateful smile, and a thought at the
gauge of her taste which gave her a piece of dark blue ribbon
instead of the impossible pink that had been left for the little
girl.
"I ha^ly deserve this, for I did not do anything for her,"
she, said. "It was very good of you to keep her."
" There is n't every one around here that would do it, and
if I do say it myself," said Mrs. Garvin. " If she had gone
on to the next house, to Gaffney's, she would not have been
kept all night."
" I suppose her guardian angel is watching over her."
" Sure, she 's religious enough. Not a bite would she eat
until she had blessed herself and said her prayer, just like the
rest of us, and better, I suppose. But," said Mrs. Garvin,
" I 'd never turn away a woman like that anyway, if I thought
she had n't any other place to stay. The likes of her always
make me think of a story my mother used to tell. It may
seem queer to you, for I don't suppose you 've ever heard the
stories the old people tell about fairies, and the spells and the
like in Ireland. I don't know much about them myself, for you
know I was raised in this country. There was an old woman —
I don't believe I could tell the story just the way my mother
used to, though I heard her tell it over and over; those old
folks were wonderful for remembering. Why, my mother could
tell all the litanies in the prayer-book by heart — "
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904. J THE BLACK HAND. 775
The teacher gently brought Mrs. Garvin back to the track:
" Well, what about the old woman ? "
*"Well, once upon a time in a town in Ireland there was a
well-to-do farmer. His wife was a good housekeeper and all
that, but she was a little near and close about things, and there
was a good deal of talk that the girls and the men on the
place did not have any more to eat than they ought to have.
One day there was an old woman came down the road, and
she was that weary she could hardly stand. She turned in
and asked the farmer's wife herself to give her a drink of milk.
But herself said she did n't have any to spare. The old woman
walked on down the road a little, and then she came back and
asked if she could not have even a drink of buttermilk, for she
had seen there was churning on the place that day, and she
thought that most of the buttermilk would be going to the pigs
anyway. And the wife told her ' No ' again. The old woman
then asked if she could not sit down on the porch and rest,
but the wife would not let her; but told her to get out and
be gone, or she would set the dogs on her, saying this was no
place for harboring beggars and tramps.''
'' Tramps ? " said the teacher, her pedagogic sense of the
fitness of words getting ahead of her for the moment. ''Did
they have tramps in Ireland, too ? "
"Well, maybe she didn't say tramps," said Mrs. Garvin, a
little tartly, "but something like that. Well, with that the old
woman turned and gave the wife a long look and put her hand
in her pocket and pulled out a little black thing and threw it
at the wife'; but no matter how much the farmer's wife looked,
when the woman was gone, she could not find the little black
thing, for she had a curiosity to know what it could be. After
a bit, when $he went out into the dairy to get a drink for
herself, she saw there was a little black thing in the milk. She
tried to get it out; but no matter how she tried, it kept slip-
ping away from her. At last she thought as she was thirsty
she would drink anyway, and would feel the thing if it
came against her lips, and she would stop and not swallow it.
So she took a drink, but no sooner did she take the milk
in her mouth than she felt something hard slipping down her
throat. Then she looked for the black thing, but it was not in
the milk any more. Then she ran into the house and in a
little while she began to feel dreadfully sick. Her face and
VOL. LXXIX.-50 DigitizedbyGoOgle
776 THE BLACK HAND. [Sept.,
her hands and then her whole body began to swell until her
body was twice its natural size. They sent for the doctor as
fast as they could, but not a bit of good could he do her.
Then they sent for the priest. The priest looked at the woman
and said : ' It looks to me like something more th&n sickness/
and he says, 'What have you been doing that was wrong to
man, woman, or child ? ' And then the woman raised herself
up and told about the old beggar woman she had refused the
drink of milk.
'' ' Well, the hardness of your heart is being punished/ said
the priest, and he took some holy water and sprinkled the
woman with it and he prayed over her. Then he told them to
put her in a hot bath. By and by the woman got better and
the swelling went down out of her body and her face, and
then the blackness went out of her body too, except out of
her right hand. Nothing would take it out of that hand.
Then she sent for the priest again. He came and he said :
'That is a sign the good Lord has left on you, showing that
you should be kind to the poor and to the stranger that comes
to your door asking for a sup of that of which you have plenty
and to spare.'
''And so it was that the woman's right hand stayed black,
though she lived a long life afterward. But never a person
came to her door and was turned away; and if she heard of
any one out of her way in want of food or fire she went to
them herself So when she came to die, from all *the towns
around came the poor, that people had never seen before, and
all of them fell down and cried and prayed for her soul and
kissed her hand. And when the tears of the poor fell on her
hand, little by little it grew whiter and whiter, and at last it
was white as snow."
"The tears of the poor had washed away the stain?"
asked the teacher.
" Yes," said Mrs. Garvin, " that 's the way my mother said
it was; and," she added, "I do be thinking when I see a wo-
man like that old Eyetalian — or what do you call her ? Syrian ?
Oh, yes, maybe there's a black spot on me some^K here, and it
would be good to have a few prayers and tears of the poor to
wash away the blackness of it when I am dead."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ROBERT Southwell. 777
ROBERT SOUTHWELL: POET. PRIEST. AND MARTYR.
BY KATHERINE BR^GY.
^ROM Thomas Carlyle comes the assurance that
'' as the highest gospel was a biography, so is
the life of every good man still an indubitable
gospel/' a statement we will all accept because
we must have felt its innate truth. It is impos-
sible to study, for example, the history of Robert Southwell,
one-time priest of the Society of Jesus, and poet of the Eliza-
bethan Catholics,- without feeling an interest that is >more than
intellectual. Having said that he is best worth knowing for the
beauty and sublimity of his personal character, we have indi-
cated the chasm which separates him from the great body of
Elizabethan songsters. His memory is not, as often happens,
sanctified by his art; rather is his art sanctified by the life
which produced it. And yet — and the fact is in its own way
a tribute — this young priest's immortality is mainly du^e to the
unique charm of his literary work. "It marks not only the
large Roman Catholic element in the country, but also the
strange contrasts of the times," says Dr. Stopford Brook,*
'' that eleven editions [of his works] were published between
1595 and 1609, at a time when the 'Venus and Adonis' of
Shakspere led the way for a multitude of poems that sung
of love and delight in England's glory." Such was his popu-
larity; and although it may have passed for ever now, the
critics are not alone in insisting upon Father Southwell's per-
manent place in our literature. His poetry, so strangely free
from the glad, passionate earthliness of most Elizabethan lyrics,
is full of quaint, fanciful grace — above all, of deep religious
fervor. The hopes, the fears, the pathetic weariness of Eng-
lish Catholics in those days, all entered into his work; these,
and that tender mysticism which bound them like a spell to
the Old Religion. Yet, when all is said, the life of the man
himself is our choicest heritage— rhis life as poet, as priest, and,
at last, as martyr.
• Primer of English Literature,
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77^ Robert Southwell. [Sept.,
Robert Southweirs birth is usually placed somewhere in
1561, a year which saw two events memorable in English his-
tory — the arrival on Scottish shores of the young Mary Stuart,
and Elizabeth's final break with the Papacy in her refusal to
send envoys to the Council of Trent. He was the third son
ef Richard Southwell, Esq., head of a prominent Catholic
femily of Horsham St. Faith's, Norfolk; it is interesting, also,
to note that his maternal grandmother was a Shelley, a mem-
ber of the same family which later gave birth to the "Sky-
lark " poet. His adventures seem to have begun in the very
cradle, whence he was stolen by some wandering gypsies ; but,
as the theft was soon discovered, it had no serious conse-
quences. Far more significant is the fact that at a very early
age the boy was sent to school at Douay, where a seminary
bad been established to supply the needs of English Catholics.
Here, in the person of Leonard Lessius, he first came in inti-
mate contact with the Society of Jesus — destined to be so
potent a factor in his life. Later, at Paris, his studies were
continued under the guidance of Thomas Darbyshire, a zealous
soul and one of the first Englishmen to enter that order. The
Catholic mind will scarcely need any comment on the ardor
and self- consecration of these early Jesuits, but it is edifying
to read the following tribute from such an eminent and high-
minded Protestant critic as Dr. Alexander B. Groshart: ''The
name of Ignatius Loyola was still a recent ' memory ' and
power, and his magnificent and truly apostolic example of
burning love, compassion, faith, zeal, self-denial, charged the
very atmosphere with sympathy as with electricity. . . .
The society was then in its first fresh ' love ' and force, unen-
tangled with political action (real or alleged) ; aud I pity the
Protestant who does not recognize in Loyola and his disciples
noble men . . . with the single object to win allegiance to
Jesus Christ."* It is not surprising that their stupendous mis-
sion of winning back Europe to Catholic Christianity should
have appealed to the earnest young English student, or that
t.heir lives should have excited his passionate admiration; but
it is remarkable that when in his early teens Robert Southwell
should have formed a life-purpose from which he never wavered.
To '' leave all," to take up the Cross, and bear it back to the
old forsaken shrines, became the one dream of this elect young
• " Memorial Introduction," Groshart edition of Southwell's poems.
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1904.] Robert Southwell. 779
soul. He applied for admission into the Society of Jesus;
and, being refused because of his youth, wrote an impassioned
" Lament/' expressing his disappointment. Delay tried but did
not shake his determination ; so finally the coveted consent
was obtained, and, on the J7th of October, 1578, his name was
formally entered '' amongst the children " of St. Ignatius. Two
years later he took holy orders in Rome, and made his first
vows as a scholastic of the society. Then followed four peace-
ful years of study, during which Southwell was occupied with
philosophy and divinity, and, incidentally, it seems, with verse*
making! In this case the "poetic temperament" was evi-
dently quite compatible with hard work, for the brilliancy of
his labors soon won him the prefecture of the English College
at Rome. It was in 1584 — probably in his twenty-fourth year
— that Robert Southwell received the final rites of ordination,
and stood prepared to commence his truly apostolic ministry*
Almost simultaneously a law was passed in England (27
Elizabeth, c. 2) declaring any native-born subject who entered
the Roman Catholic priesthood since the first year of the
queen's accession, and thereafter resided more than forty days
on English soil, to be a traitor, and liable to the penalty of
death. This was merely one of the most severe of the anti-
Catholic laws which disgrace the reign of the great Elizabeth^
and did not dampen the ardor of the Jesuits in general, or
Robert Southwell in particular. The English mission — if most
interesting — was obviously one of the most perilous in Europe.;
religious fanaticism had been aggravated and embittered by
political hostility; the air was dark with conspiracies for and
against the imprisoned Queen of Scots, and the whole country,
to quote Mr, TurnbuU,* " was in a ferment of political intrigues."
Alarmed by Catholic successes abroad, the queen had rcr
doubled the rigor of her Uniformity acts; the celebration of
Mass was forbidden even in private houses, the fines on recu-
sants were increased, and over every Catholic lowered the
shadow of High Treason. But what was a stone about the
neck of the layman became a knife at the throat of the priest;
upon him fell the real weight of the persecution, for him alone
the work of martyrdom was reserved. Against Jesuits, as
supposed tools of the Papacy to sow treason in England,
popular hatred was even more intense; they were "tracked by
• Memoir of the Rro, Robert Southwell, S.J,
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78o ROBERT Southwell. [Sept,
pursuivants and spies, dragged from their hiding-places) and
sent in batches to the Tower." • Then from dungeon to scaf-
fold was but a little way. And all this was done in the name
of justice, on purely political grounds! "To modern eyes," as
Mr. Green very aptly remarks, "there is something even more
revolting than open persecution in a policy which branded
every Catholic priest as a traitor, and all Catholic worship as
disloyalty." t
But had not Ignatius Loyola prayed that his followers should
never be free from persecution ? Seventy priests had already
been banished — not to mention those who had been put to
death — when, on May 8, 1586, two more intrepid Jesuits
set out for the island. One of them was Father Garnett, sub-
sequently head of the English Jesuits; the other, Robert South-
well. In spite of spies, who somehow ascertained their coming,
the priests succeeded in landing in July, and in reaching the
house of Lord Vaux of Harrowden, where they were later
joined by others of the society. There was plenty of work for
them to do ; there was also plenty of danger. Father South-
well — who passed in society by the name of Cotton, and who is
described as a man of middle height and auburn hair — seems to
have been watched rather narrowly from the beginning. It was
worse than a dog's life for them all, and the necessary precau-
tions were irksome. Father Gerard, one of his companions,
tells how the young priest tried to familiarize himself with
terms of sport for the purpose of conversing with Protestant
nobles, and adds that he "used often to complain of his bad
memory for such things " ! We can well imagine how com-
forting the presence of this earnest, sympathetic soul was to
his co-religionists, to whom he ministered largely in London,
with occasional journeys to the north of England. "He much
excelled," says Father Gerard, " in the art of helping and
gaining souls, being at once prudent, pious, meek, and exceed-
ingly winning."
One of Father Southwell's first cares was to win back the
wavering faith of his father and his brother. The former, who
had married a Protestant lady of the court, was restored to his
birthright by a most eloquent and inimitable epistle from his
son. " Howsoever," it concludes, after playing upon almost
every key of emotion, " the soft gales of your morning pleas-
• Green's History of the English People^ Book vi. chap. v. Xi^*^*
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Robert Southwell. 781
ures lulled you into slumbers; however the violent heat of
noon might awake affections, yet now in the cool and calm of
the evening retire to a Christian rest, and close up the day
of your life with a clear sunset." We are glad to learn that
the zeal of the young poet-priest proved contagious.
In 1589 Father Southwell became chaplain and confessor to
the Countess of Arundel, whose husband, Philip Howard, was
then confined in the Tower. For several years he lived in
comparative safety at Arundel House in the Strand, and there
commenced his real literary activity. "Triumphs over Death,*'
perhaps his first known work, was occasioned by the death of
a certain " noble lady " of the Howards, and was intended as
a comfort and a check to inordinate grief. Notes on Theology
and other prose works, mostly of a theological nature, also date
from these years; but it is not certain that any of his Eng-
lish poems were yet composed. From Father Gerard we learn
that Southwell set up a private printing press to disseminate
his productions more safely, from which it appears that the
" apostolate of the press '* is not altogether a recent idea I
But "Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears," — one of his most
popular compositions, and model of Thomas Nash's " Christ's
Tears over Jerusalem " — was printed by Cawood with a license.
None of these works was signed, but the government seems
somehow to have suspected our poet's authorship.
The letters • written by Father Southwell during these years
reveal the Catholic life of the day with terrible simplicity.
Poor Mary Stuart had been executed ; the Spanish Armada
had come and gone, uniting Catholic and Protestant in a com-
mon zeal to protect England ; it would seem that Elizabeth
had no longer much need to fear the Old Religion ! Yet the
persecutions went on with pitiless insistence. "The condition
of Catholic recusants here," wrote Father Southwell in 1590,
"is the same as usual, deplorable and full of fears and dan-
gers, more especially since our adversaries have looked for
w&rs. As many as are in chains rejoice, and are comforted in
their prisons; and they that are at liberty set not their hearts
upon it, nor expect it to be of long continuance. All, by the
great goodness and mercy of God, arm themselves to suffer
anything that can come, how hard soever it may be, as it
shall please our Lord. ... A little while ago they appre-
• Found in Histoty of the Persecutions of England, by Didacus Yepis, lib. v. cap. v.
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782 ROBERT SOUTHWELL. [Sept.,
bended two priests, who have suffered such cruel treatment in
the prison of Bridewell as can scarce be believed. . . .
Some are there hung up for whole days by the hands, in such
manner that they can but just touch the ground with the tips
of their toes. . . . This purgatory we are looking for every
hour, in which Topcliffe and Young, the two executioners of
the Catholics, exercise all kinds of torments. But come what
pleaseth God, we hope we shall be able to bear all ' in Him that
strengthens us' " Yet even through this darkness eyes of faith
caught gleams of a coming sunrise. " It seems to me,'' he
wrote later that year, in words which were to prove so deeply
prophetic, '' that I see the beginning of a religious life set on
foot in England, of which we now sow the seeds with tears,
that others hereafter may with joy carry in the sheaves to the
heavenly granaries. . . . With such dews as these the
church is watered. . . . We also look for the time (if we
are not unworthy of so great a glory) when our day (like that
of the hired servant) shall come."
His day was, in fact, not long to be deferred. In 1592
Father Southwell made a dangerous acquaintance in the person
of Richard Bellamy, of Uxenden Hall, one of whose kinsmen
had been executed in connection with the regrettable " Babing-
ton Conspiracy," and every member of whose family was under
suspicion for belief. The young Jesuit said Mass at their
home and ministered to the whole family, until the storm-cloud
suddenly broke above their heads.
Anne Bellamy, a young daughter, was chosen as the gov-
ernment's first victim. She was confined in the Gatehouse at
Westminster, under the care of one Nicholas Jones, and the
story of her double fall is as brief as it is ugly. Having lost
both honor and religion, the girl was soon persuaded to the
final baseness of betraying her family and her friends. From
her the savage Topcliffe learned that Richard Bellamy was in
the habit of receiving Father Southwell aiid other priests at
his home; he learned the manner of their coming and other
details ; then, like Judas of old, he acted quickly.
On June 20 Southwell rode over to Uxenden with Thomas
Bellamy — some say in hopes of ministering to Anne, who her-
self had written for him — and fell directly into Topcliffe's
snare. " I never did take so weighty a man, if he be rightly
used/' wrote that officer to the queen ; and the sinister mean-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] ROBERT SOUTHWELL. 783
ing of his words was soon apparent. The young priest was
brutally tortured in his captor's own house; then sent to
Westminster, under the care of the scoundrel who had beccme
Anne Bellamy's husband. In September a new entry appeared
in the records of the Tower of London, that of " Robert
Southwell, alias Cotton, a Jesuit and infamous traitor " ; and
the old gruesome story was repeated. His fortitude during
these ordeals coerced the admiration of Cecil himself. '' There
is," he wrote, " at present confined one Southwell, a Jesuit, who,
thirteen times most cruelly tortured, cannot be induced to
confess anything, not even the color of a horse whereon on a
certain day he rode, lest from such indication his adversaries
might conjecture in what house, or in what company of Catho-»
lies, he that day was." *
Persecution makes of#some men misanthropes; of others,
saints; of Father Southwell it made a poet. Broken by tor-
ture, imprisoned in the darkness and filthiness of the dungeon,
he still worked for his beloved people; and, unable to speak,
he sang ! His spirit was like that pure frankincense of which
Lyly tells us that it ^' smelleth most sweet when it is in the
fire." Dr. Groshart asserts that "probably his entire poems
were produced in prison"; and if this is true, it adds enor-
mously to their interest and pathos. The government, no
doubt in hopes of forcing some revelation, kept the father
awaiting trial over three years. During most of this time he
was confined in a dungeon so unspeakably noisome that Richard
Southwell finally petitioned the queen that his son be put to
death if he deserved it, or else, as he was a gentleman, that
he be treated as such. This protest availed somewhat, for the
prisoner was allowed to receive clothing and a few other
necessaries, and even books ; of which, however, he asked only
for the Bible and St. Bernard.
At last, in 1595 — and without any previous warning, says
the St. Omer MS. — he was hurried off to Westminster and
placed on trial for high treason. The courtesy, dignity, and
Christian meekness of Father Southwell throughout this trav-
esty of justice were most impressive."! When questioned, he
pleaded " not guilty of any treason " ; but he freely acknowl-
edged the only crime with which he was charged — fulfilling
• More, Hist. Prov. AngU Soc, Jesu, quoted by TurnbuU.
t See Groshart's '• Memorial Introduction."
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
784 Robert Southwell. [Sept.,
the duties of a Catholic priest to his suffering co reh'gionists.
The result was foreordained ; England had a law, " and by
that law he ought to die!" Once more torture did its revolt-
ing work upon his much tried body; then the next morning
his jailer brought the final summons. "You could not bring
me more joyful tidings," the priest answered simply.
So at daybreak, on the 22d or 23d of FebruaV-y, 1595, he
was placed in a sledge and drawn to Tyburn for execution.
Bishop Challoner tells us* that a notorious highwayman was
executed the same day, to divert popular attention from Father
Southwell's doom ; nevertheless, the usual mob awaited him.
The priest who had poured out his life-blood for these
English people, the poet who had sung to them from his dun-
geon, gazed down upon the upturned faces — upon the hostile,
the friendly, and the merely curious. Then, signing himself
with the cross, he began to speak : " ' Whether we live, we
live unto t>he Lord ; or whether we die, we die unto the Lord.
Therefore whether we live or whether we die, we are the
Lord's.' " The words were scarcely uttered before the sheriff
attempted some interruption ; but silence being regained, the
young priest continued, craving of the '' most clement God and
Father of Mercies" forgiveness "for all things wherein I may
have offended since my infancy. Then, as regards the queen
(to whom I have never done nor wished any evil), I have
daily prayed for her, and now with all my heart do pray, that
from His great mercy . . . He may grant that she may
use the ample gifts and endowments wherewith He hath en-
dowed her to the immortal glory of His name, the prosperity
of the whole nation, and the eternal welfare of her soul and
body. For my most miserable and with all tears to be pitied
country, I pray the light of truth, whereby the darkness of
ignorance being dispelled, it may learn in and above all things
to praise God, and seek its eternal good in the right way."
There is quite an infinite pathos in these prayers of the con-
demned man for the queen and country that repudiated him;
far ahead into the future of England his thoughts were wan-
dering, when suddenly he returned to the awful present. "For
what may be done to my body," he cried, " I have no care.
But since death, in the admitted cause for which I die, cannot
be otherwise than most happy and desirable, I pray the God
• Memoirs of Missionary Priests,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Robert Southwell. 785
of all comfort that it may be to me the complete cleansing of
my sins, and a real solace and increase of faith to others.
For I die because I am a Catholic priest, elected unto the
Society of Jesus in my youth ; nor has any other thing, dur-
ing the last three years in which I have been imprisoned, been
charged against me. This death, therefore, although it may
now seem base and ignominious, can to no rightly thinking
person appear doubtful but that it is beyond measure an eter-
nal weight of glory to be wrought in us, who look not to the
things which are visible, but to those which are unseen."
The simple spiritual grandeur of this valedictory sank deep
into the heart of the listening multitude, and won them, in
spite of Protestant detractors, to the martyr's side. The
executioner did his work clumsily, which added extra torment
to Father Southwell's death; but to the last he calmly com-
mended his soul to its Maker. We are glad to read that the
mob itself prevented his body being taken down before dead,
as the sentence had directed. " May my soul be with this
man's!" exclaimed Lord Mountjoy, a bystander;* and when
the poor severed head was held aloft to the public gaze not
one voice was heard to cry " Traitor ! " t
The world, as often happens, was kinder to the man's work
than to the man himself. Three volumes of his productions —
already extremely popular, it seems — were published immediately
after Father Southwell's death ; and they were followed by a
host ot others, right and piratical.^ In a very eminent degree
this young Jesuit was '' poet of Roman Catholic England " ; but
he was not merely poeb of any single class. He spoke to the
sorrowful and serious of soul, to. the meek and the devout; and
the Old Faith and the New ceased their warfare to listen.
The longest and most ambitious of his poems, but by no
means his best, is " St. Peter's Complaint." The ever-sympa-
thetic Dr. Groshart anticipates a very natural objection when
he declares that '^regarded as so many distinct studies of the
tragic incident, it is ignorance and not knowledge that will
pronounce it tedious or idly paraphrastic," for its constant
play of fancy is almost too redundant for the modern reader.
Such striking passages as the following, however, do much to
relieve the monotony :
* TurnbuU, ut supra.
\ Dictionary National Biography, " Robert Southwell." ilbid.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
786 Robert Southwell, [Sept.,
" At Sorrow's door I knocked ; they craved my name ;
I answered, one unworthy to be known.
What one ? say they. One worthiest of blame.
But who ? A wretch, not God's, nor yet his own.
A man ? Oh no ! a beast ; much worse. What creature ?
A rock. How called? The rock of scandal, Peter!"
But it is in his shorter poems that Father Southwell shows
to better advantage. It was only natural that the minor notes
of life should have struck the deepest echo in our poet's heart ;
their very titles — "Scorn not the Least/' "Life is but Loss,"
"What Joy to Live?" etc., are a pathetic commentary. But
their sadness is utterly without bitterness, or pessimism; their
weariness of life always presses on to a hope beyond. A few
lines from "Times go by Turns " illustrate the beauty, and even
cheerfulness, of his thought:
"Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring,
No endless night, yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing.
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay ;
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all.
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall."
The lyric which Mr. Saintsbury calls "unquestionably the
best " of Father Southwell's, and to claim which Drummond of
Hawthornden tells us Ben Jonson would have destroyed many
of his own poems, is the famous
"BURNING BABE.
"As I in hoary winter's night stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat, which made my heart to glow ;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear:
Who scorched with excessive heat, such floods of tears did shed,
As though His floods should quench His flames, which with
His tears were fed ;
' Alas 1 ' quoth He, ' but newly born, in fiery heats I fry.
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel My fire but I !
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns.
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shame and
scorns ;
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Robert Southwell. 787
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men's defiled souls,
For which, as now on fire I am, to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in My blood ' :
With these He vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrunk
away,
And straight T callM unto mind that it was Christmas Day."
This deep religious fervor permeates our poet's entire
works ; not merely the " Maeonix," a series on the life of our
Saviour and His Mother, but even the shortest lyric, without,
I think, one single exception. He bitterly regretted the world-
liness of most Elizabethan verse, complaining in one of his
introductions that "The finest wits are now given to write
passionate discourses." To-day, perhaps, we see the deep
human value of many of these same "passionate discourses"
more clearly than did the pious young monk; we cannot help
smiling a little at his ingenious recasting of Master Dyer's
" Fancy," in which the subject is made to mourn a lack of
*^ grace** instead of love. But the constancy and depth of this
devotion, and the delicacy of imagination which accompanied
it, compel our admiration. They are the characteristics of his
prose as well as his verse — they are the dominant, unmistaka-
ble notes of his personality. And if, in his own words, his
work be " coarse in respect of others' exquisite labors," let us
not forget the circumstances which called it into being — the
" evident fact," to quote Mr. Saintsbury, " that the author
thought of nothing less than of merely cultivating the Muses."*
Probably the most obvious faults to be found in Southwell's
works are extravagance of metaphor and an almost constant
habit of playing upon words ; for both of which the age, not
the man, must be held responsible. When we recall the years
during which he wrote — the vogue of the sonnet- sequences, of
"Euphues," "Arcadia," and the "Faerie Queene," we can
understand that "conceits" were in the very air. Sir Philip
Sidney himself, we remember, has somewhere compared a white
horse speckled with red to " a few strawberries scattered in a
dish of cream" ! The real, fundamental merit of Father South-
well's poetry is recognized by all the best critics, and his
literary influence is being more and more appreciated.
^History Elizabethan\Literature.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
788 Robert Southwell. [Sept.,
This influence is very manifest in the poems of Richard
Crashaw; and these lines from "Scorn Not the Least,"
" He that the growth on cedars did bestow.
Gave also lowly mushrooms leave to grow,"
certainly suggest BIkke, notably his "Tiger." "As a whole,"
says Dr. Groshart, " his poetry is healthy and strong, and I
think has been more potential in our literature than appears
on the surface. I do not think it would be hard to show that
others of whom more is heard drew light from him, as well
early as more recent, from Burns to Thomas Hood."
Biography is, after all, the best history, and the life of
Robert Southwell reveals one phase of Elizabethan England
better than a dozen commentaries. It is not, indeed, the phase
oftenest remembered. In the stirring political drama of the
day — in the clash of arms and clash of wits through which
England was led to unprecedented material splendor — he
played but a little part. Still further was he from the wild
bohemianism of Greene and Marlowe, or the mature artistic
glory of those who congregated at the old Mermaid Tavern.
But there was a darker, sadder undercurrent to this rushing
tide of Elizabethan life. There was the ardent Catholic minor-
ity, nowise deaf to the call of the young intellectual life, nor
blind to the signs of England's growing strength — sensitive,
indeed, to every vital influence, yet forced into hostile in-
activity ! Adherents of the Old Faith were shut out from
both the great universities ; they had no part in the adminis-
tration of justice; they were ineligible to any public office in
the kingdom. Thus a great body of men with the culture of
the New Learning and the passion of the Renascence were
compelled to march not with but against the trend of their
age. Some of them sought adventure over seas, or plunged
into purely secular activity ; others, already forced into dis-
loyalty, spent their time plotting a change in government, and
were the easy prey of each new conspiracy. Still pthers, puri-
fied by persecution, rose above the heat and bitterness of per-
sonal feud to apostolic zeal and endurance, and fought the
losing fight so nobly that in their very defeat lay the assur-
ance of everlasting victory. Of these last was Robert South-
well.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Father thabaud's Reminiscences. 789
FATHER THEBAUD'S REMINISCENCES.*
^HE United States Catholic Historical Society has
performed a creditable and praiseworthy work
in publishing the reminiscences of the late Rev.
Augustus J. Th^baud, S.J. The present volume
includes the author's views of our country, its
people and their customs, during the years 1839-1885. A
sketch of the author is written by the Rev. Thomas J. Camp-
bell, SJ.
It is almost needless to say that these recollections, taken
for the most part from an accurately kept diary, form a valu-
able contribution, particularly to the religious history of our
country. And it is a source of the greatest regret to an
historian of the present that others of the zealous and heroic
missionaries did not keep similar records of their work and
their travels. Father Th^baud enjoyed an unusually long ex-
perience, with a keen observation, a wide knowledge, and the
gift of a generous sympathy.
Born at Nantes in 1807, at the usual age he was ordained
there a secular priest. Going to Rome in 1835, he joined the
Society of Jesus. One day, sailing on the Loire, he met a
gentleman who had travelled in America. With the hunger
for news that always seems to have possessed him. Father
Thebaud inquired concerning the number and condition of the
Catholics in the States. On hearing the story of the traveller,
he first entertained the idea that God might prepare the way
for him to take a share in this spiritual harvest. In 1838 he
came to America. Of that coming he writes: "I have always
considered the i8th of December, 1838, as a day of thanks-
giving and joy because on that day I landed at the foot of
Rector Street, North River, New York." Father Thebaud went
direct to St. Mary's College, Kentucky. He taught in different
colleges till 1852, when he was appointed superior of St.
' Three-Quarters of a Century (1807-1882), A Retrospect written from Documents and
Memory, in 1882 and the following years, by the late Rev. Augustus J. Thebaud, S.J. Vol. iii.
Forty years in the United States of America. With a Biographical Sketch by Rev. Thomas
J. Campbell, S.J. Edited by Charies George Herberman, Ph.D., LL.D.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
790 Father Thabaud's Reminiscences. [Sept,
Joseph's Church in Troy, and held the post till i860. He
returned to Troy in 1863, remaining there six years. Again
he is in Troy in 1873. Some five or six more years were
occupied in parish work, and then, after a year in Fordham,
he moved to St. Francis Xavier's, this city. He died at
Fordham in 1885.
Besides engaging in parochial and missionary labors. Father
Thdbaud was a voluminous writer. His GenHlism^ Irish Race^
The Church and tin Moral World are well known, and have had
a very wide circulation. The memoirs, of which this volume
forms a portion, are so extensive that the Historical Society
will be able to publish only extracts. Father Th^baud must
have been an extensive reader from his earliest days. He gives
a remarkable list of books which he read before the age of ten,
and adds, "It would be beyond my scope to state in detail
their full number." Many a reader will feel encouraged with
his remark that the Telimaque of F^nelon was one that he
''could never go through.'' It was not at all matter-of-fact nor
practical enough for a man of Father Th^baud's character.
For from these reminiscences one will learn that the practical
was always his attraction. His eyes saw even the smallest of
details and his pen noted them. His judgments are always
positive, and he evidently permitted doubt to play but a small
part in his make-up. He is aggressive, he is argumentative,
but he is never offensive. He is always enthusiastic, whole-
souled, eager. His recollections are, at times, diffuse and
scattered, and now and again he wamders from his point to
distant lands and times; but they are, as we have said, inter-
esting and instructive. Tha author was a man who passed
judgments upon small matters equally positive with those on
subjects of wider import. We cannot but give some instances
of this kind, humorous and preposterous they seem to us, but
they will serve at least to throw light on a certain phase of
our author's character. '^ It was calculated by newspaper
writers that on the Mississippi and its tributaries a steamboat
explosion took place every day of the year, on an average;
yes, 365 during the year." So Father Th^baud prudently
travelled by stage. Once when delayed for five hours he
came upon the relay- driver, who was in a rage, " a thing," adds
Father Thebaud, *' which does not happen so often in the
United States as it does in Europe." Father Thebaud is a
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1904.] Father Th£baud's Reminiscences. 791
careful observer of the weather and of meteorological variations.
In opinions on these subjects his is no guesswork,, and his
observations are minute. He writes of the weather in Kentucky
(the italics are his own)» ** there was often a difference of forty
degrees (Fahrenheit) between midday and midnight,** We find
also here and there an evident inaccuracy. For example, one
line reads: ''Man is severely injured, physically and morally,
by the climate of the South and West " ; yet just below this is
written "a great number of (the) men were remarkable for
their moral courage and good sense/'
But we cannot leave this Kentucky weather. It was
remarkable. Father Th^baud asserts (and there appears to be
some need of the assertion) that "there is no exaggeration
in the statement that at St. Mary's College in the study hall,
which contained just one hundred boys, an enormous stove
fifteen feet long and three feet high was constantly filled, even
in moderate weather, with four or five logs of the length of the
stove. These logs were blazing all the time, and new ones
were thrown in as soon as combustion had consumed those
inside. When evening came and candles were lighted, they
positively melted down in their sockets from the heat of the
room. Duty obliged me several times to occupy the desk of
the study-keeper. My head soon ached as in summer and the
blood-vessels throbbed ready to burst. Unable to bear it, I
was invariably obliged to withdraw from my chair, go near the
door and open it a little on the sly in order to breathe, or
rather not to be. suffocated."
And did the one hundred students look up with envy
at this selfish professor taking the fresh ozone all for him-
self ?
No, indeed. '' To raise the sashes of the windows on such
occasions would have excited a rebellion among the boys, and
they would probably have instantly left the room previous to
leaving the college."
But Father Th^baud adds a little later that the infirmary
was almost always full during this season.
The holy simplicity of the author is evident from this
amusing passage: "In a corner of the fence near this spot I
selected an angle making a kind of bower. There were some
creepers and lichens embroidering the rails of the fence ; a
small cedar-tree rose above the top, and with a single board
VOU LXXIX.~5I
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
792 Father Th£baud"s Reminiscences. [Sept.,
which I had fastened to the fence, I had found a niche worthy
of a better saint than I am."
. These are but lighter stories that give a little pleasantry to
Father Th^baud's otherwise serious and thoughtful reminis-
cences. The larger questions of religion, of politics, of national
institutions and customs, the greater events and problems of
his day, all receive consideration.
He found that social intercourse in America was " cheerful
and gay." This no doubt was owing in some measure to
Father Th^baud's own personality, and it enabled him by con-
versations to learn much more than he otherwise could have
done. " The Kentuckian," he writes, " as a rule, under a rough
exterior was good-natured and warm-hearted whenever he met
with true objects of charity." Father Thdbaud extends this
remark to the Kentuckian's relations with his slaves, " at least
in the form of slavery he saw in the Southwest." He objects
strongly to Uncle Tom's Cabin as an exaggerated, ex parte
plea. Nevertheless, Father Thebaud warns the reader not to
infer that he is a partisan of the institution of slavery. " I
could not agree with them (the Southerners), knowing that
slavery as legally established in the South was opposed to the
divine law, and no true Christian could avail himself of the
tyrannical rights conferred on him by the civil law." It would
be wrong, we might add, to infer in turn from this that Father
Thebaud condemns every Southern slaveholder.
An interesting comparison is made between the civilizations
of that day, more than half a century ago, of Kentucky and
Louisiana to the favor of the latter. The picture that Father
Thebaud drawg of that journey down the Mississippi towards New
Orleans, with magnificent villas beautifying either side, speaks
eloquently but sadly of the departed glory of the old South.
Father Thebaud writes that the patriarchal views of society
in the South existed in spite of the prevailing slavery. He
should rather have said that this patriarchal concept existed
because of slavery, not in spite of it. Again, the author writes
with regard to the Southerner's view of the Union, that **the
United States was a federation, and a federation they wished it
to remain. State rights, in their opinion, was a consequence of
this." On the contrary. State rights was the antecedent of this,
else the Southerner's stand in 1861 could never be defended at all.
It must be remembered that Father Thebaud came to
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1904.] Father ThIbaud's Reminiscences, 793
this country as a missionary. He praises the 9ound moral
tone of the people which, he writes, he found to be universaU
In fact it " was everywhere remarkable." " No land," he adds
again, " was sq charitable as America." He was happy to be
disabused of the opinion that there was scarcely any family
feeling in the United States by meeting a husband, wife, and
child, who had undertaken a long journey simply to pay a
family visit to the wife's mother and father. Everywhere also
he found great respect for the marriage bond, and for the law
of the sacredness of Sunday. The people believed then, he
observes, that marriage was indissoluble. He found, moreover,
that the American people were a religious people. Among
Kentucky Catholics he met constantly not only with the Bible,
but prayer-books, explanations of the truths of religion in the
forcible style of Challoner, and the learned Lives of the Saints
by Alban Butler. Atheism was unknown, at least in the
country districts, though it had acquired some foothold in the
larger cities.
The vast majority of Protestants Father Th^baud finds were
not Protestants through their own fault. Bigotry and preju-
dice existed widely among them. Yet oftentimes also a spirit
of good-fellowship grew up between them and the Catholics,
both as regards laymen and priests and ministers. This spirit
Father Thdbaud was always anxious to propagate, for it was
the necessary prelude to any efficacious missionary work among
non- Catholics. The introduction, on one occasion, of a priest
into such a particularly prejudiced community, where Catholics
and non- Catholics would scarcely nod to one another, is thus
humorously described by an incident from the life of Father
Badin, the first priest ordained in the United States:
" Father Badin was a master in that useful science (of
repartee). Having one day lost his horse, which fell under
him and died on the road, he took his saddle-bags on his
arm and, leaving the carcass to its fate, walked to the nearest
inn. There was in the barroom a numerous assemblage;
among them a Presbyterian minister well known for his broad
humor. As soon as the priest appeared the Calvinist went to
him. 'I hope,' he said, 'that before your horse died you
had time to anoint him.' ' Unfortunately I could not anoint
him,' replied Father Badin, 'because the scoundrel turned
Presbyterian.' This repartee put everybody on his side, and
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794 Father Thabaud's Reminiscences. [Sept.,
he procured, without any expense, whatever he needed for the
lemainder of his journey."
So Father Th^baud, besides laboring among Catholics,
iound opportunities, in spite of prejudice, to extend the truth
among those without. In this he did especially good work
during his years in Troy. He lived to see a much better
iptrit prevail both North and South. In 1850 he notes a de-
cided, change. The Civil War made it afterwards almost com-
plete. This war fairly worked a rehabilitation of the Catholic
Church in the minds of her former enemies, both North and
South. In the South it extended through all classes of society,
and Father Th^baud gives an amusing story in evidence, which
we quote, not to the discomfiture of our separated brethren
but for the humorous point which it contains:
" Father De Luynes had once gone from Louisville to New
Orleans, and found himself in the midst of a number of Pres-
byterian ministers who were hastening to an ecclesiastical con-
vention convoked in the latter city. Their conduct and pre-
tensions were so obstreperous as to dispose all the people on
board against them, but particularly the captain. The old sea-
dog — ^so he called himself— -could not restrain himself at last,
and in the midst of many cabin passengers he exclaimed : ' It
is always so when there are dominies on board. Except the
Catholic priest, whom I respect, I would not give a for
all the others.'"
Father Th^baud writes of the liberality of the State gov-
ernments towards the church ; but, in spite of this toleration in
law, dbntinued prejudices did not permit the Protestant sects to
offer the hand of fellowship to the superstitious Romanists. In
1838 it was a glaring fact that Catholics were excluded from
all or nearly all public offices, that all public institutions were
in the hands oi Protestants, and no Catholic could fully enjoy
his religious rights within them. Father Th^baud represents
the Catholics during all this time as being cowed by a tyranny
which had lasted more than two centuries. Perhaps to the
predominantly aggressive spirit of Father Th^baud they did at
times appear to be cowed; that they were really so, that they
did not possess both courage and prudence, is sufficiently re-
futed by Father Thebaud's own book. The other abundant
evidence that might be supplied is not needed.
Father Thebaud himself did considerable missionary labor,
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1904.] Father Th&baud's Reminiscences. 755
as we have said, among non^Catholics, to whom he was ever
kindly disposed. But fifty years after his first experiences he
still writes that there is always among Protestants a lurking
fear of Catholics. It is only among High-Church Episcopalians
that he notes a kind feeling.
1% is surprising to read that in 1850 Father Th^baud had
been persuaded that it would be impossible to form in this
country an American Catholic Church, since the parish of St
Peter's in New York was still composed entirely of Irishmen
from Ireland. Yet he lived, as he himself says, to know that
there was no lack of vocations among American- born families.
Father Th^baud saw the many problems with which America
.has to contend ; saw them, perhaps, only in their beginnings,
but yet realized much of their importance. He foresaw that a
national homogeneity must arise from the heterogeneous popula-
tions that even in his early day were crowding into the country.
He gives little or no consideration to the methods how this
assimilation was or was to be, but he bears testimony to it as
an accomplished fact in many instances, and he was astonished
thereat. May we not gain hope and confidence from his own
citations, that the same assimilation will continue for the future ?
Thus, of the Irish emigrants in Kentucky he writes : " All these
people were ardent Americans firmly attached to the govern-
ment of the Republic, and altogether indistinguishable from
the rest of the population."
"Because nearly everybody favored the equality of all citi-
zens before the law and was well satisfied with the liberal
naturalization laws, superiority of race over race, which has so
far obtained in ancient and modern times, soon vanished; the
consequences were the union and fusion of immigrants and
natives and the natural homogeneity of the people."
A chapter is devoted to the Irish exodus after 1846; the
fearful devastation of the plague among the helpless immigrants
in Montreal, Boston, and New York ; the growth of the church
through the Irish and German immigration, and the facility
with which the members of both races became thorough
American citizens. His description of the infant days of the
Western church are endowed with much interest, and looking
upon its extent and power to-day one is filled with enthusiasm
indeed.
A last chapter is taken up with the discussion of American
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
796 Father Th&baud's Reminiscences. [Sept.,
schools and colleges. He relates how, up to 1850, Protestant
school committees controlling public education took no pains
whatever to have books in use freed from error concerning the
Catholic Church. He points out the necessity of parochial
schools. In this chapter the following sentence is noteworthy :
"There was a time when yearly appropriations of money were
granted in Albany to the colleges in which classical instruction
was given ; and the faculty of St. John's College, Fordham, to
my knowledge, twice received a grant of six thousand dollars.
The principle on which this was done was that, though the
colleges are independent of State control, still they contribute
to the welfare of the commonwealth by the superior instruc-
tion they give." The expurgation of text-books began after
1^850 in the New England States, and an enthusiastic tribute is
paid by Father Th^baud to Bishop Fitzpatrick, the third Bishop
of Boston, for his labors in this respect. '^ Ardently devoted to
the church, he would never have yielded one iota of her rights
and he was ever ready to fight her battle when occasion
required. Yet it is well known to all those who knew him
that he thought that there was no great danger for the chil-
dren of Catholics if they frequented the public schools in New
England. He did not share in the exaggerated zeal of some
bishops, who ordered their priests to refuse absolution to all
parents that sent their children to the public schools. A few
prelates went so far in their ardor as to make this a reserved
case ; but they saw their error before long." Our Catholic
readers familiar with the rulings of the Third Plenary Council
of Baltimore will join with us, of course, in taking exception
to these remarks.
Father Th^baud gives credit to the secular education, its
method, its fruits, as represented in the public-school system,
and states that it has introduced into the country greater social
uniformity than can be seen in any European state. He discusses
American colleges, Catholic and non> Catholic, at some length.
Many other interesting questions are treated of, and memoirs
cited that would merit attention, if further space were per-
mitted us. The volume, besides beihg a valuable historical con-
tribution, forms a fitting memorial also to Father Thebaud him-
self, whose labors it so eloquently chronicles, and who through
it gives an inspiration to his followers in the labors of the
priesthood.
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1904.] Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. 797
ANTI-CLERICAL TACTICS IN SPAIN.
BY REV. WALTER M. DRUM. S.J.
gN the August number of The Catholic World
we examined some of the false charges by which
the anti- clericals of Spain ineffectually strove to
offset the nomination of Mgr. Nozaleda for the
see of Valencia. How completely the worthy
prelate has been vindicated will be seen by the protest of the
Spanish hierarchy to the prime minister: "The Cardinal-
Archbishop of Toledo has recourse to your excellency in the
name of the whole Spanish episcopate ; his spirit is cast down
by the systematic insults and calumnies that are perpetrated in
the press, in public meetings, and in many other Ways, against
the most fundamental prin<^ples of the Spanish monarchy and
of social order; his deep sorrow and righteous indignation are
now increased by the series of injuries and insults that are
hurled against the learned and most worthy ex-Archbishop of
Manila because of that prelate's well-deserved nomination by
his Majesty the King to the episcopal see of Valencia."*
In the same spirit of support the faculty of the University
of Madrid sent to the government this despatch : '' The faculty
of the university congratulates the government on its nomina-
tion of the illustrious Nozaleda as Archbishop of Valencia, and
protests with indignation at the calumnies of the sectarian press
in regard to the conduct of the ex- Archbishop of Manila. He
was always a patriot and a great prelate of Spain." f
The Spanish residents of Manila cabled the prime minister
that the peninsular press had shamefully calumniated Mgr.
Nozaleda.
Such support was very gratifying to the prelate ; but he
felt that a fair and plain statement of the case was called for
from himself, and on February 13 published his defence. The
style of this pamphlet is^ simple and clear-cut; the defence is
complete, cautious, eloquent, and backed up by well-authenti-
cated documents. As for the mode of procedure of his enemies,
' London Tablet, January 30, 1904. f Reitisia Catolica, April 7. 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
798 Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept.,
he sums it up in his straightforward way: ''They have not
brought to light a single document to favor their view; they
have not been able to get a i^ingle eye-witness to give such
testimony as would lend a semblance of probability to the
very least of their many false accusations." * So clearly does
Mgr. Nozaleda make good his point, and so roundly does he
take to task the different papers of the opposition, that the gov-
ernment seems to fear that he has dealt too severe a blow at
ultra-liberalism; for report has it that the postal officials have
impeded the circulation of the pamphlet, and that a number
of copies thereof have failed to reach those to whom they were
directed.f
After the two dastardly attempts to assassinate Seiior Maura,
April 6 and I3, much of the turbulence of the liberal and
radical press simmered down, and even his greatest enemies
showed a willingness to rescue Mgr. Nozaleda from the rank
and vile calumnies they had previously heaped upon his
innocent head. '' Such is the reckless and heedless method
with which certain papers, known tfull well to all, follow up
their plan of campaign. Yesterday they shouted war against
Maura and Nozaleda; to-day they sigh for sorrow." j:
The editor of El Imparcial, Seiior Gasset, wrote : " We
have done no more than to give out what we have picked up
in the streets." " We find fault with government only because
this nomination has set the whole country into such an uproar."
La Correspondencia insists: ".From the start we have wished no
part in this affair; we have remained neutral." The Heraldo
and Diario Universal join in protesting against the riot and
crime that their words have helped to bring to pass.
Such protests are really laughable, if viewed in contrast
with the attitude of hatred of the church and of intolerance to
Mgr. Nozaleda that has marked the entire bearing of the liberal
press. However, this change of front by the anti- clerical papers
may be used to our purpose; it indicates the innocence of
Mgr. Nozaleda, the tactics and virulent animus of his enemies.
Will the anti- clericals now let the prelate go to Valencia in
peace ? No ! The other charges may be false ; there is one
charge that is true. Nozaleda is a friar ; that is true. " When
• " Defensa Obligada contra Acusaciones Gratuitas," Madrid, 1904.
t La Gaceta del Norte, Bilbao, April 13, 1904.
X The Review, St. Louis, April 14. 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] AntI'Clerical Tactics in Spain. 799
all their accusations have been cut to pieces, and the falsehood
thereof has been laid bare, the republican rabble can only
shout: ^'Nozaleda is a friar 1 No friar shall be Archbishop of
Valencia. " * As the Count de Romanones put it, when he
introduced the motion to reject Mgr. Nozaleda : " The rashness
and blunder of government rests in this, that it has presented
for Valencia a member of a monastic order — a man who stands
not merely as a friar, but as the friar-type, nay, as the whole
friary." t
This opposition to the religious orders is frankly avowed by
all the liberals of Spain. One of their chief organs. El Liberal^
lays down this significant platform: '^ Although it be proven
that Padre Nozaleda be not guilty of any crimes against patriot-
ism, nor of any of the wrong-doings that have been imputed
to him; nay more, although it be clear as the noon-day sun
that the archbishop is pure and free from stain, a very angel
in the flesh, deserving not . only of the respect of the faithful
but of canonization by the church ; although the people see
in him another St. Bernardine, his case is none the better for
all that. The mainspring of this bitter opposition to him is
the fact that the man presented for the archbishopric of Valen-
cia is a friar ; and be he a Bernardine or a Gerundio, he stands
for all friars." t
And El Pais says : ** In Nozaleda we attack the Spanish
friars of the Philippines, and the theocratic spirit whereof they
were the exponents during Spain's misrule of the archipelago." %
There is the keynote of anti-clericalism in Spain. Down
with the religious orders! The church will be attacked later
on. There can be no doubt of the trend of anti- clerical tactics
in Spain. The tactics of French anti clericals have been brought
across the Pyrenees. It is worthy Of at least a moment's
attention that socialistic and anti-clerical ideas are not so deeply
rooted in other provinces of Spain as they are in Catalonia,
the nearest province to France. Moreover, the violent ring-
leaders of anti -clericalism in Spain are for the most part men
whose names are either French or Catalan, rather than Casti-
• Cf, Speech of Sefior Nocedal before Congress, February 4, 1904.
t Cf. Speech before Congress, January 26, 1904.
t Cf. Lectura Dominical for February 7, 1904. and Reviita Catolica lot April 7. 1904.
Fray Gerundio is the name given by Padre Isla to the friar whom he scores so severely for an
absurd and bombastic style in preaching.
%Cf. Lectura Dominical, January 31, 1904.
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8oo Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept.,
Han: Junoy, Lerroux, Lleget, Gasset, Moret, etc. May the
tactics of these men not bring to Spain the havoc brought to
France by the anti-clericalism of the bloc/
This very same note of discord was dominant in the noisy
republican meetings during the late religious crisis in Spain.
Some speakers showed great zeal for religion. " What a shame
that the friars act so ! What sins for a bishop to be guilty of !
What virtue, what devotion should be stamped upon the minis-
ters of grace ! What love of purity ! What purity of love ! "
All this is very artful. Seiior Nocedal* congratulated the
zealots on their delicate intentions, and assured them the Holy
Father was on the look-out for the best interests of the Church
in Spain. Most of the speakers, however, adopted an abusive
tone. Their words of insult are almost too vile to repeat.
" We do not wish to lessen the number of the friars, quite the
contrary ; of every friar we would make two." " I am very
fond of friars, not alive and kicking, but cut to pieces." " Let
the friars be brought back from the Philippines — the sooner
the better — but let them be brought back in a sort of fri-
cassee." t
Are the friars of the Philippines deserving of such obloquy ?
No, they are not. Any one who goes through the islands
without prejudice, or carefully sifts the evidence for and against
the friars, will speak in the highest terms of the work of the
religious orders in the Philippines. Let us examine some of
that evidence.
In the course of the debate in the Cortes over the nomina-
tion of Mgr. Nozaleda, Senor Maura quoted some authorities
whose words should be accepted by us as worthy of honest
consideration.
Twenty yeaps before Spain lost the Philippines a sad fore-
boding of the future was uttered by Don Adelardo Lopez de
Ayala, a Spaniard fired with love of country : " In the Philip-
pines there are two great forces that go to make up the
foundation and cement of the fabric of our power : the prestige
of the name of Castile, and the prestige of the religious orders.
The religious have civilized and catechized that immense coun-
try, and now keep it in a spirit of obedience and loyalty to
Spain. Change the old Castile that the natives have been
• Cf, Speech before Congress, February 4, 1904.
t Cf. Lectura Dominical, January 17, 1904.
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1904.] Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. 801
wont to respect; bring in ideas that are new, poorly set to-
gether, and in nowise needed ; set before the native a Spain
he has never seen before; and at the same time weaken the
prestige of the religious orders, set at naught the power they
have ever wielded for Spain; do all this, and you will leave
without foundation and without cement all our power over
that whole country; and before the new methods shall have
got a hold throughout the land, the day will dawn on which
Spain will wake up to the sorry realization that she has lost
the Philippines. She will not be able to regain them. It were
easy now to keep the Philippines; it will be hard to get them
back once lost." What . these new ideas were we shall see
later on.
Escosura, the royal commissioner, who went* to the islands
to study the question of the friars, reported: "You ask me
what link, what ties, what power binds this immense archi-
pelago to its capital? I must admit this link, these ties, this
power is the friars."
Moriones, governor of the Philippines in 1877, a man not
at all in sympathy with the clericals, wrote : '' Many tribes in
the north of Luzon have submitted not to violence nor to
force, but to the preaching of the gospel by the religious
orders, to their tact, abnegation, and self-sacrifice."
General Weyler, when governor of the islands, made the
following worldly-wise report: "To take away the influence
of their priest is to take away from them their one Spanish
element. . . . The d^y on which the religious orders de-
part or lose their influence, will be the day on which we shall
have to introduce a Peninsular army, as in Cuba and Porto
Rico. Our expenses will then be very much increased. The
religious now cost us very little ; foi their goods are owned
in common and the salaries of parish priests go to the whole
community."
When there was question of putting Mgr. Nozaleda in
charge of the Archdiocese of Manila, ten years ago, La
Solidaridad upheld as strongly as it now puts down not only
the Archbishop of Manila but all friars : " With all our power
we commend Nozaleda for the Archbishopric of Manila, chiefly
because he is a friar; if he were a candidate for one of the
metropolitan sees of the Peninsula, we would be the first to
urge him to the government ; for Nozaleda is good, virtuous,
Digitized by VjOOQIC
8o2 AntI' Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept.,
and wise/' Why has La Solidaridad so quickly changed its
tone?
These citations by Senor Maura, on January 28, 1904,
created a marked sensation in the Congress. The radicals
almost admitted their discomfiture. They were completely de-
feated later on, February 4, 1904, when Seiior Nocedal cleverly
quoted the ultra- radical papers and socialistic editors in flat
contradiction of the accusations now made against the friars
in the very same papers and by the very same men. Senor
Nocedal had been unwell, and left a sick-bed to give to truth
the staunch support of his clever intellect and noble Catholic
heart. Here are a couple of his amazing citations:
On August 22, 1896, Senor Gasset wrote in El Imparcial:
''The chief support of our power in the islands is, as all the
world knows, the religious orders."
In El Liberal^ that same day, Moya said: ''The Philip-
pines belong to Spain not only by the power of our army, but
also by the blessed fruit of civilization and Christianity. The
religious orders have conquered the hearts of the natives.
They are the shield and bulwark of the Filipinos."
Testimony of this sort by friend and foe could easily be
kept up for many pages. The Arthur H. Clarke Company, of
Cleveland, is now publishing a monumental work, under the
title The Philippine Islands^ 14.^^-1803^ that will give the labors
of the religious orders in the Philippines such valuable and
lengthy testimony as is given by the Jesuit Relations to the
labors of the Society of Jesus in New France. We shall add
the authority of ex- Governor Taft and of Mr. Sawyer. The
latter is an Englishman and a Protestant who spent fourteen
years in the Philippines : * " The friars have fared badly at
the hands of several writers on the Philippines; but it will be
noticed that those who know the least about them speak the
worst about them." " The friars were the chief outposts, and
even bulwarks, of the government against rebellions." Mr.
Sawyer is enthusiastic about the Jesuits in Mindanao. "To
my mind," he says, " they realize very closely the ideal of
what a Christian missionary should be." He hopes that Catho-
lics of the United States will give that aid which those of
Barcelona and Madrid "formerly gave the society; and even
•Sawyer, The Inhabitants of the Philippines. New York, 1900. Pp. 64, 65. 385.
and 415.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.1 AntI' Clerical Tactics in Spain. 803
hints at the advisability of such government support under
the new regime as obtained under the old. "I wish to state
my conviction that the easiest, the best, and the most humane
way of pacifying Mindanao is by utilizing the powerful influ*
ence of the Jesuits." Unfortunately the hopes of Mr. Sawyer
have not been fulfilled. There are now only half as many
Jesuits in Mindanao as there were six years ago, when the
government of Spain used to give the needed support. And
as for the pacification of Mindanao and of J0I6, it will proba-
bly be accomplished by the extermination rather than Chris-
tianization of the Moros.
In a recent J0I6 campaign, under Major Scott, neariy 3,000
Moros were killed. At present our soldiers in Mindanao
are always under arms. Even the company- cook wears his
Colt's revolver while at the camp-fire. Let us compare our
method with that of Spain. From 1570 till 1828 the Spaniards
controlled the islands without any permanent garrison of Spanish
regular troops. During all this time the Filipinos increased in
numbers and in civilization. From 1828 till 1883 there were about
1,500 artillerymen in the islands. Then began the anti- clerical
work of undermining the influence of the friars ; then, and then
only, was there need of more troops. Yet, even as late as
1890, there were in the archipelago, out of a population of
8,000,000, only 14,000 Peninsular Spaniards (including friars,
soldiers, and civil officials), 8,000 Spaniards of Philippine birth,
and 75,000 Spanish mestizos.* There is the Spanish side of
the subjugation of the Philippines, — a side that covers 328
years of growth and progress. Our side is yet to be written.
We have done much good in six years; but there has been
great harm done, too — more harm than most of us know of.
To bring peace to the islands ^e kept there an army of more
than 100,000 Americans; and to-day, while we exhibit at St.
Louis the signs of peace and prosperity that have resulted
from our subjugation of the Philippines, we are supporting over
there an army of about 5,000 native scouts and 8.000 con-
stabulary troops, besides a larger number of American soldiers
than Spain had of Spanish soldiers to uphold h^r sovereignty
against the forces of General MacArthur. Let us be honest
and acknowledge these tremendous facts. In New Zealand, Aus-
tralia, and the United States the aborigines have been well-
•C/. Filipinas Fundamtntal Problem, by Don Luis Aguado, Madrid, 1891.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8o4 Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept.,
nigh totally destroyed. In all the Indies, East and West, there
is to-day only one land in which the aborigines have been pre-
served as a race, and that land is the Philippine Islands. Their
many tribes have been kept intact, and brought from barbar-
ism to the cultivation of the soil and to Christianity. What
wonderful force has done this work ? The teaching and exam-
ple of the members of the religious orders ! Such is the testi-
mony of an Englishman ; let us now hear an American about
the friars.
Mr. Taft went out to the Philippines with the prejudices
that many an American has against the friars, but a mind
singularly open to conviction; he saw the truth, and was con-
vinced. Last February, at a banquet of the Presbyterian Sccial
Union of Philadelphia, he dissuaded his hearers from prosely-
tizing in the islands. "Going back to the beginning of Spanish
occupation," said he, '' we find the heroes of Christianity, the
Spanish priests and friars, leading the way. Before, and with,
and after the soldiers, came these valiant men of God carrying
only the cross. ... It was charged that the triars obtained
their land unjustly. I did * not find that there was truth in
this allegation. That they were oppressive landlords was also
charged. I could find no evidence to sustain this allegation."*
Then why were the friars hated by some of the natives?
Was it because they were immoral? Npt at all. Among the
native clergy some were immoral, grossly immoral, — so much
so that they found it better to join the schismatics of the
Aglipay movement than to await punishment by ecclesiastical
superiors. These unfaithful priests to-day have the staunch
support of those Filipinos who oppose the friars. No, the
Tagalogs who cling to the Katipunan, and are even now
scheming to oust our government from their country, do not
hate the friars for any immorality. Besides, the outcry about the
immorality of the friars is most unfounded. One might just as
well harp on a solitary instance of an unfortunate fall of a priest
in the United States, and cry out that therefore all our priests
were bad. Mr. Sawyer is not a Catholic, and we may take his
testimony as without a bias in favor of the friars. He writes:
*' During the many years I was in the islands I had frequent
occasion to avail myself of the hospitality of the priests on
my journey. ... I declare that on none of these many
* Cf. standard and Times, Philadelfhia, February, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. 805
occasions did I ever witness anything scandalous or indecorcus
in their convents, and I arrived at all hours and without
notice."* From the word convents^ and other parts of his
book, it is clear Mr. Sawyer speaks of the friars and not of
the native priests.
We have not yet answered why the friars were hated by
some of the Filipinos. Father Coleman, O.P., in his book,
The Friars in the Philippines^ gives the true reason, and our
officers carry out his view. The Filipinos identified the Spanish
friars with the government of . Spain, just as they will identify
loyal American priests with the government of the United
States. Those that wish the Philippines to be for the Filipinos
hated the government of Spain, as they hate the government of
the United States. They hated the priests of Spain as they
hate the priests of the United States. Not all Filipinos are so
ill disposed to us ; but the attitude of the Aglipay priests to
our American bishops in the islands is a serious drawback to
the well being of the church. Mr. Taft puts the situation in
this wise: "The trouble with these friars arises from the fact
that in the last fifty years they have been drawn into politics
as the agents and detectives of the crown of Spain. They
opposed the revolution, and thus earned the hatred of the
mass of the people. . . . They were landlords and repre-
sentatives of the crown, and as such were hated." f
We have said enough to show that the friars have been
the glory and not the shame of the Philippines. Hatred of
the friars did not bring about the; revolt of the Filipinos frcm
Spain. What brought about that revolt? In answering this
question we shall side with the view taken by Sefior Maura
before the Congress of Spain and defended most successfully
by the prime minister and Senor Nocedal.
" If we are going to look back upon our past history," said
Senor Maura,t " if we wish to put under criticism the deeds
we have done and to tell our woes in public, then we shall in
the end have to respect the fair name and true rights of
others, to admit our guilt and put the rope around our own
necks. . . . The true cause of all our sorrows and disasters
the an ti- clericals would hide from the people of Spain, the
unfortunate people of Spain, that have been wounded in the
• Cf. Sawyer, as cited above. t Cf, Speech of Mr. Taft already cited.
\ Cf, Speeches before Congress, January 26 and 28, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8o6 AntI' Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept.,
most sensitive and sacred fibres of the heart by so painful and
cruel an adversity. The anti- clericals would point the finger
of scorn and blame at one man as the cause of this adversity.
He is not the cause. The rabble may think so; the worthy
and upright Spaniards do not." " Shortly after our colonial
misfortunes, the common opinion not of a mob, not of the un-
lettered, not of the rabble that had been set on a false scent
and driven mad by the shoutings of violent haranguers in
noisy streets and the scofHngs of conscienceless writers in
heartless papers, but of the thinking few, of that body which
the nation had elected to deliberate upon its affairs of- great
moment — the common opinion, I say, of the Cortes of Spain
was impregnated by a tremendous suspicion, a suspicion founded
on facts, and not on the trumpery of fancy, on facts many
and undoubted that all went to show that the dagger which
had been dug into the heart of Spain was welded and wielded
by Freemasonry and its allied societies." "The Filipino Masons
attacked the friars, because they had been set against Spain
by the Masons of Spain; as a matter of course, the Filipinos
first attacked the only real defence that Spain had in the
islands."
The prime minister's fearless charge was received with
round after round of applause by the clericals and with con-
sternation and indignation by the anti-clericalsi. Inside and
outside the Cortes anti-clerical feeling against Maura ran very
high and far more bitter than ever. Blasco Ibanez wrote in
La Publicidady of Barcelona : ** This man is predestined not to
die in bed." A few days later a well-dressed youth of nine-
teen, as if to meet the prophecy of Blasco Ibaiiez, stabbed the
prime minister, and shouted " Long live anarchy ! " • There-
after a grand public demonstration was given to Maura in
Barcelona ; and, as the parade passed La Publicidad building,
Junoy, Lleget, Lerroux, and Blasco Ibanez were so wrought
up as to shout '^ Death to Maura and the Monarchy ! " A riot
was the result.
Inside the Cortes the anti-clericals shouted for proofs. The
Count de Romanones insisted that the Masons out in the
islands had been a set of fools and had harmed nobody.
Morayta, the successor to Sagasta as grand master of the
Orient of Spain, denied that Masonry in the Philippines had
• Cf. La Gaceta del Norte, Bilbao, April 13, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. 807
been in any way a significant political factor. Against their
unproven statements Maura cited a host of authorities. Among
these were three important pamphlets by Don Isabelo de los
Reyes and Ilocano, an enthusiastic supporter of Philippine
Masonry and revolution. One of these pamphlets. La Revo^
lucion Filipina^ a defence of the revolt from Spain, places the
portrait of Morayta along with those of such fine friends of
Spain as Aguinaldo, De los Reyes, and other revolutionary
leaders, and has as a preface an elaborate eulogy of the ideas
of Isabelo written by Morayta. This work shows that twenty
years ago there was formed a Filipino lodge dependent on
the Grand Orient of Spain. Nothing much came of the
Masonic movement till 1891. Within five years from that
time 180 Tagalo lodges were formed. The smouldering fire of
revolt was fanned anew into flame. The Masonic party in
Spain was hand and glove with the Masonic party in the
islands. Among the Peninsular Masons many openly favored
separation of the colonies from the mother country, and called
themselves -Separatists ; they supported the Liga Filipina and
Katipiinan, whose avowed purpose is to establish a commun-
istic republic of Filipinos, for Filipinos, and by Filipinos * So
strong was this secret movement that in 1896 General Blanco
discovered and reported "a great conspiracy against govern-
ment jn the secret societies."
Seiior Nocedalf added force to the testimonies of Sefior
Maura. In 1896 Seiior Canalejas went to the Philippines to
try to break the backbone of the insurrection over there, and
studied the state of things as he had studied them before in
Cuba. On July i, 1896, he stated his honest opinion in an
editorial in the Heraldo. That opinion Seiior Nocedal resusci-
tated from the files of eight years ago and read to the won-
dering Cortes in the presence of the woful Canalejas. Mark
well this honest statement: "The Masonic lodges that did
so much to help on the insurrection in Cuba have caught up
the Filipinos in their nets. These Filipino Masons set out by
cutting away from the church, they end by rebelling against
the state." There is the truth of things. Yet Seiior Canalejas
now tries to bring men to take for truth the absurd canard
that the friars started and completed the Filipino revolt from
Spain.
^Cf, Sawyer, p. 83. \Cf. Speech before Congress, February 4, 1904. '
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8o8 Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain [Sept.,
Seiior Lerroux, also, had been honest enough, August 30,
1896, to say in La Publicidad: "Masonry in Cuba and the
Philippines is entirely Separatist." Now he cries down Maura
for saying the same thing in Congress.
Perhaps the saddest argument to vindicate Nozaleda and to
incriminate the Masonic party was given by Seflor Llorens.
He showed by documents that the government of Sagasta, then
grand master of the Orient, was the chief cadse of the defeat
that Spain endured. We cannot understand why that govern-
ment acted as it did. Some one blundered. Time will tell
who. A work entitled La Gran Traicion gives evidence that
goes far to showing that the Masonic party was guilty of treason
to Spain. We hope the archives of Madrid will soon give out
such documents as are needed that the truth may appear.
These facts we know: Sagasta's government was often told of
the preparations the United States was making for war, of the
certainty of Dewey's attacking the Philippines, of the utter
lack of defence in the islands. In the whole archipelago there
were only six modern pieces of artillery ; the rest of the guns
were cast in the time of Charles IV. Urgent appeals were
made' for shells, torpedoes, and' niines; nothing was sent, the
entrance to the Bay of Manila was left wide * open.* Govern-*
ment's neglect of the Philippines had all the appearance of
favoring their capture by the United States. A like mystery
surround!^ the action of government in Cuba. Cervera was
forced against his will to sacrifice his magnificent ships, at a
time when their presence in the harbor of Santiago was as
much of a bother to us as the presence of the Russian fleet in
Port Arthur is now to the Japs. A few days before the sur-
render of Santiago, General Shafter cabled that he would bcf
obliged to move back from his position in front of the city.f
Sagasta prevented this retreat by ordering the surrender of
23,000 Spanish soldiers to 15,000 Americans. General Linares
is said to have shot himself to avoid the shameful surrender.
At any fate he was disabled, and General Toral, with tears of
indignant emotion, surrendered to a force inferior in numbers
to his own. All this time there were about 150,000 Spanish
regulars in Cuba, while most of our regulars had already been
sent against Santiago. In the city of Havana there were 199
* Cf. Speech of Llorens before Congress, January 29, 1904. Llorens is a leading authority
on military matters in Spain. t Cf. Report of General Miles for 1898.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] AN Ti^ Clerical Tactics in Spain. 809
staff officers, 2,251 line officers, 40,245 of the rank and file^
and 284 cannons. The generals were all unanimous in urging
the relief of Santiago: Sagasta kept them idle in Havana^
Why did Sagasta blunder so ? We cannot now say for certaiiK
The clerical debaters of the Cortes insist that the grand master
of the Orient was only carrying out the Masonic policy of
freeing the colonies from Spain and of destroying, if possible^
the monarchy itself. Of this we feel certain, that Sagasta's
government was to blame for Spain's disgrace during the late
war; and that it is a shame and a parody on justice now to
point the finger of blame at Mgr. Nozlaleda,
From th6 anti-clerical and Masonic tactics . that we have
been considering, it seems clear that '^there are' lurking be*
neath the surface of Spanish political life all the se^ds of a
serious crisis.'' * The Jacobin and anti- clerical spirit has only in
recent years been injected into the minds of th^ working classes
of ' Spain ; yet as a result of this banefui inoculation, subvep^
sive socialism and anarchy have in a very short time taken
strong hold on Spanish, thought and sentiment. The cosm^^
politan scum of Bai:ceIona/ Madrid, and other large cities stan^k
out in bold vie^. *' The base-mlhded growd the public meet^
ings, fill the low concert halls, ;monopolize the press, and push
themselves to the forefront as representatives of public opinion'.
T'he high-mindec|, the men that really and truly follow conJ-
science, that slowly but surely weave the warp and woof of thife
great social fabric, of a nation, that should shape the hearts and
foirm the minds of Spain;: the men of deep and sincere patriot)-
ism, pure and^holy love, where are they? For the most part
they sit at home and do nothing for Spain; as if, forsooth^
they had no voice at all in the affairs of state. . . . Hid
safe and sound within the four walls of their homes, they look
on with fear and trembling as the torrent of falsehoods an4
calumnies gluts the ways that should be clear for truth ; they
look on and do nothing, worse than nothing, — they bring int6
their, homes the very sheets that have wrought so much deso^i-
lation and deception among the children of Spain." f
The disturbance effected in Spain by the republican and anti*
clerical forces may be clearly followed during the past seven
years. Since 1897 no prime minister has been able to hold
the reins of government more than two years. To-day Maura
* C/. London Tablet, January 30, 1904. t Cf, Leciura Dominical, January 17, 1904.
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
8io anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. [Sept,
is in danger of defeat. Spanish silver has taken a slump down
to forty per cent, of its face value. The republicans arc over-
joyed. El Imparcial at once concludes : " The depreciation of
our silver coinage is due to the nomination of Nozaleda, the
discourses in his defence by Maura, and the predominance of
clericalism in Spain." The truth of it is that the republicans
are doing their best to block the regeneration, of Spain. One
of their members, Senor Zulueta, introduced a measure to bring
about closer commercial relations with the South American
republics. He was not supported by his fellows. They were
honest enough to say: ''Don't talk like that! Why, if we go
on in that way, the republic will never come I '' *' The plan is
a good one; but we must first put the clericals out of
office."*
While we consider these tactics of the anti- clericals of
Spain, we wonder why it is that the Catholics do not unite
against an ti- clericalism. Yet the answer is simple. First, not
all Catholics are clericals. Then, too, the Catholics do not
come together on this one issue because they are kept apart
by so many other issues. There are four parties to which the
clerical Catholics belong. The Carlistas, who uphold the rights
of Don Carlos to the throne ; the Dinasticos, who stand for
the present dynasty ; the Integristas, a branch of the Carlis-
tas, and the Independientes. Besides, a great number of
Catholics, called in Spain liberal Catholics, are Conservatives.
These conservatives are now in power. Seiior Maura is their
prime minister. Maura is a grand and noble Spaniard, yet by
no means a clerical ; in fact his attitude in the Nozaleda affair
has been a surprise to many. He has fundamental notions
that the clerical party cannot accept. He has just put through
Congress an army bill that will force into military service
priests and religious, who are freed from that imposition even
in Protestant countries. In the Nozaleda debate he shocked
the clericals by saying that in his mind there was no such
thing as Catholic right or Protestant right; but right was
right, and that was all. Nocedal took up Maura's policy in
the following words :
'' Can a prelate govern a diocese in the midst of such hel-
lish discord, in the heat of so many evil passions, wrapped
round about with newspapers, theatres, and meetings whose
• Cf, Ltciura Dominical, Febniary"i4, 1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Anti-Clerical Tactics in Spain. 811
whole and set purpose seems to be to insult, to blacken, and
to revile ? Are you going to put a stop to all this ? Or, are
you going to inflict on Padre Nozaleda the punishment of
being shut up in his palace to suffer so many insults, injuries,
and defamations ? Ate you fully determined to prevent all
this ? If not, mark my words ! If you do not put an end to
this violence once and for all, and in every part of Spain, — I
repeat, if you do not put an end to this — things will become
worse and worse. Padre Nozaleda will not be able to rule his
diocese in Valencia; nay more, you will not stay long in your
present office, the monarchy and its throne will not be secure.
"There are two ways, Sefior Maura, and only two — you
cannot steer the ship of state between them ; your government
must be traditional or liberal. A traditional government could
with our laws insist on what I propose ; you cannot do so,—
there is the fault, there is the weakness, there is the failure of
your government.
"Balmes said of General Narvaez, a former prime minister
of Spain: 'It is impossible for him to rule; he has not in his
head a single fixed idea.' Sefior Maura has ideas in his head,
and fixed ones too; but they are liberal ideas, they are ideas
that are in utter contradiction to the ideas that would allow
Padre Nozaleda to rule his diocese without let or hindrance
from the mob, and would insure the peace, prosperity, and
tranquillity of the kingdom. You cannot go by halves with a
revolutionary movement; you must stifle it or be stifled by it.
"When I ask respect for these ideas, I do not ask it for
my own poor reasoning, for my own weak will, for my own
opinions, errors, caprices, and passions. No, I ask esteem and
defence for Catholic right and Catholic justice that, according
to my faith, have come from heaven, and, according to history,
have been the right and the justice, the glory and the great-
ness of many generations of scholars, heroes, and saints, of men
that were honored, noble, and prosperous, that believed and
adored as I believe and adore. You say, Sefior Maura, that
you and your party are not intolerant. I say, you are tyrants.
You wish the inviolability not of conscience, right, and justice,
but of your caprices and fancies — fancies and caprices that are
not favored by history and are condemned by experience ; that
have been proven to have been of no use to us except to lose
to us our colonies and Spain itself.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
?i2 Anti^ Clerical Tactics in Spain^ [Sept.,
,) ''It is sad to say so, but the truth must be admitted — it
bas been said many times before — my father used to say it,
^nd I now repeat it very low that no scandal be taken : it is
sad to say so, but this Congress will go on in the same old
!tvay as an exchange for haggling over political barterings, but
not as a body that will legislate for the regeneration of
Spain."*
By these fiery Avords of a noble and representative cleri-
ical, we may judge how far the clericals are from coming
together with the liberal- conservatives on questions Catholic.
There are signs of the reawakening of Catholicity,! yet ^e arc
Inclined to the sad thought of 'Nocedal, that there is not very
great hope that the flames of anti- clericalism will soon be
smothered in Spain. .
* Cf. Sefior Nocedal's Speech before Congress, February 4, 1904.
• ' \Cf. "The Religious Struggle* in Spain," by S. Sarasola, S.J., The Aiesien^tt, August,
1904.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1 904. J Mission Work in Paris, ,813
MISSION WORK IN PARIS.
BY THE COUNTESS DE COURSON..
PASSING visitor, whom business, pleasure, or
curiosity brings to Paris, is .only able to gather
surface ideas of the inner life, social and reli-
gious, of the so-called " Ville Lumiere."
Unfortunately too, the aspects pi life ^ that
are most persistently and . prominently thrust before his ^eyes
are not calculated to impress him favorably ; his attention is
unavoidably drawn to plays, prints, and publications toleratjed
in France, but that would be strictly prohibited elsewhere,, and
that, illogical as this may appear, do not correctly express the
(thoughts and feelings of the mass of the French people.
If the visitor happens to be of a religious and artistic
:temperament, he will naturally turn to other sources of inter*
est : the Louvre and its priceless art collections ; the churches,
ancient and modern, with their music, their preachers, and, in
certain cases, their old-world aspect, moderni2ed by recent
improvements, will arrest his attention, charm his taste, and
give him, at any rate, a glimpse of the religious life of Paris.
But, as a rule, the Catholic tourist, whose footsteps we are
shadowing for the time being, will hardly be induced to wan-
der beyond the gay streets that surround his hotel. He will,
as a matter of course, visit La Madeleine and St. Roch, Notre
Dame and the Ste. Chapelle, and perhaps also that out-of-the-
way gem of architecture, St. £tienne du Mont; but he will
see nothing of the mission work that is being carried on in
many an outlying suburb, and on the result of which the future
of France as a Catholic nation may be said to depend.
This hand-to-hand fight with the powers of evil, whose
object is to unchristianize the country, is one of the most in-
teresting features of religious life in Paris at the present
moment, and its developments must appeal to the sympathy
of Catholics of all countries, united as they are by a tie of
brotherhood, stronger even than ties of race.
The scene of this strenuous struggle is laid in the thickly
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8 14 Mission Work IN PARIS. [Sept,
peopled "faubourgs," or outlying parishes, that extend round
the city, far removed from the broad streets and avenues of
the wealthy quarters; its heroes are the devoted priests, many
of whom are men of means, culture, and refinement, who have
thrown themselves heart and soul into the fray. Turning their
backs on more brilliant careers that might have opened before
them, they have become missionaries in the literal sense of the
word, and their conception of the life of a twentieth-century
parish priest in a Parisian " faubourg " is very different from
the conventional and dignified ideal of a *'cur^" in more
fashionable regions.
The recent laws issued against the religious congregations
give new impetus to their efforts ; the persecution, of which M.
Waldeck-Rousseau was the inventor and M. Combes is the instru-
ment, reached its climax when the nuns and Christian Brothers,
who directed the poor schools, were, for the greater part,
brutally expelled. All of them are condemned, many have
already been exiled, and it is difficult for Catholics who do
not live in France to estimate rightly the far-reaching conse-
quences of this campaign against the souls of the children of
the poor.
The evil is naturally greatest in the outlying suburbs, where
the working classes live; where socialism is rampant; here on
the walls are placarded blasphemous and incendiary proclama-
tions, that are unknown in the smarter regions of the gay
city, and where, alas! more than elsewhere, children are an
easy prey to the hostile and evil influences that surround them.
The religious life of these parishes has necessarily a pecu-
liar aspect; the churches have not the solemn old-world ap-
pearance of St. Roch or Notre Dame, and the lives of the
priests who serve them are cast on very different- lines from
those of their confreres who minister to the wants of the
Catholics of central Paris.
They are to all intents and purposes missionaries among
the heathen ; their clients are the poor, the miserable, the
ignorant, and the wicked; but, if rough and hard, their lives
possess an element of very real heroism, even of picturesque-
ness, and they seem to be spent in a special manner, under
the protecting hand of God's providence.
A typical parish, among these centres of Catholic life, is
that of Plaisance ; its " cure," the Abbe Soulange-Bodir, is an
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Mission Work IN Paris. 815
interesting personality, a man in the prime of life \vIio is well
to the front among the missionary priests of the Paris
" faubourgs."
Circumstances have made us acquainted with him and with
his work, of which a brief account may interest those of our
readers whose knowledge of religious life in Paris does . not
extend to the unlovely and unhbly *' faubourgs/' with their
poverty and their pain, their capabilities for good and for
evil, their terrible temptations and obscure heroisms.
Plaisance lies beyond the Montpamasse railway station,
south-west of Paris, between Montrouge and Clamart. A hun-
dred years ago it stood in the open country, and was, it
appears, much frequented as a summer resort by the small
tradesmen of the city. Passy, on its picturesque heights above
the river, close to the Bois de Boulogne, once a royal forest,
was the favorite " vill^giature " of the noble and wealthy.
Plaisance was haunted by humbler visitors, whose tiny villas,
with their small gardens, have only lately been swept away by
the rising tide of six-storied houses, where hundreds of human
beings find a shelter — we hardly venture to say a home.
The population of Plaisance is neither better nor worse than
that of other Parisian "faubourgs" — Crenelle, M^nilmontant,
Belleville, La Villette, etc. Its inhabitants may be roughly
divided into two categories : the Parisian '' pur sang," capable
of going to the extremes of both heroism and crime ; bright,
quick, witty, bold, with courteous manners and a native polish
that often make the Parisian workman, when dealt with indi-
vidually, a pleasant and attractive personality. We say when
dealt with individually, for these same men, at public meetings
or among the evil influences of their " atelier," are loud in
their denunciations of all that is worthy of respect. Then,
living side by side with the city-bred Parisian, are the men
and women from the provinces, whom the glamour of the
"Ville Lumi^re" has withdrawn from the healthier atmosphere
of the country. They come chiefly from the poorer parts of
France, from Brittany, La Creuse, La Corrftze, TAveyron. As
a rule the women and children retain for a long time the
simplicity, shyness, and ingenuousness that distinguish them at
once from the native of Paris, but the men easily fall a prey
to the evil influences that encompass them. Whereas among
the "gamins de Paris" there are boys vho, bom and bred
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8 J. 6 Mission Work IN PARIS. [Sept.,
among deplorable surroundings, attain a sublime degree of
sanctity, the softer and shyer '* provincial " has a less marked
individuality, is more easily led, and, in consequence, i:S either
less wicked or less heroic, as the case may ^be.
The Abb^ Soulange-Bodin was ordained priest in 1884 at
the age of twenty-three; he came to Plaisance as "vicaire"
the same year and twelve years later, in jl 896, he was. made
'' cure " of the same parish. He is a man of good birth and
education, endowed with much activity, wide and. practice
ideas, and great physical strength, a quality which, as he
laughingly observes, has considerably helped his spiritual
ministry. Twice, soon after his arrival at Plaisance, he was
grossly insulted in the street; on both occasions he quietly
collared his adversary and sent him. sprawling on the ground;
the story went round the parish and contributed to the/ curb's
popularity ; muscular strength, even more than intellectual
superiority, being a quality much appreciated by. the Parisiap
" roughs." .^
His views on the state of France as regards:, religion are
clearly e;Kpressed; they are fraught with^ grave thot^ght and
j^arnest purpose, but are not depressing. He considered that,
owing to political and social causes into which it would take us
too long to enter, France, in spite of her splendid charitable
institutions, is, as regards her lower orders, a Catholic country
in name only.
Under the Second Enipire, over thirty years ago, when
there was no religious persecution, every man was to all intents
and purposes a nominal Catholic, respectful, if not always
practical ; but if the men of those days had been more active
and more earnest in the fulfilment of their religious duties, the
condition of the country could never have become what it is
now.
The persecution of to-day, cruel and unjust as it is, will
have the one good result of sifting the good grain from the
bad. To be a practical Catholic at the present moment in
France is to cut one's self off deliberately from every chance
of promotion, in civil or military service, high or low ; hence
those who stand by their colors do so at the cost of great
personal sacrifice, and their firmness and sincerity are tested
by the trials they are called upon to endure.
The view that France is a Catholic country in name only
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
I904.] MISSION Woi^K IN Paris, 817
is especially true of the Paris *' faubourgs," where, owing to
peculiar circumstances, unusual calls are made upon the self-
sacrifice of the parish priests. Within the last fifty years the
population of Paris has increased ih an almost alarming man-
ner; the improvements that have been made in the fashionable
quarters have driven the workmen and the poor from the centre
pf: the city, where rents are. heavy, to take xefuge in the
suburbs. These have, in consequence, developed in an extra-
ordinary manner, and the churches that existed fifty or a
hundred years ago are totally inadequate to,<provide for the
spiritual necessities of the inhabitants ; neither :ttre the priests
who serve these churches sufficiently numerous to cope with
the overwhelming numbers of their nominal parishioners.
Many of the Paris "faubourgs" have 80,000 .>^r even- 100,000
inhabitants, and these parishes are served by eight o^r nine
priests!
Not> indeed, that all the inhabitants of the suburbs have
recourse to the ministrations of their pastors; . many of them
live as far removed from the church as though they were
heathens. "Hitherto we have looked upon the people of the
*. faubourgs ' as fundamentally Christians/' says the cur^ of
Plaisance in an excellently worded booklet. ... "We
waited in the church, expecting them to bring their children
to baptism, to come themselves to receive the sacraments or to
attend instructions ; this is a serious mistake. We see now
that the suburbs, being deprived of churches and served by an
insufficient number of priests, have become almost pagan ; we
must, therefore, shape our line of action as we should do in a
missionary country."
Adding practice to theory, the cur^ of Plaisance began by
breaking with the custom of the Paris clergy, among whom it
is usual for each priest to have his own separate establishment.
He and his vicaires live together, a system that has as many
advantages in a moral as in a material point of view.
Young priests who are fresh from their seminary often suf-
fer from the isolation and the responsibilities of their new
existence, hence the discouragement that stifles the noblest
aspirations of young and untried souls. Life, such as it is
understood in the presbytery of Plaisance, places them among
congenial surroundings, and the descriptions we have gathered
from those who form part of this community of missionaries
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
8i8 Mission Work in Paris. [Sept,,
give a pleasant insight into its daily routine. The work is
almost overwhelming; nine devoted priests have to cope with
a population of over 80,000 souls; their days are spent
from morning to night in the arduous duties of their ministry ;
they move freely in the streets of the crowded "faubourg/*
where twenty years ago no priest could show himself without
being insulted, and eagerly seize any pretext for making
acquaintance with their poor and hard-worked neighbors. But,
after long hours of missionary work, when they return home,
there is a cordial exchange of views and ideas; the experience
of one helps the other, disappointments and failures are talked
over, and thus lose much of their bitterness. " If you could
see," said one of these happy members of the little group,
" how we enjoy our recreations together " ; and another
assured us that the crushing weight of labor could hardly be
endured were it not for the strength and refreshment of life in
common. In the eyes of the population it has also an excel-
lent effect, each member of the community is informed of all
that is going on in the parish; the cordiality and unity of
purpose that are known to reign among the priests give them
an influence that each one individually could not hope to
enjoy.
One of the favorite dreams of the Abb^ Soulange-Bodin is
to establish throughout his huge, straggling, and ever- increas-
ing parish small settlements of priests, living together near a
chapel, which might be a centre of social, religious, and
charitable works founded on the same lines as those that have
grown up under the shadow of the parish church. This would
continue to be the central point from whence the workers draw
their inspirations, but these outposts of missionaries would, he
believes, have a wide- spreading influence, and must inevitably
bring the priests into closer contact with the people.
A foundation of this kind has been made at Vauves, within
the precincts of the parish of Plaisance, where a group of mis-
sionaries are successfully laboring under the patronage of Our
Lady of the Rosary.
The works established by M. Soulange-Bodin are manifold;
they appeal to persons of every age and standing, and are
intended to bring every man, woman, and child in the parish
in touch with the church and her ministers.
A mere list of the devout, charitable, and useful as.<:ocia-
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Mission Work in, Paris. 819
tions founded by the cure of Plaisance is enough to give an
idea of the intensity of religious life that be has kindled in the
portion of the vineyard entrusted to his care ; the impression is
fitly completed by a visit to his church on Sunday afternoon,
when parish work is in full swing and the different ''patron-
ages'' and men's clubs open wide their hospitable doors.
Besides the confraternities and associations that exist in every
parish : in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, of the Blessed Vir-
gin, of the Holy Family, for a. good death, for Christian
mothers, for the relief of the souls in purgatory, etc., etc., the
cur^ has established a confraternity of '' Our Lady of Labor,"
under whose patronage his church is placed. The object of
this confraternity, which demands no subscription of its mem-
bers, but only an " Ave " to be recited daily, is to promote
the union, the spiritual improvement, and even the temporal
peace and happiness of workers of all classes. He has spared
no pains to convince his people that he and his brother-priests
are the friends, the helpers, the ever- ready sympathizers and
advisers of the working classes, to whom he teaches that labor
must be sanctified by religion to attain its true dignity and
nobleness.
Then there are Conferences of St Vincent de Paul, for
visiting the poor; catechisms for children of all ages, which
are doubly useful now that religious teaching in the schools
has been abolished ; a professional school of needlework for
girls; several ''patronages," one for little boys, another for
young men, and others for girls.
These '* patronages " are, among all the religious works
that flourish in Paris, peculiarly adapted to the necessities of
the present day. Here the boys who go to the lay schools
and the young men whose days are spent in the godless
' " ateliers," find not only a cordial and healthy atmosphere,
wise counsel and affectionate sympathy, but also the/ oppor-
tunities of intellectual development for which modern youth is
so keen. In this respect the devoted priests who direct the
'' patronages " keep well abreast of the aspirations of their day ;
every evening lectures, free of cost, on literary, artistic, and
scientific subjects are given to the members, as well as lessons
in modern languages and in music.
The club for grown-up men is another institution that is
deservedly popular at Plaisance; so is an association for rail-
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820 Mission Work in Paris. [Sept.,
way clerks and workmen; a savings bank; two ^'dispen-
saires," where medical advice and remedies are freely given
away to all who like to ask for them ; a " Secretariat du
peuple " — literally the People's Office — where, once a week, a
lawyer, as competent as be is charitable, receives all those who
wish to consult him. In pure kindness, he gives the poor the legal
advice they so often need and which they would otherwise obtain
only with difficulty and at the cost of heavy expense ; on Sunday,
when he gives his audiences, his waiting-room is never empty.
'Then, besides these organized works, of which time and
space forbid us to give more than a brief summary, there are
ilnaiiy others, less public and no less useful. There are, for
instance, the devoted women whose mission it is to ascertain
that the children born in the parish are duly baptized. Of
kite years the proportion of unbaptized children in the suburbs
of Paris has increased in a truly alarming manner, and we
ourselves have often ' come across families where, from their
parents' negligetice, igiforance, or hostility, children of ten and
twelve have grown up without receiving baptism. To counter*
act this evil the helpers, whose services the cur^ of Plaisance
has enlisted, go from time to time to the '* Mairie " and care*
fully note down the names and directions of the children
newly born at Plaisance; they compare these notes With the
baptismal registrars that are kept at the church, and if they
discover, as it often happens, that some of the babies have
not been made Christians, they visit the mothers and gene-
rally succeed, by persuasion and kindness, in repairing the
omission. These visits have the advantage of bringing the
charitable ladies in touch with the hard working mothers, whose
gratitude is quickly awakened by any proofs of disinterested
kindness.
A lady, to whom Plaisance, where she has made her home,
owes a large debt of gratitude, has found another means of
benefiting her poor neighbors ; she gives out needlework to
be done by women who are anxious to earn money, but
are unable to leave their families ; this work is done at home
and is paid for more generously than by any of the iarge
Paris shops.
The different institutions that have sprung up around the
priest's house at Plaisance, the easy and cordial dealings of
the missionaries with the people among whom they live, has
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.] Mission Work IN Paris, 821-
dbne wonders in dispelling the prejudices that the anti- reli-
gious papers so carefully entertain in the minds of the lower
orders:
The Abb^ Soulange-Bodin has bravely faced the fact thdt
the men of the Paris " faubourgs " no longer come to church ;
therefore that if the ptiest is to meet them/ it must be outside
the precincts of the parish church. He loses no opportunity
of coming into touch with the members of his flock, either at
public meetings, in the streets, in all matters that concern their
material interests as well as their spiritual welfare. He has
succeeded in convincing them that God's minister is also the
people's friend, interested in their joys ' and sorrows, solicitous
for their happiness and well being; that in helping them to
bear their daily burden of care and sorrow, he is not merely
fulfilling the duties of his calling, but he is also following the
dictates of his heart. —
More than this is necessary, no doubt, to make the men
of Piaisance practical Catholics ; but there is among them a
steady progress, and the targe church that rises in the midst
of the busy suburb is now frequented, not only by women
and children but also by an ever-increasing number of men.
This church itself is an illustration of the fact that we
stated at the beginning of this paper : that in these missionary
settlements the helping hand of Providence is felt at every
turn. The cur^ himself marvels at it'; though often perplexed
and anxious as to ways and means, he has never been for-
saken by the Master for whom he works, and, when human
aid seemed to fail, assistance came from unexpected quarters.
This was felt more particularly when it became necessary to
replace a small and absolutery insufficient chapel by a church
in proportioil with the needs of the rapidly increasing parish.
Once a man, well dressed and well educated, came to see
the cur^, and, without telling him his name, placed a parcel
of bank notes in his hand. ''Take them," he said; "they are
all my savings. If I were to keep them I know that I should
make a bad use of them ; take them for your church and pray
for my mother's conversion." Another time the same unknown
visitor brought a second donation of ten thousand francs.
Again an anonymous gift of several thousand francs was
sent by a newly married couple, who, in order to draw down
the blessing of God on their life, gave to* the church a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
822 MISSION WORK IN PARIS. [Sept.,
sum of money that had been put aside for their wedding trip.
Again, an unknown lady, quietly dressed, brought forty thou-
sand francs, and another time one hundred thousand, declin-
ing to give her name.
One of the vicaires, whose special charge is the men's club,
had a similar experience. He was wondering, somewhat
anxiously, how he could pay the bills that were lying before
him, and which represented the sums that had been expended
on the club and "patronage," when a lady entered, so simply
dressed that his first thought was that she came to seek relief.
"I owe much to the mercy of God," she said, "and am
anxious to pay my debt ; tell me, what can I do for the church's
parochial works ? " The priest pointed to the unpaid bills and
named the sum t;hat they represented, whereupon his visitor
promptly drew out a bundle of bank notes and laid them down
before the astonished and grateful M. G .
Once the cur^, while building bis church in honor of Our
Lady of Labor, felt, almost for the first time, his courage fail
him. His funds were exhausted, he knew not which way to
turn to get the necessary sum to bring the work to a happy
conclusion, and, under this impression, he told bis priests that
he wondered if, after all, it was the will of God that he should
complete the church ; another, he added, might succeed where
he seemed to fail, and finish what he had begun. The priests
suggested that a novena to St. Joseph should be made by all
the friends and well-wishers of the work, and the result of
this crusade of prayer was that ninety thousand francs came in
from unexpected quarters before the last day of the novena.
No wonder, then, that at Plaisance the watchful care of
God's providence is a favorite theme; not that Providence
spares his children all care and anxiety, but when human
efforts, bravely made, seem insufficient, the assistance so ear-
nestly prayed for comes in at last.
Another subject upon which the priests of Plaisance will-
ingly enlarge is the fact that the attacks made upon the Paris
churches last spring were productive of excellent results. Olir
readers may remember that during the months of May and
June, 1903, bands of socialists, free-thinkers, and "roughs" of
every description proceeded to attack certain churches in the
outlying quarters of the town. These " Apaches," to give them
the name by >^hich they are commonly known, were looked
Digitized by VjOOQIC
1904.] Mission Work in Paris. 823
upon with indulgence, and even with approval, by M. Combes
and his friends. Their leader was a notorious apostate priest,
named Charbonnel, and they generally timed their attacks when
the churches were full of women and children. The cur^ of
Plaisance, who believes that self-defence in such cases is a
social duty, took his measures. On a certain Sunday in June,
when the "Apaches" were expected, he decided that Vespers*
should take place at the usual time, that the women and chil-
dren should be placed in the upper galleries of the building,
and he willingly accepted the offers of all the men who volun-
teered to defend the church. They came in crowds, not only
the practical Catholics who are members of the different asso-
ciations that have been founded in the parish, but also men
who, although they never enter a church, possess instincts of
justice and liberty stronger than their anti-clerical prejudices.
All of them were equipped for a fight — some with huge sticks,
others with stones and bricks.
Vespers were chanted ; and while the solemn sound of the
psalms echoed inside, the hissing and hooting " Apaches "
gathered outside the church. Soldiers and policemen were
there also, for a sharp encounter was expected between the
Catholics and their foes.
One of the priests present on the occasion described to us
how, just before Benediction, the men within the sacred build-
ing opened wide the doors to let in some of their friends, who
had arrived late. For an instant the scene was a striking one ;
within, on the altar, the Blessed Sacrament, raised on Its throne,
was surrounded by a blaze of light; in the front were the
kneeling priests, and then a closely packed army of resolute
men, all ready to fight; outside, on the other side of the
street, stood the yelling crowd; between the two M. L^pine^
the prefect of police, pale and nervous, doing his best to pre-
vent an encounter which the defenders of the church desired
but could not provoke. Their resolute attitude was enough;
the "Apaches," who throughout their campaign proved them-
selves to be arrant cowards, fled from a hand-to-hand fight
with these determined men ; but the volunteers who that day
crossed the threshold of the church often returned. The priests
of Plaisance owe many new friends to the " Apaches," and
whenever an attack was expected, during the summer months,
their volunteers were at their post and the cur^ very wisely
VOL. LXXIX. — 53
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
824 Mission Work in Paris. [Sept.,
entrusted the defence of the church entirely to their care.
What, our readers will naturally ask, are the practical results
of the arduous mission work so bravely carried on in the
suburbs of Paris ? Taking Plaisance as an example, we may
safely say that these results are real, consoling, and encourag-
ing, but that it would be unwise to expect wholesale conver-
'sions among a population that is, to all intents and purposes,
almost heathen in its utter ignorance and unreasoning hostility.
Yet, even among the workingmen, who are the most diffi-
cult to influence, M. Soulange-Bodin has achieved much good;
he says Mass at ii on Sundays expressly for the men of the
parish, to whom a short instruction is addressed. At first forty
men only were present ; their number has now increased to
four hundred, and the number of Easter Communions is more
than double what it was eight ^ears ago, when the present
cur^ took in hand the government of the parish.
If these results, comforting though they be, appear out of*
proportion with the sum of energy spent upon th6 mission
work by those whose life is given up to this one object, let
our readers remember against what huge difficulties the priests
of the Paiis "faubourgs" have to battle. One of these diffi-
culties is the odious and tyrannical pressure exercised by the
government upon those who are in its pay. One of the Plais-
ance priests told us how several government clerks who be-
longed to the men's club, founded by the cur^, were called
upon by their chiefs to choose between their employment and
their attendance at the club. The men were poor, they had
their families to support, and the cur^ was the first to advise
them to leave the club. There is no country in Europe so
tyrannized over as France at the present date!
We must conclude this brief account by a pilgrimage to
the sanctuary of Our Lady of Labor, the patroness of Plaisance,
the queen of the busy, struggling " faubourg." Her church is
spacious, airy, light; it is built in wood and iron with stone
facings. It has a home-like appearance, although it possesses
nothing of the old-world, venerable aspect of the churches of
ancient Paris, but to a careful observer many signs betray the
fact that the builders of the church wish it to be, not only the
House of God but also the home of his hard-worked, suffering
children.
From the explanatory notices that are posted up we gather
Digitized by VjQOQ IC
1904.]
Mission Work in Paris.
825
that there are no hard-and-fast rules at Plaisance; that day and
nighty at all hours, priests are ready to hear confessions and
to baptize; that the people may seek their ministrations when
and as they can, every allowance being made for the difficul-
ties of these toilers in the struggle for life. The paintings and
ornaments of the church carry out the same idea, that it was
built for the laboring classes, to whom a thousand details bring
comforting and strengthening thoughts and visions of a bright
hereafter.
What we have written of Plaisance and the mission work
that is being carried on among its people is true, in a certain
measure, of other Paris parishes, but in point of successful
organization M. Soulange-Bodin is unrivalled. t
May his efforts and those of his colleagues prove successful 1
The battle that is- being waged against the powers of ibvil in
the suburbs is a hopeful symptom for the religious future of
France; ten just men might have saved the doomed cities of
Palestine; there are, thank God, more than ten just men in a
Paris "faubourg"!
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
826 Present Conditions in [Sept.,
PRESENT CONDITIONS IN THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.
II.
*HEN it is seen, as we showed in the last number,
how little respect Viscount Halifax has for the
bishops who are, according to the Anglican
theory, the supreme heads of the church, inas-
much as they have over them in spiritual affairs
no sovereign, either pope or king, the question arises how a sensi-
ble, honest, and reasonable man who claims to be a Catholic can
take up such a position. A Protestant within certain limits can
offer a reasonable defence; for private judgment being the
supr^Tii judge (according to the Protestant p3sition), claims the
right to set aside bishop and pope and general councils. We
said within certain limits, for it is beginning to become plain,
even to Protestants who wish to be orthodox, that deference to
a certain book or certain books called the Bible is an illogical
position for a believer in the absolute right of private judgment ;
and private judgment now assumes the right to dismiss as
obsolete, or even as misleading, such parts of the *Bible as do
not commend themselves to the private judgment of the
individual. But the Catholic position is essentially one in
which submission to authority is the distinctive mark and the
right of private judgment denied. How comes it, then, that
Lord Halifax, who claims to have rejected Protestantism and
to hold the Catholic Faith in its integrity, treats with so little
respect the bishops of the Establishment, and claims the right
to mete out to them praise and blame — mostly blame ?
If not a Protestant, he must reverence some authority ; not
being a Roman Catholic, he rejects that of the Holy See;
logically therefore he should respect the bishops of the Establish-
ment.
In old days, in the time of the Tractarians, Dr. Newman
at first recognized their rights and was willing to suffer for
this recognition. But he, as well as Dr. Pusey, soon made
a step even as Anglicans which had no logical goal but Rome.
They both claimed a right to appeal to antiquity, and by their
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 827
own study to interpret antiquity ; that is, in correction both of
bishops and of Anglican formularies. To us it seems that this
was fatal to any Catholic way — to speak paradoxically — of
remaining an Anglican. The church was to be tried by the
individual's study of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers for
a period fixed by himself. This was as Protestant a proceeding
as that of the one who should derive his faith from a private
study ot the Bible only. Dean Hook took up a more logical
position when he declared that the appeal to antiquity had
been made already, and that the Anglican formularies repre-
sented the right and authoritative interpretation of antiquity,
and that it was not competent for individual students to '' go
behind the returns/' or to make a fresh appeal. But all those
theories have long since been superseded, and the theory which
has been adopted by numerous Anglicans is at once less and
more Catholic. It dismisses the exclusive appeal to antiquity
and recognizes the voice of a living or semi-living church.
This church cannot speak'by any definitive voice either of pope
or general council, inasmuch as she is divided. But, notwith-
standing this division, it is within the power of any one earnest
in the pursuit of Catholic truth to learn from the ordinary
magisterium of the church with practical certitude what the
faith is, and if such a seeket after truth finds that all the
bishops of the church, Roman and Greek, teach a particular
doctrine which is not taught by his own branch, or which may
even be condemned by the bishops of that branch, being as
they are bishops of only two provinces of the church, he has
a right to reckon that doctrine to be a part of the Catholic
faith, and even to condemn his own bishops for not teaching
it. This principle enables a man to be both a Protestant and
a Catholic ; to exercise in the widest possible sphere his
private judgment and at the same time to hold, or to claim to
hold, the entire Catholic faith. It is this theory which seems
reasonable and right to such earnest and devoted men as Lord
Halifax, and which enables them to look upon themselves as
the defenders and expounders of the Catholic Faith. In this
exposition and defence they indeed do in many ways the cause
of truth a good service and we may perhaps see in their work
a sign of a coming outpouring of the Holy Spirit, turning the
hearts of the children to the fathers and bringing back to the
unity of the faith those who through no fault of their own are
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828 Present Conditions in [Sept.,
outside of the one visible church. But the Protestantism which
is in the very blood of every Englishman is far from being
.dead even among those who would pour contempt upon the
very name..
The Qurio\is mingling of the Catholic and the Protestant
spirit which is found in the Established Church has been mani-
fested in a strikijig manner by the movement for the restora-
tion of the ancient synods as formerly held when the church
was free from state control. The chains by which the church
is bound gall and chafe many who can hardly be called
High Churchmen. A few years ago an attempt was made to
secure a reform of Convocation so as to enable it to take the
' initiative in legislation, while not ousting^ Parliament from the
control of this legislation. This scheme, while it accorded to
laymen a place in the councils of the church, yet admitted
them upon a franchise determined by the clergy. Archbishop
Temple, however, knew well the mind of the English people.
He saw clearly that they would not^ legalize any relaxation of
the bonds by which ecclesiastics are kept in their right posi-
tion. He told the Convocation plainly that any scheme which
bad a tendency to give real power to the church stood no
chance of being accepted. Since that declaration the move-
ment for a council has taken a somewhat different course.
The strong desire to learn what the voice of the Church of
England is has led to the formation of a council which has
no legal authority, but which it is hoped will have moral
weight. This council is made up of the two Houses of Convo-
cation of Canterbury and York, each of which consists of an
upper and a lower house, and of the recently constituted
Houses of Laymen of each province. The Houses of Convo-
cation have a legal status^ the Houses of Laymen have none.
It is doubtful, however, whether the two Houses of Convo-
cation have a right to meet together as a single body, and it
is certain that the Lower Houses of Convocation have a very
poor claim to represent the clergy. How far the Houses of
Laymen may be considered as representative of their brother
churchmen it is hard to say. The Bishop of Hereford declares
that with rare exceptions the laymen which make up the
houses belong to the straitest sect of Tory gentlemen, and are
consequently supporters of the present government. The moral
weight attaching to the decisions of the council has not proved
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very great, and one resolution to which it came has been
openly condemned by even episcopal members of the council.
This has tended to destroy the moral weight which was hoped
for, and, in fact, the practical result of the first meeting has
been to make this solemn attempt at a revival of the ancient
powers of the church verge upon the ridiculous, inasmuch
as its effect has been to place the church among the supporters
of a government which is on the eve of a downfall, to make
her an ally of the liquor trade, and to set her against the
moral forces which are attempting to control the evils arising
from intemperance. Moreover, it has shown in how little esteem
the bishops are held, and how little influence they possess.
For the resolution approving the Government Licensing Bill
passed by the council was opposed by the bishops; for when
the orders voted separately seven bishops voted in favor of
the resolution, twelve against it. While in the Lower House
out of 124 members only 37 followed the lead of their spiritual
fathers; and as for the laymen, to admit whom into the 'coun-
cils of the church there has been shown a readiness to sacri-
fice the fundamental basis of Anglicanism — its deference to
antiquity — only 15 could be found to side with the bishops in
making the church a. moral force in the nation in this time of
crisis.
The ill success of this"" attempt to engraft on the Estab-
lishment the democratic spirit of the age may, perhaps, teach
its heads that fidelity to principle pays best in the long run ;
that the desire to be up to date may produce the results it
aims at, and which it deserves, in a brand-new organization
like the Salvation Army; but that for an organization which
claims to have come into being hundreds of years ago and to
have a Divine Founder to whom it owes its form of govern-
ment, which asserts its continuous succession from Him and
its union with the body established by Him; for such a body
as this to undertake to alter the fundamental and distinctive
hierarchical character of the church founded by Him is only to
manifest to the world that its pretensions to represent that
church are untenable.
The temptation to do this is, of course, very strong. The
Church of England has had everything in its favor; it inherited
the endowments of the ages of faith ; it acquired possession of
the churches and cathedrals which are the monuments of that
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830 Present Conditions in [Sept.,
faith; it has had the support of all the powier of the state;
it has been intimately associated with the strong national feeU
ings of an insular race ; and what is the result ? We give the
answer not in our own words, for we might be thought to
be writing ex parte. We quote, therefore, from a member of
one of the communities now springing op with the hope of
effecting a restoration in the Establishment: "Our present
methods have entirely failed to evangelize the masses of this
country; England is rapidly approaching national apostasy.
The persistent attempt to drive Christ from our schools,
the- rapid decay of traditional religion and the spread of
unbelief, the collapse of a large section of Dissent into a
religion which may be described as ^politics touched with
emotion,' the wide-spread popularity of Undenominationalism,
which is the most subtle form of scepticism, and the utter
decfiy of public worship, all suggest that the church must re*
vise her methods. In London four persons out of five go
nowhere, and take no notice of formal religion. In other
great towns whole parishes are wildernesses of indifference,
and innumerable churches are sepulchres of a religion which
has lost its power to save. In the army in English regiments
(omitting Irish and Scotch) about 80 per. cent of our soldiers
are registered as Church of England. Of these not two per
cent, are regular communicants ; . not five per cent, dare to
make any outward profession of religion — such as kneeling for
prayers. In the country men are almost universally absent
from our altars ; and even when some parish is galvanized
into life by the strong personality of some vigorous parish
priest, it sinks back again into indifference when he moves to
some other sphere of work."
We will give one more testimony, that of the Rev. Percy
Dearmer : " There are thirteen Anglican priests to every five
Dissenting ministers, and to every one Roman Catholic priest
— that is to say, our numbers are more than double that
of all the other religious ministers put together. Yet our
congregations are now barely equal to theirs in spite of all
the advantages which we possess." The public tokens of
regard shown by the King to the Head of the Church, and
by the Prince of Wales to the Salvation Army and to a
Wesleyan Settlement, may perhaps be taken as evidence
of their having seen the loss of influence over the people
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1904.] THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 83 1
by the Establishment. This state of things, this loss of its
hold upon the people of the land, a fact now so palpable
and clear that it can no longer be denied, forms the motive
for the attempt to interest the laymen (and the lay women
too) in the church by giving them a share in its government.
The Bishop of Salisbury, at the head of a committee appointed
by Convocation, has issued a report in which an elaborate
attempt is made to show that up to the present time the
Church East and West has been mistaken upon this point,
and not only the church but also such learned authorities as
Dr» Pusey, Canon Liddon, and Dr. Bright. It is, of course, of
vital importance ^or a human institution to cater to the desires
and wishes of the arbiters of its fate, and if the people will
not accept the teaching of a church of this kind then the
church must accept the teaching of the people. This conduct
is opening the eyes of many who have clung to the Establish-
ment as a faithful representative of the primitive church. In-
stead of that hitherto cherished ideal, there is to be a modern
church order; antiquity is no longer recognized as the ulti-
mate historical standard. The standard now adopted is tlie
idea which the twentieth ceiitury forms as to what was the
New Testament conception of the church. Development, that
unfailing refuge of the innovator, is brought .in to supply the
ground for this new de{)arture — a development which for
Anglicans is without the safeguard of a living authority. The
action of the bishops in thus seeking to popularize their
church and to secure thereby a broader albeit lower basis,
looking down instead of looking up, so far from being of ser-
vice to the church, is becoming a cause of anxiety to many
who have been trying to find rest in the Establishment. They
are asking whether there is anything about which the Church
of England speaks definitely and finally, and are beginning to
think that perchance Mr. Gladstone's doubt as to whether
there would be in the West any organized body of believers
in the Christian verities other than the Church of Rome may
have arisen from hia dim perception of the real truth, that the
Church of Rome is the rock on which the church is built.
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^ ^ XTbe Xateet Boohs. ^ ^ |
|i 4«
Mr. Mallock occasionally drops
THE VEIL OF THE TEMPLE, into the trade of a novelist • in
By W. H. Mallock. order to give wider publicity to
his feats of dialectics. Novel-
writing for its own sake interests him little ; although he is so
extraordinarily clever that he acquits himself creditably as a
craftsman of fiction. But for an age so delivered up to novel-
reading as ours, the novel is the best means possible for who-
soever conceives himself to have a message and wishes to
convey it to the average man. Now Mr. Mallock has a mes-
sage. He believes it to be of momentous importance too; so
important in fact as to contain within itself the salvation of
religion from the final assault and the ultimate triumph of
materialistic science. Mr. Mallock's message is this : It is futile
to attempt to reconcile science and faith. It is not only use-
less but suicidal in the apologists of Christian theism to
attempt to refute the scientific objections so frequently flung
against them. For science has won a complete intellectual
victory over the> fundamental postulates of religion, has in fact
annihilated them, and made them as incapable of forming a
rational basis of belief as a thousand corpses on a battlefield
would be incapable of forming a new regiment of the line.
The three propositions that lie at the heart of theism are:
there is a personal God ; the human will is free ; the human
soul is immortal. Now every one of these is no longer scien-
tifically credible, says Mr. Mallock. On the contrary the pure
reason finds them scientifically incredible, baseless, and prepos-
terous.
So much for the first step in Mr. Mallock's new apologetic.
Most unpromising it certainly looks, seeming in fact to com-
mon, non-Hegelian intellects to be so huge a stride away from
religion as to leave us at the outermost station of unbelief.
The second step, however, leads Godward. The -moral law,
the distinction between right and wrong, the mysterious but
indisputable supremacy of purity, honesty, veracity, and all that
complexus of spiritual and ethical faculties and aspirations
• rh€ Veil of the Temple, By William H. Mallock. New York. The Putnam Company.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 833
which crown life with its sacrcdcst nobility, form an over-
whelming difficulty to materialism and imperiously command
belief in the three fundamentals which the pure reason, left to
itself, must have rejected. So here is the position in which
we find ourselves. Our reason cannot accept God, freedom,
and immortality ; and on the other hand everything that makes
life and character holy forces us to assent to all three. Recon-
ciliation of these antinomies is impossible^ Pure reason can
never do aught else than bow religion out at the front door;
practical reason finds it equally impossible not to welcome it
in at the back. In such a quandary the first sentiment which
Mr. Mallock would have us feel is resignation. We cannot
bring together the two members of the contradiction, so let us
not try. Let us learn to hold . within our minds at one and
the same time two directly antithetical positions. Let us get
over our superstitious reverence for the principle of contradic-
tion. Let us be religious; for practically we must live up to
the old beliefs, else the beauty of life is departed. But while
religious, yea, deeply and fervently religious, let us acknowl-
edge that religion has no place in a rational scheme of knowl-
edge, that its first principles and postulates are intellectually
untenable, and that, while welcomed by the heart as guest and
savior, it must ever be hunted by the mind as outcast and
impostor.
This is an outline of the Gospel according to Mallock. It
seems to be filled with a spirit of genuine love for religion,
and an earnest zeal to promote it. Mr. Mallock thinks that
scientific defences of belief are ruining belief, because it is
scientifically indefensible. But if the Christian apologist will
confine himself to an exposition of the necessity of religion
for noble life and character, then religion will win the assent
of the choicest minds of the race ; for such minds will follow
the will to believe rather than the intellect which shrinks from
belief. Hence he conceives himself, even while demolishing
the proofs of God, free will, and the life immortal, to be not
only a defender of religion, but the only sort of defender
whose plea will be admitted by modern men.
With regard to Mr. Mallock's fundamental position, namely,
that religion can be at the same time divinely true for life and
character, and totally false for mind and thought, we will say
but little. It is a position which no one who possesses an
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834 THE LATEST BOOKS. [Sept.,
adequate notion of the indivisible unity of truth and of the
symmetry of human faculties can entertain. It flings into the
human mind a disorder greater than any ever objected against
the argument from design. In bidding us to accept its antino-
mies of reason and be at peace, it commands the impossi-
ble. For every whit .as strong as our passion for truth is our
conviction that truth is one; that it is a city at peace, and
not a kingdom in civil war. With this speculative side of Mr.
Mallock's system we would not detain our readers long. What
we wish just now to bring out is the practical point that Mr.
Mallock has fallen into the pit which system-builders usually
dig for themselves; that is, he has made facts fit his scheme
instead of adapting his scheme to facts. He overstates the
case for science and understates the case for theism. It is his
purpose to destroy any scientific foundation of belief; and this
purpose has darkened his vision to the real value of evidence.
Because there are diflSculties in the way of a personal Deity,
human freedom, and immortality, Mr. Mallock says: Behold,
God, will, and the soul are intellectually absurd. Especially
in this novel he quite outrages fairness in the enormous claims
he sets up for science, and in the miserable apology he de-
vises for an intellectual foundation of faith. Whatever wild
statements discredited infidels like Haeckel have made against
religion, ' Mr. Mallock accepts as '^ the last word of science " ;
and to the customary arguments in favor of a blind, fatal,
purposeless universe, he attributes apodictic conclusiveness,
forgetting, it would seem, that many of the men most learned
in the laws of that universe have acknowledged that not only
does it not exclude, but it demands a personal Creator, moral
responsibility, and a life that survives physical death. Mr.
Mallock is clever, but not fair. He displays a skill in dialectic
fence which is extraordinary ; but far less conspicuous in him
is a love for the whole, sound, sober truth. He will be ap-
plauded by those who are captivated by brilliance ; he will not
be followed by those who seek caution and gravity. He is an
unrivalled debater; but he is not what he .has claimed to be,
"an intellectual accountant," who dispassionately writes down
the full statement of each side of the theistic controversy.
And as to this present book of his, we doubt whether it
will lead many to think well of religion. What is destructive
in it will help along the work of such despicable productions
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1 904. ] The La test Books. 835
as the Riddle of the Universe ; and what is constructive is not
ably enough done to promise much benefit to belief. Of course
the book is ingeniously put together, and charmingly written.
A subtle humor pervades it which gives tenfold carrying
power to its philosophy; and the weightier dialogues are so
relieved by the small talk of ordinary life that one is forced
to admit that never before has metaphysics been made so
attractive. Two scenes, one in which the present confusion
of Anglican theology is depicted ; the other in which an ex-
priest meets with discomfiture in his advocacy of Ethical Cul<-
ture, are inimitable ; they almost, in fact, deserve to be immor-
tal. The book ends with a poem which hints that after all
the Way, the Truth, and the Life is Christ. May the sugges*
tion deepen to conviction both in Mr. Mallock's own mind,
and in the minds of the thousands whom he influences!
Would that so bright a pen and so keen a mind would cease
their dialectic dallying with doubt, and would serve the cause
of that Sovereign Person whose power to uplift, enlighten, and
inspire has caused to shine above the bloodsheddings and the
brutalities of human history a light of glory that must be
divine !
The late Lord Acton is recognized
LETTERS OF LORD ACTON.* by the whole world as one of the
most profoundly learned men that
ever lived. The deeper the knowledge of the scholars who
came in contact with him, the greater was their amazement at
his erudition. In modem history he was supreme; in general
ecclesiastical history he had hardly a rival; in the history of
institutions, of laws, and of sciences he was a master both of
detail and of those tendencies, influences, causes, and effects
which fall under* what we term the philosophy of history ; in
metaphysics he was widely read; in theology he could have
occupied a doctor's chair; and in the learned literature. of the
chief European languages he was thoroughly at home, inas-
much as German, French, Italian, and Spanish were as familiar
to him as English. When one reflects upon Mr. Bryce's estimate
that Lord Acton read on an average an entire octavo volume
a day, half the time a German octavo ; and when one con-
siders that this reading was done by a mind that could easily
• Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone, With a Biographical Introduction by Herbert
Paul. New York : The Macmillan Company.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
836 The Latest Books. [Sept,
retain, assimilate, and co-ordinate it, one may acquire some
inadequate idea of the power, depth, and fulness of the illustri-
ous scholar's attainments and intelligence. In character Lord
Acton was as unobtrusive as his learning was immense. He
wrote no extensive work, although he had planned a History
of Liberty which, if it had seen the light of day, would pro-
bably have been a classical composition for all time. He made
no parade of scholarship, was characteristically modest and
retiring, preferred to listen rather than to speak, and revealed
the riches of his mind only when he was sought in advice or
consultation. Religion he held as the first and greatest interest
of history and of life. The moral law he so venerated that he
could not withhold his indignation from whatsoever man or
institution violated or questioned it. His Christian spirit
beautifully appears in his last words to a dying daughter:
" Be glad, rcky child ; you will soon be with Jesus Christ."
It must sadden every sincere man to think that a Catholic
scholar so profound and so noble should have fallen under the
displeasure of the church. Acton was the pupil and close
friend of DoUinger, and during the momentous days of the
Vatican Council he stood beside his master fighting vigorously
and bitterly against the definition of infallibility. Unlike
Dollidger, he did not leave the church. He remained in it and
died in it. But after 1870 a cloud rested on him while he
lived. And indeed he did little to remove it. We dare say it
will be the verdict of impartial history that Acton showed some
lack of magnanimity in his retention of the prejudices of that
historic controversy. For the rest of his life he was hardly
capable of judging fairly the actions and policies of popes. In
speaking of '' Vaticanism " he puts almost a sneer into his
words. In expressing indignation against individuals or asso-
ciations in the church, his tone is often regrettable, from the
point qf view of intellectual honesty no less than from that of
religious propriety. The position which he maintained in 187a
was best defended by exploiting the disedifying side of eccle-
siastical history, and with this unfortunate aspect of his study
he became only too familiar. He seems unable to see the
other and holier side; and one would look long, we fancy, in
his writings for any generous, whole-souled praise of pope.
Curia, or religious order. Even a love of truth may be narrow
and may mislead, and however admirable the conscience which
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1904.] The Latest Books. 837
impefs a scholar to discover, to publish, and to castigate the
sins of history, there is an unhappy defect in the mind which
cannot occasionally look behind the sins to catch a glimpse of
the virtues which assuredly are there. This shortcoming, grave
enough it certainly is, is almost the only blemish in a remark-
ably gifted mind and an unusually noble soul. Very likely it
kept Lord Acton from doing some work on the historical side
of Catholic apologetic, and the church was ^thus deprived of
one of the ablest defenders she could possibly have had.
These preliminary remarks may indicate, to some extent,
the spirit and character of Lord Acton's letters to Mary
Gladstone, which have recently been published. It is natural
that Acton should have carried on an intimate correspondence
with a member of the great premier's family, for he was a
Gladstone worshipper. Gladstone and Burke were to his mind
the most illustrious of English statesmen. With all his soul he
loved liberty, the widest possible liberty. It was the study of
his life, the subject oftenest in his thoughts, the purpose which
he especially aspired to promote. A Tory he could not be;
and in associating himself with Gladstone he believed that be
was following the most advanced and enlightened of Liberals,
the greatest and best of Democrats. These letters, as we
might have expected, are principally taken up with the political
phases of Mr. Gladstone's career. They throw some light upon
British politics of twenty years ago, and doubtless will there-
fore interest. Englishmen, but in this respect they possess small
attraction for us. What American readers, and all other readers
for that matter, will most enjoy are the occasional opinions on
religion, history, and literature which are scattered throughout
the volume, and give most illuminating glimpses into a shy
and somewhat secretive mind.
One is astonished to find how the great scholar revered
the genius of George Eliot. He seems at times to rank her
next to Shakspere. Froude he despised, and next to Froude, as
the most detestable of historians, he placed Carlyle. Our own
Lowell he admired as a man of learning, culture, and keen wit.
Newman he calls the most fascinating writer of the day, but
love for him he could not feel. His harsh appreciation of the
great cardinal is that he was ''the manipulator rather than the
servant of truth." Cardinal Manning he could not like, because
Manning was devoted to St. Charles Borromeo ; and as Bor-
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838 The Latest Books. [Sept.,
romeo wrote a letter in approval of religious persecution, Acton
would have thrust him uncrowned into outer darkness. About
DoUinger, whom he always revered, Acton has these remark-
able words: ''He looks for the root of differences in specula-
tive systems, in defect of knowledge, in everything but moral
causes ; and if you had remained with us longer, you would
have found out that this is a matter on which I am divided
from him by a gulf almost too wide for sympathy." For
criticisms like these this book would be well worth reading;
and howsoever nluch one differs from some of them, one can-
not help admiring the keenness and independence of the mind
that utters them.
Mr. Herbert Paul writes an introduction to this volume
which is biographically interesting, but morally monstrous.
After telling us ehthusiastically of Lord Acton's splendid
honesty and perfect worship of truth, he insinuates in a most
repulsive manner that Acton was dishonest in^ remaining a
Catholic after 1870. Unable to distinguish between a propo-
sition which is still debatable and a dogma definitively taught ;
or between criticism of policies and men within the Church
and open disbelief in her doctrines, Mr. Paul is at a loss to
understand Lord Acton's religious position, and hints that no
one can understand it except on the supposition of insincerity.
Several sentences of the introduction are open to hardly any
other interpretation than this ; and no words are too strong in
censuring them. They dishonor as candid and fearless a man
as ever lived, and Mr. Paul should be thoroughly ashamed of
them. Lord Acton remained a Catholic because with all his
heart he believed in the entire teaching of the church. As
for the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, Acton clearly misunder-
stood it, before the definition was given, and apparently for
some time after. His ideas as to the effect of the doctrine on
civil allegiance show that he was greatly in error as to the
scope and purpose of it. But when he had fully grasped the
careful formulation of the Vatican Council's dogmatic decree,
and had recovered somewhat from the acrimonies of the pre-
liminary discussion, we have every reason to believe — in fact,
knowing Lord Acton's character, we must believe, that his sub-
mission was as complete and reverential as the submission of
Hefele, Dupanloup, or Gratry. In suggesting the contrary, Mr.
Paul has more than done an injustice; he has uttered a slander.
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1904.] THE Latest BOOKS. 839
In our opinion Dr. Barry is of
NEWMAN. *all living men the fittest to be the
By William Barry. author of a critical sketch of Car^
dinal Newman,^ He is, first of
all, a Catholic and priest ; and who but a Catholic can throw
a clear glance into that mind which lived and reposed upon
the ideas of Catholic continuity and Catholic authority ? He
is, in the second place, a man deeply in intellectual sympathy
with the heavy^ problems and holy issues on which Newman's
thought was bent incessantly. He is, moreover, a scholar of
deep reading and fine culture, and master of an English style so
pure and brilliant that we should be at a loss to say what
other author now writing surpasses it. And finally, the most
important qualification of all, we think, he is of an intellectual
breadth rare among Catholics, let it be said without disparage-
ment either to systems or to men, which is not only useful
but absolutely indispensable in arriving at a fair and adequate
judgment of Cardinal Newman. So rigorously has the philo-
sophical training of Catholics been fixed and hardened into
scholasticism since, the beginning of Leo XHI.'s pontificate,
that among such Catholic thinkers and critics as are still giv-
ing their views to the world, it is seldom that one meets with
a mental outlook which peers beyond the horizon of Aristotle
and Aquinas. So low, however, has the state oi the mental
activity of English and American Catholics become that many
who read only English may not have noticed this contraction
of the field of thought. But whosoever is familiar with Euro-
pean conditions is aware that in France, and to a less extent
in Germany and Italy, two parties are at controversy among
Catholics; one maintaining that philosophic truth and apolo-
getic necessities demand that we recognize much that is gocd
in that type of speculation of which Plato, Pascal, Malebranche,
Kant, and Olle-Laprune are, roughly speaking, representative;
and the other party as stoutly declaring that to depart from
the iron integrity of scholasticism is to be unsound in doctrine,
and to deserve the condemnation of Rome ; and that " Kantian
infiltrations" are as foul a menace to faith as ever "Protestant
infiltrations" could be. Now, for one whose education has
been kept thus faithful to the scholastic spirit, to attempt an
appreciation of Cardinal Newman, would be hardly short of a
* Newman. By William Barry, D.D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
VOL. LXX1X«^54
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840 THE LATEST BOOKS. [Sept.,
sin. For Newman was not Aristotelian and Thomistic. He
was, in fact, at the opposite pole of philosophy. He was a
thinker who not only tolerated, but lifted ta a place almost of
primacy, those " raisons du cosur^'* those sympathies of instinct,
those elevations of the soul, and those spontaneous impulses
of the will, which drive us to seek truth, imperiously guide us
on our way to it, and utter unspeakably comforting approval
when we have found it. Truth to him was a thing expressed
but lamely in the scholastic definition, '' adcequatio rei et in^
tellectus''; and the intellect itself was neither the sole seeker
nor the sole judge of what was true. Consequently Cardinal
Newman to a rigid Thomist is somewhat of an outcast; and
pity shall it be if such a one ever undertakes hi6 biography.
As for Dr. Barry, we know not to what extent he is a scho-
lastic; but this we know, that he is too cultured, just, and
thoughtful to be incapable of sympathy, deference, and love
for any man who so deserves, whatever be the forms of his
thinking; and hence his appreciation of Newman's mind is
taken from a perfect point of vantage, and is as sound as any
that we are likely to have for many a day.
Of the particular features of this "literary life" we need
only refer to the name of the author to indicate them. The
style is fascinating; the insight searching; the judgments cau-
tious ; the condensation extraordinary. Indeed, as to this last
point, no one should read this volume who does not already
possess a very fair knowledge of the great cardinal's life and
works. What these pages disclose is the mental atmosphere
which Newman breathed ; is his way of thinking, arguing, and
writing; is, in a word, a picture of him as a whole man, soul,
brain, and heart, as for fifty years he stood before the uorld,
the seer of things invisible, the mighty figure in historic con-
troversies, the worshipful child of the Eternal, ihe lowly ser-
vant of Truth. The Newman of thought, study, and style —
this it is Dr. Barry's purpose to delineate, not the Neiiiman of
many deeds, many friends, and many sorrows. The Newman
of many sorrows ! How true this is of the anchorite of Edg-
baston ; denounced to Rome by the very orthodox as being
tainted in his Catholicity ; whispered against secretly in his
own household, when already acknowledged by those without
the greatest intellect of his age; suspected because he sympa-
thized with the movement, gloriously begun and mournfully
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I904.] THE LATEST BOOKS. 841
ended, of - Montalembert and I^cordaire ; misunderstood but
venerated by Wiseman ; distrusted by Manning, and finally
not spared the pain of open attack in the dark days of the
Vatican Council; to him in his Oratorian cell little human joy
remained save the sweet solace of the friendships to which his
heart was so tenderly devoted. Lonely he had to be, he was
so great. Lonely are all such explorers of the unseen to whom
the world of physical force is not, and only the world of spirit
is reality. This inner Newman Dr. Barry reveals to us with
the clearness of a great critic and the love of a devoted dis-
ciple. Short the description is, but every word in it is full of
meaning. It presents to us a man whose heart ever yearned
for Truth, and whose soul ever turned to God ; a man whose
penetrating, deep, and subtle intellect flashed light upon that
dim region where the human spirit meets the Divine, the
birthplace of reverence and religion; a man whose mind was
awed by the Deity within his conscience, and by the Provi-
dence manifest in Hebrew history and still authoritatively
speaking through the Catholic Church ; a man who occupied a
place of unrivalled power as a leader of other men, but who
was totally detached from the spirit of ambition ; a man whose
prose will immortally adorn our literature, but who never
made the slightest effort for purely literary effect; a man, in
one word, who turned the entire ability of a marvellous intel-
ligence to a most selfless seeking for the Kingdom of Heaven;
to the finding of it for himself, and to the guiding unto its
portals of salvation of an age in dreadful danger of forgetting
it Holy, lofty, winsome is his figure in the history of the
last century ; and in the century just beginning it seems
destined to be greater still. He was a prophet of the invisi-
ble, and he is hardly yet understood in the full measure of his
scheme of thought. For a prophet is without due honor not
only in his own country but in his own age. And perhaps
when Christianity, just now bewildered with the problem of its
own evidences and apologetic, shall fix upon some definite
method as the best for Vindrcating its right to be the spiritual
sovereign of men, it will borrow many a page from the Oxford
thinker and Roman cardinal ; yea, even it may come to pass
that it will adopt, as the text-books of its defence, the Essay
on Development and the ** Grammar of Assent."
Long as this review is we cannot forbear quoting, as illus-
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842 THE LATEST BOOKS. [Sept.,
trating Dr. Barry's style and manner, the following sentences
from the last chapter of his book: V Newman's supreme gift
was an intellect which detected the logical inaccuracy of words,
arguments, ideas, and systems, when confronted with the realU
ties which they bodied forth. On the other hand, he perceived
that the individual must be guided by his conscience, and that
society lives by revelation and tradition. Hence are derived
his four great leading principles: implicit reason, economical
representation, symbolic expression, and the necessary, develop*
ment of creeds. Thus he bridges the -gulf between reason
and experience; he connects the finite with the Infinite; he
deduces the Catholic Church from primitive Christianity ; and
he protects faith against the assaults of a fictitious enlighten-
ment. Religion and science are brought to the same touch-
stone, which is reality known or desired, sought by love, and
possessed by life, of which the guiding motive must be a moral
choice in action." Of Newman's style, Dr. Barry says that it
" was wrought up little by little to a finish and a refinement,
a strength and a subtlety, thrown into the forms of eloquence,
beyond which no English writer of prose has gone. It is
invariably just, tender, penetrating, animated, decisive, and
weighty. It is eminently pure. It has learned to smile; it
can be entertaining, humorous, pleading, indignant, as its crea-
tor wills. By it he will live when the questions upon which
it was employed have sunk below the horizon or appear above
it in undreamt-of shapes; for it is in itself a thing of light
and beauty, a treasure from the classic past, an inheritance
bequeathed to those people and continents which shall bear
onward to far-off ages the language and literature that entitle
England to a place beside Rome and Hellas in the world's
chronicle."
It would be unwise for any one
THE WORD INCARNATE, who has not made a fairiy thor-
By Rev. R. Freddi, S J. ough study of theology to attempt
the reading of the Rev. Roger
Freddi's volume on the Word Incarnate.* It is a bare trans-
lation of dogmatic . theology, retaining all the technical terms,
all the ponderous » constructions^ and all the minute specula-
* Jesus Christ the Word Incarnate, By Roger Freddi, S.J. Translated from the Italian
by F. ij. Sullivan, S,J., St. Louis: B. Herder.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Latest Books. 843
tion of a class-room manual or of St. Thomas' Summa, To
those who at some time in their lives have been theolcgians
the book will give opportunity for a good review of an impor-
tant treatise. To those who never heard a videtur quod ex-
pounded it speaks an unknown tongue. In case a layman
should open its pages, what would most edify him, we fancy,
would be the ease with which the learned author gives us
illumination on many matters too lofty for common ken. On
such problems as the vespertine and matutine knowledge of
the heavenly hosts, and the non-phantasmal nature of angelic
cognition, the book contains information hard to find else-
where. A remarkable piece of reasoning, too, is. that wherein
the author (following St. Thomas) explains why painted pic-
tures of Christ are to be given the worship of latria; whereas
the Virgin Mother and the Saints are not to be allowed this
worship, "for this is reserved to God alone." The seventh
General Council has some remarks on images, and Bossuet has
a celebrated passage on the subject, which ought always to be
read in connection with this .particular article of the Summa.
In conclusion, while we must regret the language in which
the book is written — " Scholastico English," we might call it —
we must on two grounds express our admiration for the trans-
lator. He has given us a work which must have cost him
much labor that was dry and hard ; and he has flattered us
by thinking to find among us enough readers of deep and
technical theology to repay him for his task.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
«t m m Hibtat^ XTable* m m m
The Month (August): Ex Umbris et Imaginibus considers New-
man as a man of ideals, contrasting him with Plato.
The difference between them is that between nature and
grace. In Plato the spirit of idealism is " the craving
for the good, the noble, and the true. It is the devel-
opment of the power implanted in each of us to see in
the 'real' depths beyond." In Newman's person we
find combined " the truth of the idealism of Plato and
the idealism, invincible yet ever open-eyed to fact, which
permeates the New Testament and forms the backbone
, of Christian hope." The writer touches on the conflict
within which Newman had to undergo. Rev. Sydney F.
Smith furnishes a critical review of The Veil oj the Temple^
which contains in popular form Mr. Mallock's argument
in Religion as a Credible Doctrine, Father Smith fears
lest the new book deserves a place among the books
most influential in undermining the people's faith.
Church Quarterly Review (July) : An article on Christian Sanc-
tity remaf-ks on the homely common sense and great
practical ability of Catholic mystics like St. Teresa, and
urges this as a powerful argument for the general healthi-
ness of their spiritual condition. A writer on the his-
torical value of the Synoptic Gospels thus concludes:
"The conception of Christ thus drawn from the Gospels
carries with it an irresistible conviction of its truth,
and blends with the witness of history and of Christian
experience. We have urged that the extreme critical
depreciation of the value of the Gospels as history is
due ultimately to a presupposition in the mind of the
critic that the facts recorded are in the nature of things
impossible, and that the critical reconstruction of the
process by which the Gospels reached their present
shape depends largely upon a series of extravagant con-
jectures, and raises as many difficulties as it solves -^—
An article entitled "Truth in History" declares that the
researches of Mr. Firth and Mr. Morley prove that
Cromwell, while a man of iron will on the battlefield,
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Library Table. 845
was a man of utmost weakness in the Protector's chair.
A critic of Canon Henson's latest volume flings
this parting shaft : " It is difficult to be patient
wrth the modern theologian who never hesitates to
criticise, and to criticise mercilessly, old-established and
tenaciously- held beliefs, but resents even the most moder-
ate criticism applied to himself.".
The Critical Review (July): A lengthy notice of Driver's 7 he
Book of Genesis is contributed by Rev. H. W. Robinson.
The reviewer maintains that it is a work indispensable
to the student of Scripture because of its collection of
facts and references to Biblical literature.-^— Jiilichcr's
Introduction to the New Testament is favorably criti-
cised, being characterized as a work "scholarly in the
best sense — a product of most careful study." Rev.
David Purves gives a brief summary of Drummond's
An Inquiry into the Character and Authorship of the
Fourth Gospel.
£tudes (5 July) : Contains a review by L. de Grandmaisoji of the
third part of Auguste Sabatier's work The Religions of
Authority and the Religion of the Spirit. The first two
parts of the work are devoted to a critici^m of the
dogma of authority both in the Catholic Church and in
Protestant communities. Sabatier devotes the part in
question to explaining his theory of religion, one which
he believes is destined to take the place of the religions
of authority in the future, namely, the religion of the
Spirit. " His religion," says the reviewer, " is one
without the authority indispensable in every system;
his faith is without doctrines ; and, according to
him, the admission even of a personal God is not ne-
cessary to a religious man." Gaston Sortais refutes
M. Seailles, who impugned the infallibillity of the Pope,
taking the case of Galileo and the Roman Congrega-
tions as a groundwork for his attack. M. Seailles tries
to show a resemblance between Galileo and M. Loisy,
but receives a strong rebuke from Sortais, who argues
that while the Holy Office had no special means of
deciding whether or not the sun went around the earth,
it was in a position to judge if Loisy had erred in his
treatment of the fundamental questions of Catholic dogma.
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846 Library Table. [Sept.,
"It would be a foolish hope," he adds, "to think of
freeing the Roman Congregations from the charge of
condemning Galileo and the Copernican system. They
were deceived." " But what difference does it make in
point of view of doctrine, since their sentences are not
infallible or irrevocable." The writer ako shows a dis-
tinction between the disciplinary and doctrinal decisions
of the Holy Office. Against the claim that the Popes
Paul V. and Urban VIII. signed the sentences of Holy
Office, Sortais proves that no document can be found
with these popes' signature attached. He concludes by
giving the opinions of many prominent writers and by
showing that the Copernican system was taught — but
not in the hypothetical way of Galileo — with the appro-
bation of Benedict XIV. (1757).
(20 July) : The continuation of M. L^once de Grand-
maison's article on "The Religion of the Spirit" dis-
cusses the place which the personality of Christ occupies
in his teaching. He points out the utter inade-
quacy of the so-called " religion of the Spirit " (a
religion without doctrine, authoritative teaching, or
belief of any kind) to satisfy the deep religious
needs of the vast majority of mankind, and pre-
dicts the moral decadence as well as religious indiffer-
ence and unbelief to which such a religion must inevi-
tably lead, because of the impossibility of maintaining
religion and morality upon the basis of subjective agnos-
ticism, which underlies Sabatier's position An inter-
esting article by Lucien Choupin on the " Codification
of Canon Law," as contemplated in the recent " Motu
Proprio " of Pius X. The writer reviews the history of
canon law, the various collections and editions made in
the past, the present urgent need of codification, and
especially of the closer adaptation of the church's laws
to the needs and requirements of modern times, and
finally the great difficulty of the task, which it will re-
quire all the energy and earnestness of the Holy Father
and of the distinguished commission appointed by him
to successfully overcome ; but from whose efforts the
writer thinks the most satisfactory results are to be
expected. A bright, sympathetic, and highly inteicst-
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] Library Table. 847
ing sketch of the life and character of Blessed Margaret
Mary by Auguste Hamon.
Revue du MoncU Catholique (i July): Contains a leading article
by Mgr. Justin Fevte on the " Revocability of the Con-
cordat" The writer reviews at length the history of
the Concordat. The church alone, he adds, has the
right in justice to revoke the Concordat or decide
as to its advisability. As to the feasibility and op-
portuneness of such a measure from the church's
point of view, the writer expresses an opinion
which is apparently borne out by the testimony
of many distinguished members of the French hicr-
archy, that the revocation of the Concordat would be at
present most disastrous to the cause of the church in
France, and would, in all likelihood, inaugurate an era
of persecution similar to that for which the Concordat
was framed as a remedy and long- desired relief. In
an article entitled " Neo-Criticism and Christian Democ-
racy," Paul Lapeyre gives an answer to the many objec-
tions and accusations brought against " Christian democ-
racy " by its opponents, and explains clearly the objects
and aims of the organization, especially in its relation
to criticism, science, and modern thought.
Le Correspondant (10 July) : The well-known Academician,
Ferdinand Bruneti^re, contributes to this number a very
thoughtful article on the three phases of paganism that
have become so prominent in present-day morality,
viz.. Individualism, Naturalism, and Secularism. We
are appropriating the better elements of paganism ;
the danger is that pagan corruption and immorality
may follow. ^The last installment of Abb^ Klein's
scries of articles on "The Land of 'the Strenu-
ous Life ' " appears in this number. He gives a very
good outline of our educational system, writes very
accurately of the difficulties attendant on the negro
question in this country, praises the work done at Tus-
^ kegee, tells of the unveiling of Sherman's statue in
Washii^ton, incidentally praises our " strenuous " Presi-
dent, and in everything speaks enthusiastically of Ameri-
ca, its institutions, and its people. Many will be pleased
to know that these articles will soon appear in book
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
848 Library Table. [Sept.,
form under the same title — " In the Land of the Strenu-
ous Life.**
(25 July): An interesting article is written for this
number by J.-B. Piolet desdribing the Protestant for-
eign missions. A brief history of the leading mission-
ary societies is given. They keep up 558 missions —
nearly triple the number oi Catholic missions. The
writer gives interesting accounts of missionary work
in China and in Africa. He gives statistics that show
the good work of the Salvation Army, and tells of the
great amount of good accomplished by the Protestant
Bible societies. Francis Marre describes the educa-
tional system of Japan. The rapid rise of the Japanese
people in late years is due chiefly to the rapid develop-
ment of their schools. The complex nature of the Japan-
ese language is a bar to educational progress there. The
-instructors are poorly paid. Great praise is given to
the leading institution of Japan — the University of Tokio.
La Quinzaine (i July): "The Question of Newfoundland and
the French-English Agreement" is the title of an inter-
esting article by Gabriel Louis Jaray. Andr^ Ger-
main contributes an article on "The Religious Ideas of
M. F. Brunetifere," citing three as worthy of notice : his
idealism, his passion for truth, and his social sense.-:
Under the title " The Domestic Religion of the Chinese "
Fernand Fajenel gives an account of the religions of
China, dwelling upon the " Religion of Ancestors,"
which, he claims, exercises greater sway over the minds
and customs of the people than either Catholicism,
Protestantism, Islamism, or Buddhism.
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Columbian Reading Union, 849
THE COLUMBIAN READING UNION.
MR. JOHN FRANCIS WATERS, M.A., gave the closing lecture of a
series given this season under the auspices of the D'Youvilie Circle in
Rideau Street convent. A large audience assembled to hear the lecture, which
was on Madame de Sevign6, the queen of letter-writers. As Madame de
Sevi^n6 is one of the authors to whom the D'Youville circle gives much time
and thought, Mr. Waters was particularly happy in his choice of subject.
The platform was decorated with green and white, and several pots of
flowers, primroses and azaleas, making a very pretty background.
The lecture was bright and interesting and instructive. It dealt with
the life, such as is known of it, of Madame de S6vign6, that brilliant and
beautiful woman, who gives such vivid pictures of the court of the gay
Louis XIV. Several of the sayings in her letters, of which nearly 2,000
have been preserved, were quoted. The lecturer expatiated upon the ne-
cessity for writing letters, and writing them laelL Every ore can do it, but
the majority of people are too lazy, both mentally and physically, to try.
Labor-saving and ignorance-concealing devices, such as the telephone, tele-
graph, and cable are used nowadays, and real letter- writing is becoming an
obsolete art; which is a pity, as it can be one of the most charming.
Rev. Father O'Boyle moved a vote of thanks in his usual witty manner,
congratulating the speaker upon his address and the circle upon the year's
work, which has been faithful and steady. Mr. Waters also congratulated
the D'Youville Circle, which has a large working mrmbership and is a live
organization, exhorting it to further efiforts, and closed his remarks by
saying au revoir,
• • •
.In New York City the closing reception of the Rosary Reading Circle
was held in the parlors of the lyceum.. A high- class musical programme gave
pleasure to a large assemblage of members and fiiends. A piano solo by
Miss Marie Saietta; a violin and piano duet, by the Mis&es Marie and
Loretta Rocco, were well received, as were also the singing of the well-
known soprano. Miss Anna V. Donohue, and the tenor solo of Mr. Christie.
Mr. Joseph McHugh was, as always, humorously entertaining ; and Miss
Rosemary Sullivan's exquisite voice gave much pleasure. Sbe is one of the
circle's talented members. A few words of retrospect by the moderator,
the Rev. John J. O'Brien, were followed by a short address by the rector
of Holy Rosary Church, the Rev. Francis H. Wall, D.D. He spoke of the
high standard of literary taste achieved in the parish through the efforts of
the circle and urged a continuance of the good work. Catholic young
women who desire to become affiliated with the Rosary Reading Circle may
receive information regarding membership by addressing the Rev. J. J.
O'Brien, 444 East One Hundred and Nineteenth Street, New York. Mem-
bership is not limited to parishioners.
• • •
The two hundred Catholic women of the F6nelon Reading Circle, of
Brooklyn, had a gala evening at the Pouch Gallery at their annual reception
to Right Rev. C. E. McDonnell, whose kind patronage is/Oiie of their
.■igitized by VjOOQ IC
850 The Columbian Reading Union. [Sept,
greatest encouragements. A very happy musical programme opened the even-
ing, after which the president, Miss Ellen A. Ford, addressed the bishop
with a few words of welcome, outlining them with an account of the work of
the society for the season just closing. The progress of the Catholic Church
in New York had been the year's study. Sixteen papers covering important
points and persons in the history of the church in New York had been
prepared and read by as many of the members for their mutual instruction.
Miss Ford said no one could be a sincere member of the F6nelon and not
become year by year a better and better historian.
Such eminent orators as Dr. James J. Walsh, of Manhattan ; Dr. John
M. Reiner, of VlUanova College, Pennsylvania; Right Rev. Mgr. O'Hare,
of St. Anthony's, Brooklyn; Dr. Cond^ B. Fallen, the poet, and Father
William Farrell had addressed them on Catholic historical subjects. After
referring to the gracious and wise aid of the director. Rev. James J. Coan,
Miss Ford gratefully alluded to the cheery co-operation of her fellow-cfiicers
during the year: Miss Elizabeth Rogers, the vice-president; Miss Alice
Cavanagh and Miss Margaret O'Connor, secretaries; Miss Daisy Richards,
treasurer ; Miss Anna Higgins, librarian ; also to the efficient work of
Miss May £. White, chairman of the advisory committee ; of Mrs. Campbell
Keough, of the music committee, and of the several young ladies of the
reception committee. She hoped for his lordship's approbation of the
work done, and begged his blessing on future efforts of the Fenelon.
Bishop McDonnell responded briefly, warmly approving of what the
Fenelon had done for the history of the church and for Catholic literature.
He recalled woman's efficient services in the early church and her active
apostolate in all ages. It was the women baptized by St. Peter who gathered
and preserved the relics of the first martyrs. The noble women converted
by St. Paul were most generous, as St. Paul himself testifies, in fuini&hing
the material needs of the visible church in its beginnings in Greece and
Rome and Jerusalem. History is full of noble examples of Catholic wc men
famous in all branches of the higher education. The world to-day rs full
of the happy influence of Catholic women like the daughters of St. Vincent
de Paul who, from a little town in France, have spread over the whole earth
for God's glory and man's happiness.
The bishop made all the members present very happy by his fervent
blessing on them and their work.
• • •
A book of absorbing interest to Gaelic students, and to all supporters
of what is known as the Irish Ireland movement, has just been published.
This is the Memorials and Reliques of Father O^Growneyy by Miss Agnes
O'Farrelly, M,A. Father O'Growney was only thirty-six years of age when
he died in California ; yet in that short career he did more for the uplifting
of his native land, by reviving within her people the spirit of and love for
the national language and pride in all things Irish, than perhaps any other
patriot has achieved in recent years. Miss O'Farrelly's work comprises,
besides a history of Father O'Growney's life, a record of the great movement
which he set on foot, and also a collection of his writings. Her description
of the last sad removal of Father O'Growney's remains from the coast of
the Pacific to his own dear isle and of the touching scenes attending the
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
1904.] The Columbian Reading Union. 851
interment at Maynooth recall to mind the funeral of Terence Bellew
McManus, who also, died in America and was brought home to rest in Irish
earth. One particular point in Father O'Growney's life which should en-
courage all who would follow his example is that up to the age of sixteen
years he had absolutely no knowledge whatever of that almost dead lan-
guage — Irish^ which he subsequently mastered so thoroughly as to impart
a knowledge of it to millions of his fellow-countrymen through the medium
of his Simple Lessons in Irish. Miss O'Farrelly is herself a gifted, self-
taught Irish scholar. Her book, though written mostly in English for the
convenience of those who have not yet mastered the national language, is
printed on Irish paper, with illustrations by Irish artists, and turned out in
first'-class style by Messrs. Gill & Son, publishers, Dublin.
- • - • •
The Life and Letters of the late M. P. O'Connor, of Charleston, S. C.,
edited by his daughter; Mary Doline O'Connor, and published by Dcmpsey
& Carroll, of New York, is in active circulation among all the leading
universities and public libraries in the country.
The demand for the book is steady and most gratifying. Besides the
value of the only published collection of Mr. O'Connor's orations and public
speeches, his public career is identified with the Reconstruction period,
which makes it invaluable as a book of reference. The present edition is
almost exhausted.
The volumes have been ordered by the Catholic University, the State
libraries of New York, New Jersey, California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio,
Connecticut, Kansas, and Illinois; the historical societies of New York,
Long Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Montana,
and New Hampshire ; the public libraries of New York, Brooklyn, Boston,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Worcester, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Syracuse,
Paterson, Pittsburg, Newburg, Jersey City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Mil-
waukee, Lincoln, Cleveland, San Francisco, Lynn, Denver, and Peoria.
• . • •
Although librarians themselves are puzzling over the matter, no one
rises to explain why men patrons of the reading-rooms of public libraries
are so much more numerous than women, when, in the matter of taking
out books, it is exactly the other way. Of course, in the reading-room it
is a question of magazines rather than books; but it does not appear from
any other evidence available that men read magazines more closely than
women do. Yet the fact remains that in every well patronized reading-room
practically all the patrons are men. Sometimes they pore steadily over
one magazine, and sometimes they browse around, but they are there and
they are stayers. If any women are seen they are generally busy with a
note-book and some work of reference; and if not, they stay but a short
time. One explanation offered is that in the feminine temperament the love
of .order is greater than in the masculine, and that because the visits to the
library or the spending of a morning there are not a regular thing they are
to be' regarded as strictly business, and made accordingly with as fixed a
purpose as that which makes the shopping tour such a definite and strenuous
performance. >It is said, too, that a great many men seen in these reading-
rooms are temporarily out of employment. There must, of course, be a
Digitized by VjOOQ IC
852 The Columbian Reading Union. [Sept., 1904,]
great many women who are without work also, and perhaps these are not
visible in the libraries because they are out looking- for it.
• • •
Teachers have always enjoyed special privileges in the public libraries
of New York, but it is thought that the books might be made much more
useful to them than they are at present, and to tKat end a plan for systematic
and practical co-operation with the public-school teachers and school chil-
dren of the city will be put into operation soon by the New York Public
Library system.
Each public school will be assigned to a nearby branch of the libiaryy
and in each branch the school work will be in charge of one person, whose
business it will be to know personally every teacher in her district. AVith
the permission of the Board of Education a bulletin-board will be placed in
each school, giving the location of the library nearest the school, urging the
teachers to make use of it, and giving such notices and monthly lists of new
books as may be of interest to the teachers or pupils. Books required by
the teachers will be sent to them and called for by messengers, and no limi-
tation will be put on the number they may take out at one time. Teachers
undertaking special studies or doing other definite literary work may arrange
to secure all the books necessary for such study, and keep them for six
months, if they like, provided only that they are renewed monthly, and that
no one else calls for them during that time. Popular current fiction will be
the only exception to this rule.
Endorsements will not be required for membership cards of teachers
in any of the public schools, and endorsements by teachers of pupils' appli-
cations will not entail any financial respoDsibility.
This idea originated with £. W. Gaillard', who will have charge of the
work, and who had already proved the value of the plan in his own library,
before its consolidation with the public library system. The plan has also
been carried out in whole or in part by other branches of the Ntw York Fiee
Circulating Library, and by the public libraries of Bufifalo, Pittsburg, Neiri-
ark, and other cities. It will be put into operation in five branches of the
public library, but will be extended as soon as possible to the remaining
branches.
After each branch has established friendly relations with individual
teachers, the work with the children will be taken up. This will be based
on the course of study, and ideas will be borrowed from successful experi-
ments made in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburg, the Newark Public Library,
the Pratt Institute Free Library, the Buffalo Public Library, and the
Webster Free Library (now the East Seventy-sixth Street Library).
The Buffalo plan of large collections of pictures to aid in the illustra-
tion of lessons will be adopted, and in at least one branch there will be a
model school library for the inspection of teachers. The Pittsburg plan of
a story hour may be adopted in branches where there are suitable rooms.
For the children's circulating department bookcases will be arranged
to correspond with the school grades, and for reference work lists will be
compiled by each branch every week, such lists to be pasted on the schcol
bulletin boards. By such methods as these the circulation of the Webster
Free Library was increased from 26,000 to 144,000 volumes a)earW^
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VERY HOT IRONS
VERY HOT WATER
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FE OF CMRISX> By FATHER ELLIOT
Oathollo Book Kxchanicet I90 W. 60th St., sells it oheap.
Catholic Book Exchange,
120 WEST 60th STREET,
NEW YORK.
THE CATHOLIC BOOK EXCHANGE
I is a Missionary Institution, organized
«*. and controlled by the
Paulist Fathers,
for the dissemination of Catholic literature.
Its object is to distribute as wide-spread as
possible
Books, Pamph-lets,
— AND—
I^eaflets
at a cost which provides simply for current
expenses. Our purpose is to further the
Apostolate of th.e Press
JT.
by the sale of printed truth and to put the
price of Catholic books within reach of all.
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This book should be returned to
the Library on or before the last date
stamped below.
A fine* is incurred by retaining it
beyond the specified time.
Please return promptly.
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